HOLLYWOOD - Jodie Foster scores another one. The Oscar-winning actress' latest action thriller Flightplan, in which she plays a grieving widow who mysteriously loses her child on a flight, opened at No.1 with $24.6 million, pushing last week's champ, Just Like Heaven down to third place with $9.8 million.
Flightplan is the second best opener for Foster, behind Panic Room, which opened in 2002 with $30 million. The delightfully animated and macabre Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, which opened in wide release in its second week, took the second spot with $20.1 million, while Roll Bounce, a '70s roller-skating drama starring rapper-turned-actor Bow Wow, debuted in fourth place with $8 million.
The box office also continued its upswing for the fourth consecutive weekend, much to the delight of the box office prognosticators. "This fall season has been in a word, spectacular," Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations, told The Associated Press. "We'd been so fixated on the box-office slump, and here we are in a fall boom. This is terrific for the industry and bodes well for a very strong holiday season." The Top 12 films grossed an estimated a four-day total of $89.1 million, up 51.16 percent from last year's draw of $58.9 million and up 26.22 percent from last weekend's $70.6 million.
The Top Three films at the box office this time last year were: Sony Pictures' PG-13 The Forgotten, which opened at the No. 1 spot with $21 million in 3,104 theaters, averaging $6,773 per theater; Paramount Pictures' PG rated Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which dropped to second place in its second week with $6.6 million in 3,170 theaters, averaging $2,100 per theater; and Buena Vista PG-13 rated Mr. 3000, which dropped to third in its second week with $5 million in 2,736 theaters, averaging $1,862 per theater.
BOX OFFICE TOP 10, ESTIMATES (Four-Day Totals)
(Source: Exhibitor Relations, Inc.)
No. 1: Flightplan (Buena Vista, PG-13)
• Gross: $24.6 million
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 3,424
• Per-theater average: $7,198
No. 2: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (Warner Bros., PG)
• Gross: $20.1 million
• Weeks opened: 2 (+5126%)
• Theaters: 3,204 (+3,199)
• Per-theater average: $6,283
• Cume to date: $20.6 million
No. 3: Just Like Heaven (DreamWorks, PG-13)
• Gross: $9.8 million (-40%)
• Weeks opened: 2
• Theaters: 3,509 (+1)
• Per-theater average: $2,793
• Cume to date: $30 million
No. 4: Roll Bounce (Fox Searchlight, PG-13)
• Gross: $8 million
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 1,625
• Per-theater average: $4,923
No. 5: The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Sony Pictures, PG-13)
• Gross: $7.5 million (-50%)
• Weeks opened: 3
• Theaters: 3,045 (+62)
• Per-theater average: $2,463
• Cume to date: $62.3 million
No. 6: Lord of War (Lions Gate, R)
• Gross: $4.9 million (-48%)
• Weeks opened: 2
• Theaters: 2,814 (unchanged)
• Per-theater average: $1,741
• Cume to date: $17.2 million
No. 7: The 40 Year-Old Virgin (Universal, R)
• Gross: $4.3 million (-28%)
• Weeks opened: 6
• Theaters: 2,581 (-425)
• Per-theater average: $1,666
• Cume to date: $96.9 million
No. 8: The Constant Gardener (Focus Features, R)
• Gross: $2.2 million (-38%)
• Weeks opened: 4
• Theaters: 1,282 (-105)
• Per-theater average: $1,751
• Cume to date: $27.5 million
No. 9: Transporter 2 (20th Century Fox, PG-13)
• Gross: $2.1 million (-46%)
• Weeks opened: 4
• Theaters: 1,726 (-1079)
• Per-theater average: $1,246
• Cume to date: $39.8 million
No. 10: Cry Wolf (Focus Features/Rogue, PG-13)
• Gross: $2.1 million (-53%)
• Weeks opened: 2
• Theaters: 1,787 (-2)
• Per-theater average: $1,176
• Cume to date: $7.3 million
OTHER OPENINGS A History of Violence (New Line, R)
• Gross: $504,000
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 14
• Per-theater average: $36,000
Oliver Twist (Sony/Tri-Star, PG-13)
• Gross: $69,000
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 5
• Per-theater average: $13,800