The Simpsons Movie sure made the d’oh! this weekend, coming in No. 1 at the North American box office with an unprecedented $71.9 million. The big-screen tale of the lovable, if dysfunctional, yellow-hued family pushed last week’s champ I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry to second place with $19 million.
“Homer’s odyssey paid off,” Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers told The Associated Press. “It’s unprecedented to have the longest-running sitcom of all time still on the air and have it also be the number one movie in theaters.”
The hand-drawn movie had the fifth best opening weekend of the year, AP reports, beating such notable contenders as Transformers, Ghost Rider and Ratatouille.
Other newcomers this week paled in comparison: The romantic kitchen comedy No Reservations, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart, opened in fifth place with $11.7 million; the Lindsay Lohan thriller I Know Who Killed Me debuted in ninth with $3.4 million; and the comedy Who’s Your Caddy?, starring Big Boi, runded out the Top 10 with $2.9 million.
The Top 12 movies took in $168.6 million, up 44.56 percent from last year’s total of $116.6 million and up 14.91 percent from last weekend’s total of $146.7 million.
The Top Three films at the box office this time last year were: Universal’s Miami Vice, which opened at No. 1 with $25.7 million in 3,021 theaters, averaging $8,515 per theater; Buena Vista’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which dropped to second place in its fourth week with $20.6 million in 3,834 theaters, averaging $5,375 per theater; and 20th Century Fox’s John Tucker Must Die, which opened in third place with $14.2 million in 2,560 theaters, averaging $5,577 per theater. (Click here to read last year’s box office report).
BOX OFFICE TOP 10, ESTIMATES
(Source: Exhibitor Relations, Inc.)
No. 1: The Simpsons Movie (Fox, PG-13)
• Gross: $71.8 million
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 3,922
• Per-theater average: $18,320
No. 2: I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (Universal, PG-13)
• Gross: $19 million (-44%)
• Weeks opened: 2
• Theaters: 3,501 (+6)
• Per-theater average: $5,445
• Cume to date: $71.6 million
No. 3: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros., PG-13)
• Gross: $17 million (-48%)
• Weeks opened: 3
• Theaters: 4,005 (-280)
• Per-theater average: $4,261
• Cume to date: $241.7 million
No. 4: Hairspray (New Line, PG)
• Gross: $15.5 million (-43%)
• Weeks opened: 2
• Theaters: 3,121 (unchanged)
• Per-theater average: $4,982
• Cume to date: $59.3 million
No. 5: No Reservations (Warner Bros., PG)
• Gross: $11.7 million
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 2,425
• Per-theater average: $4,847
No. 6: Transformers (Paramount, PG-13)
• Gross: $11.5 million (-44%)
• Weeks opened: 4
• Theaters: 3,349 (-413)
• Per-theater average: $3,441
• Cume to date: $284.5 million
No. 7: Ratatouille (Disney, G)
• Gross: $7.2 million (-34%)
• Weeks opened: 5
• Theaters: 2,934 (-468)
• Per-theater average: $2,466
• Cume to date: $179.6 million
No. 8: Live Free or Die Hard (Fox, PG-13)
• Gross: $5.3 million (-25%)
• Weeks opened: 5
• Theaters: 2,271 (-456)
• Per-theater average: $2,356
• Cume to date: $125.1 million
No. 9: I Know Who Killed Me (Sony, R)
• Gross: $3.4 million
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 1,320
• Per-theater average: $2,576
No. 10: Who’s Your Caddy? (MGM, PG-13)
• Gross: $2.98 million
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 1,019
• Per-theater average: $2,846
OTHER OPENINGS
Moliere (Sony Classics, PG-13)
• Gross: $32,906
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 6
• Per-theater average: $5,484
No End in Sight (Magnolia, NR)
• Gross: $31,500
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 2
• Per-theater average: $15,750
Arctic Tale (Paramount Vantage, G)
• Gross: $20,555
• Weeks opened: NEW!
• Theaters: 4
• Per-theater average: $5,139
