Box Office Update: Miley rules at no.1, whilst Dragonball sinks

Miley Cyrus continued to exhibit the power of pre-pubescent girls over the weekend, “Hannah Montana: The Movie” defied expectations and took the top spot with an estimated $34 million. Reviews where generally negative with a lot of people who enjoyed her 3-D concert movie from last year complaining that the feature length narrative of this one was to “bland” and “corny”. Still money is money and right now Miley is hitting the jackpot.

In second last week’sno.1 took a predictably sharp fall (over 60% in fact), “Fast and Furious” raking in around $28.8 million. The action film has now accumulated $118 million domestically making it one of the biggest hits of the year thus far. If it takes a fall off as sharp as last week’s again it might struggle to clear that $150 million mark, but if not that should be an easy target. At no.3 Monster Vs. Aliens wrangled up a further $23 million taking it to a $145 million total.

In fourth place the latest Seth Rogen vehicle arrived to good reviews but apparently tepid Box-Office, “Observe and Report” debuted with a less than stellar $11.1 million. The film will do well to clear the $35 million threshold domestically. In at fifth “Knowing” seemed intent on sticking around, the badly reviewed Nicolas Cage flick netting another $6.5 million for a $69 million total.

“ I Love You, Man” held on at no.6 this week taking its total to $59 million thanks to a further $6.4 over the last few days. The film has shown good legs and should be expected to score at least $70 million. “The Haunting in Connecticut” fell to seventh with $5.6 million and a now decent $46.3 million total.

The big loser of this week was 20th Century Fox’s “Dragonball Evolution” the badly reviewed adaptation of the popular Manga series. The film wasn’t screened for critics and what word got out was pretty bad, maybe accounting for the dismal $4.8 million the film barely managed to scrape on opening weekend. I had estimated back at the start of the year that the picture would open to $20+ million. How wrong was I was. It entered in at no.8.
In ninth “Adventureland” took another $3.5 million for an $11.5 million total and in last place “Duplicity” scored another $3 million. It now has $37 million in the bank.