As everyone expected, it was George Clooney and co sitting suavely at the top of the US box office this weekend. Ocean's Thirteen, the, confusingly, third in the heist franchise took a highly respectable $37,080,000, a lot more than its closest rival. Which – shiver me timbers! – was Pirates of the Caribbean 3. At World's End is looking highly unlikely to get near the $423 million of Dead Man's Chest, since its weekend totals are dropping by around 50% week on week, but few studios would turn their noses up at the $253million it's currently made domestically. The little film that could, Knocked Up, is doing healthy bouncing business with $66million after two weeks.
The weekend was not so kind to two other new entries. Surf's Up, the latest penguin movie (and therefore latest movie to incur the wrath of our penguin-phobic Helen O'Hara) did a bit of a belly slide with $18 million. No flop, certainly, but penguins are supposed to be the '00s equivalent of Tom Cruise and Julia Roberts in the '90s.
Big disappointment status was reserved for Hostel Part II. Where the first movie opened with a surprise $19.6million, the second could only manage $8.8million, despite opening on a high number of screens. It's possible that people were not so in the mood for watching young women get slashed to bits in the middle of summer. People are weird like that.