Beowulf Tears the Box Office to Pieces

Overall, the past weekend marked something close to a box office disaster, if we take into account that it was the weekend before Thanksgiving and that the ten top films combined grossed a little over $92 million, making it the worst showing in nine years for this particular time of the year.

It was an excellent weekend for Paramount, which ruled the North American box office as two of its productions - the newly released, animated adventure tale Beowulf and the family friendly cartoon Bee Movie - came in at number one and two in the weekend's top ten. The 3D computer-animated action saga Beowulf opened to mainly favorable reviews and collected an estimated $28.1 million. It was released in 3,153 theaters and in case you're thinking of seeing it, it's rated PG-13 and it stars Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, and Angelina Jolie. Beowulf also scores points for being the widest opener ever for a 3D film with over 700 of the venues offering the adventure in the high-tech format.

The movie that came in at number 2 was also released by Paramount and despite having been out 17 days already, it's still going strong, staying at the top of the chart and grossing more than some newly released movies. I'm talking about Jerry Seinfeld's hit Bee Movie, which despite dropping 44% ended up grossing about $14.3 million in its third weekend out.

One thing worth mentioning is that Beowulf and Bee Movie coming in at number 1 and 2 over the weekend also marked the first time in three years when two animated films occupied the top two positions at the box office (the last time this happened was in November 2004 when The Incredibles was at number one with $50.3 million and The Polar Express came in second with $23.3 million).

American Gangster came in at number 3, while Vince Vaughn's Christmas comedy Fred Claus did fairy well in its second weekend going down 35% and still grossing an estimated $12 million, coming in fourth. Next comes the new Fox kids' movie, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium starring Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman, which opened in fifth with an estimated $10 million.

Next comes the Buena Vista romantic comendy Dan in Real Life, followed by No Country For Old Men, an R-rated thriller starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin which grossed about $3.1 million. And finally, Tommy Cruise's Lions for Lambs turned out to be just as big a snooze as it was predicted, falling to number 8 and taking in a mere $2.9 million. Kind of low for Tom Cruise and MGM's egos. This is a full list of the weekend's box office - and stay tuned for more detailed reviews and discussions of the weeks' movies, coming soon.

1. "Beowulf," $28.1 million.
2. "Bee Movie," $14.3 million.
3. "American Gangster," $13.2 million.
4. "Fred Claus," $12 million.
5. "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium," $10 million.
6. "Dan in Real Life," $4.5 million.
7. "No Country for Old Men," $3 million.
8. "Lions for Lambs," $3 million.
9. "Saw IV," $2.3 million.
10. "Love in the Time of Cholera," $1.9 million.