Tuesday's Box Office Roundup: 'Night' Rules

Happy New Year to one and all. Have you broken all your resolutions yet? Here's what I picked for this weekend's top five:

1. Night at the Museum
2. Dreamgirls
3. The Pursuit of Happyness
4. Rocky Balboa
5. The Good Shepherd

And the actual top five (drum roll, please):

1. Night at the Museum - $37.8 million
2. The Pursuit of Happyness - $19.3 million
3. Dreamgirls - $15.5 million
4. Charlotte's Web - $12 million
5. Rocky Balboa - $11.4 million

Get the full box office report here.

Once again, I picked only the top movie correctly -- but I couldn't have predicted how well 'Night at the Museum' would end up doing (again). It earned $8 million more than it did on opening weekend, with parents presumably shuttling their entire families to the theaters to catch Ben Stiller's dinosaurific antics. Looks like we have to anoint 'Museum' as the season's new 'Happy Feet,' seeing as how it's hauled in a whopping $125 million in only two weeks of release. Amazingly enough, that makes it the 14th-highest-grossing film of 2006, just behind 'Borat' and just ahead of 'The Devil Wears Prada' and 'The Departed.'

And which other December flick finishes the year at #18? That would be 'The Pursuit of Happyness,' the Will Smith terjerker that makes you want to go out and buy Captain America dolls for every homeless kid living in a train station bathroom. Smith, it seems, can do no wrong. Perhaps M. Night Shyamalan should consider casting him in his next movie.

'Dreamgirls' also did phenomenally well in its first weekend of expansion. It didn't finish first, as many posters thought it might -- or even second, as I'd predicted -- but it still earned $15.5 million in four times fewer the number of theaters showing 'Night at the Museum.' Mighty impressive indeed. It expands wider on January 12, at which point maybe people won't have to drive two hours or sit on the floor to see it, as some of you posted over the weekend. It seems DreamWorks' limited release campaign is working: The word-of-mouth is spreading like wildfire, and the box-office returns for 'Dreamgirls' will continue to grow right up until Oscar time.

This week's big winner was liesse00, who scored the most points by guessing that 'Pursuit of Happyness' would beat out 'Dreamgirls' for the number two slot. Way to start the new year, liesse00! (Also, kudos to tangoeco and mario, both of whom correctly put 'Charlotte's Web' in their top five. Looks like Shyamalan needs to give Dakota Fanning a call, too.) Here are the results as of this weekend. Have a good short week, everyone.

Name - This Week/Overall

1. Patricia - 7 points/113 points
2. zsxxx03 - 7/112
3. chrisnbn - 4/100
4. Mario/crzydcguy84 - 9/95
5. Bubba8193 - 7/ 76
6. Tangoeco - 7/69
7. Isaac/laraeruiz - 4/58
8. Liesse00 - 11/46
9. bostons leppard - 4/41
10. dylsan - 0/18
11. Evilone1414 - 0/12
12. Josh - 9/9
13. Evan - 7/7
14. Candy - 6/6
15. Anthony - 0/6
16. Jason Williams - 0/6
17. Ryan - 0/6
18. Jonathn - 0/6
19. johnny x - 0/6
20. scott - 0/6
21. Andrew - 0/4
22. Ashlee - 0/4
23. Ernest - 0/4
24. Jessica - 0/4
25. Mark - 0/4
26. Nicole - 0/4
27. scotty c - 0/4
28. Tim - 0/4
29. Justin - 4/4
30. Briana M. - 4/4
31. Jake - 3/3
32. Bradley Thom - 0/3
33. Yay!Band! - 0/2

POST: What do you think of the box office results?