Miami Vice Arrests Pirates' Run at #1

Source: Comingsoon.net

After three straight weekends at #1, Walt Disney Pictures' summer blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was finally bested for the top spot at the box office by the crime-thriller Miami Vice, based on the popular '80s television show.

Directed by the original show's executive producer Michael Mann, Miami Vice replaced Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx and opened in over 3,000 theatres nationwide on Friday. It grossed $25.2 million over the weekend, an impressive average of $8,339 per theatre, making slightly more than Mann's 2004 thriller Collateral, which starred Tom Cruise and Foxx.

Not that Disney has much to complain about with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, starring the inimitable Johnny Depp, bringing in an additional $20.4 million in its fourth weekend, which adds up to a total gross of $358 million. Besides guaranteeing it the illustrious position as the top movie of 2006, it's also currently the #11 highest grossing domestic movie of all time, and it's likely to surpass The Passion of The Christ, Spider-Man 2 and The Return of the King by summer's end. Dead Man's Chest added another $55 million overseas to bring its foreign total to $305.5 million and its worldwide total to $664 million. The movie has climbed to the 25th spot on the all-time worldwide list.

After a poor showing for Ivan Reitman's latest comedy last week, 20th Century Fox bounced back with John Tucker Must Die, a surprise hit with an estimated $14 million thanks to the millions of teen girls who were enticed by the movie's innovative MySpace campaign and its premise of getting revenge on bad boyfriends. Playing in just 2,560 theatres, it averaged roughly $5,500, doing significantly better than early predictions, winding up in third place.

Sony Pictures' animated-comedy Monster House dropped two places down to #4 in its second weekend where it earned $11.5 million, a sharp drop of 48% from its opening weekend take. It has grossed $43.7 million in its first ten days.

Still, it was able to stay ahead of Warner Bros.' new animated offering The Ant Bully, produced by Tom Hanks' production company Playtone. Despite a voice cast that included Oscar winners Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep and an opening in over 3,000 theatres, the action-adventure based on John Tickle's book only took in $8.1 million, a pitiful average of $2,670. (The lesson that still needs to be learned from this? Having big stars providing voices for your animated movie won't make your movie look any less like a sequel to A Bug's Life.)

M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water seems to have learned its own lesson this weekend, dropping 61% from its opening weekend with a second weekend gross of $7 million, bringing its total to $32 million. Its drop from #3 last weekend to #7 this weekend is not a good sign of its longetivity.

In between the WB movies at #6, Universal Pictures' comedy You, Me and Dupree, starring Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson, continues to motor along, adding another $7 million to its box office gross of $59 million, putting it ahead of the Wayan Brothers' comedy Little Man, which beat it their shared opening weekend. Little Man brought in $5.1 million in its third weekend for eighth place as it crossed the $50 million mark.

Although My Super Ex-Girlfriend with Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson dropped out of the Top 10, Fox was probably too busy enjoying the success of The Devil Wears Prada to notice. The book adaptation starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway brought in an additional $4.8 million this weekend, remaining at #9 and making it the only returning movie not to change positions from last weekend. Having crossed the $100 million mark earlier this week, its enjoying a very profitable theatrical take of $106 million.

Kevin Smith's Clerk II didn't hold up very well in its second weekend, dropping down to tenth place with $3.9 million, also nearly a 61% drop. Then again, its $18.5 million gross puts it significantly into the black compared to its $5 million production budget.

Dropping out of the Top 10, Warner Bros.' Superman Returns added another $3.8 million to bring its total to $185.8 million, while My Super Ex-Girlfriend, which tried to play on the Superman tagline in its advertising, made slightly less, ending up in twelfth place with a total of just $16.4 million.

Just outside the Top 12, Woody Allen's romantic comedy Scoop, reteamed him with Scarlett Johansson and paired her with Hugh Jackman to bring in $3 million its opening weekend in just 538 theatres, an average of $5,500 per theatre.

Fox Searchlight's road comedy, Little Miss Sunshine, which was bought for $10 million at this year's Sundance Film Festival, opened in 7 theatres on Wednesday, but it hadn't reported box office estimates at the time of this writing.