Box office report
For the second week, the box office felt the power of the pup.
“Marley & Me,” starring Jennifer Aniston, Owen Wilson and a cute, trouble-making dog, topped the box office for the second straight week, taking in $24.1 million.
The 20th Century Fox film raised its overall total to $106.5 million since it opened on Christmas, according to the Associated Press.
Hollywood didn’t offer any new releases for the weekend or the New Year holiday, so the box office looked much the same as the previous week.
The family-friendly Adam Sandler flick “Bedtime Stories” was again in second place, taking in another $20.3 million for Disney.
The rest of the top five also remained the same, with only the numbers changing: Paramount’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” about a man (Brad Pitt) who ages in reverse, made another $18.4 million, MGM’s “Valkyrie,” starring Tom Cruise as the leader of a Nazi plot to assassinate Hitler, $14 million; and the Warner Bros. comedy “Yes Man,” with Jim Carrey as a man who decides to say yes to any idea, $13.9 million.
The holiday season has been loaded with War War II movies – from “The Boy in Striped Pajamas” to “Valkyrie” – and two more Nazi-themed films opened in limited release.
Paramount Vantage’s “Defiance” debuted with $121,000 in two theaters for a huge average of $60,500 a cinema. “Defiance” stars Daniel Craig in the story of Jewish brothers who form a band of freedom fighters who take on the Nazis in Eastern Europe.
ThinkFilm’s “Good” opened with $9,300 in two theaters, averaging $4,650. The film stars Viggo Mortensen as an upright German academic gradually seduced into the Nazi fold as World War II approaches.
Hollywood’s 2008 proved strong. The AP reports that domestic film revenues totaled $9.63 billion for the year, just short of the $9.68 billion record set in 2007, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
After you take into account 2008′s higher ticket prices, the number of tickets sold fell to 1.35 billion, down 4.3 percent from the year before. Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers, told the AP that those numbers were still solid considering the tough economic ties.
“The movie industry is totally holding its own in the face of the recession, increased competition from other entertainment options and emerging technologies,” Dergarabedian told the AP.
The new year also got off to a good start, with the top 12 movies taking in $130.1 million, up 7.4 percent from the first weekend in 2008.
Here is the list of the top 10 movies for the weekend, according to the AP:
1. “Marley & Me,” $24.1 million.
2. “Bedtime Stories,” $20.3 million.
3. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” $18.4 million.
4. “Valkyrie,” $14 million.
5. “Yes Man,” $13.9 million.
6. “Seven Pounds,” $10 million.
7. “The Tale of Despereaux,” $7 million.
8. “Doubt,” $5 million.
9. “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” $4.9 million.
10. “Slumdog Millionaire,” $4.8 million.
-BAM
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