Box Office Update: Smith finds ‘Happyness’ and ‘Eragon’ soars on opening Weekend

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on December 17, 2006

The Weekend Box Office Estimates are in; and it looks like the fans have spoken… Here is the Top 5:

[Source: Box Office Mojo]

WEEKEND TOP 5 STUDIO ESTIMATES, DECEMBER 15-17, 2006

Rank. Movie Title (Distributor)
Weekend Gross | Theaters | Total Gross | Week #

1. The Pursuit of Happyness (Sony / Columbia)
$27.0 million | 2,852 | $27.0 million | 1

2. Eragon (Fox)
$23.5 million | 3,020 | $23.5 million | 1

3. Charlotte’s Web (Paramount)
$12.0 million | 3,566 | $12.0 million | 1

4. Happy Feet (Warner Bros.)
$8.5 million | 3,335 | $149.4 million | 5

5. The Holiday (Sony / Columbia)
$8.2 million | 2,614 | $25.3 million | 2

Will Smith’s Pursuit of Happyness (review by Brian Gibson) was the big winner this weekend with Eragon (review by Neil Miller) following a close second. Charlotte’s Web, Happy Feat (review by Chris Beaumont) and The Holiday (review by Brian Gibson) rounded out the top 5, but as you can see there was a significant gap between #2 and #3.

With these results, Will Smith should be feeling pretty good about himself right about now. Late last week he earned a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Pursuit. Eragon, which was not received well by critics (it received a 14% rating on the Tomatometer at Rotten Tomatoes), was probably the biggest surprise of the week. It appears that the fanboy nation, despite words of warning from critics, still came out in force to support this Star Wars/Lord of the Rings knock-off. My gut would say that its second week will really be the gauge on how people will react, after they have had time to discuss it on the Ain’t it Cool Message Boards.

We will have more coverage of the Box Office results Monday or Tuesday, with some officially official results, so stay tuned.

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