Despite raking in more than $300 million around the world (which, according to analysts mean that Daniel Craig’s first outing is well on track to pass Die Another Day’s $432 haul by the time it’s done), Casino Royale still can’t beat those pesky penguins.
The flipper-footed, velvet-voiced flightless Happy Feet stars have now been dancing at the top of the box office charts in the States for three weeks running, with none of the new entries even close to toppling them. George Miller’s frosty ‘toon took $17 million this weekend, boosting its box office haul to $121 million.
Bond won’t complain though – Casino nabbed $15.1 million, resulting in a running total of $115.9 million in the US so far. And the top three positions went unchanged for a second week, with time-travel thriller Déjà Vu back in third with $11 million.
Which means that the highest new entry was The Nativity Story, which had hoped to ride in on the crowd that swept The Passion Of The Christ to success – and was clearly looking to beat it, given that Jesus’ birth is a little bit less violent than his death. But sadly audiences shrugged, figuring that they’d be able to see it for free when every school in the country performs it this Christmas. It took in just $8 million, hardly a Biblical start.
At least it arrived in a decent position. The next two slots are reserved for the current Christmas comedies – Deck The Halls and The Santa Clause 3, back in their second and fifth week respectively. Deck doesn’t look like it’ll be hanging around the halls much longer, but Santa’s clinging on nicely.
At seventh, say Jagshemash to you know who… Yes, Borat is still taking in money, grabbing $4.8 million this weekend, despite having been out for five weeks and surely everyone having seen it twice by now. The Kazakh sensation is currently sitting pretty (though it is Borat, so that’s probably not the right word) on a haul of $116 million.
Eighth sees the first of the turkey twins, with 20th Century Fox’s new teen label Atomic proving to be more of a bomb than a sensation. It launched horror thriller Turistas, and while it clearly wanted to be Saw, nobody went to see it. It made just $3.5 million. Better hope it was cheap to make… In ninth place, Stranger Than Fiction continues to do slow, but steady business, making $3.4 million for a total of $37 million to date.
And at tenth, gobbler twin number two. Proving that sequels without the lead don’t usually work that well, Van Wilder: The Rise Of Taj was a stinker, grabbing just $2.3 million. Sorry Taj, looks like no one was interested in you…
Everyone get down to the sound of penguins dancing on cash registers… Here come the charts!
1
**Happy Feet
** $17,045,000
$121,000,000
3
2
**Casino Royale
** $15,100,000
$115,863,000
3
3
**Deja Vu
**
$11,032,000
$44,091,000
3
4
**The Nativity Story
**
$8,025,000
$8,025,000
1
5
**Deck The Halls
**
$6,650,000
$24,991,000
2
6
**The Santa Clause 3
**
$5,006,000
$73,152,000
5 7
**Borat
**
$4,825,000
$116,320,000
5
8
**Turistas
**
$3,540,000
$3,540,000
1
9
Stranger Than Fiction
$3,400,000
$36,955,000
4
10
**Van Wilder: The Rise Of Taj
**
$2,295,000
$2,295,000
1