PINK - SONY IN THE PINK WITH PANTHER DEBUT

All four films that had their premieres over the weekend lined up at the top of the box office when final ticket sales were tallied on Monday. Leading the pack was Sony's The Pink Panther, starring Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau, the role created by Peter Sellers more than 40 years in the original Pink Panther movie. The film earned $20.2 million, narrowly beating out the horror flick Final Destination 3 from New Line Cinema, which took in $19.2 million. (Destination actually beat Panther on a per-theater basis, earning $6,657 on 2,880 screens. Panther , which played on 3,477 screens posted $5,518 per theater.) The hand-drawn animated film Curious George took third place, earning $14.7 million, topping the Harrison Ford starrer Firewall, which brought in $13.6 million. All six other films in the top ten saw drops of around 50 percent from last week, with the exception of the Oscar favorite Brokeback Mountain, which dropped 33 percent as it recorded $4 million and brought its ten-week total to $66.5 million.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date):
1. The Pink Panther, Sony, $20,220,412, (New); 2. Final Destination 3, New Line, $19,173,094, (New); 3. Curious George, Universal, $14,703,405, (New); 4. Firewall, Warner Bros., $13,635,463, (New); 5. When a Stranger Calls, Sony, $9,111,820, 2 Wks. ($33,958,222); 6. Big Momma's House 2, 20th Century Fox, $6,931,437, 3 Wks. ($54,908,725); 7. Nanny McPhee, Universal, $4,940,395, 3 Wks. ($32,956,035); 8. Brokeback Mountain, Focus Features, $4,025,031, 10 Wks. ($66,460,791); 9. Underworld: Evolution, Sony, $2,608,793, 4 Wks. ($57,354,686); 10. Hoodwinked, Weinstein Co. $2,406,005, 5 Wks. ($47,269,225).

14/02/2006