Box Office: One Hell of a Wrong Number

For the last weekend of 2007 National Treasure: Book of Secrets held onto the number one spot for the second week in a row. Juno is quickly proving to be the little film that could. The film expanded into a modest 998 theaters last week (and will venture further into 1,880 theaters this week) and managed to out gross all of last week's new releases, all of which were playing on a considerably greater number of screens and none of which ended up in the top five. Here's the final tally:

1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets: $35.6 million.
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks: $30 million.
3. I Am Legend: $27.5 million
4. Charlie Wilson's War: $11.8 million.
5. Juno: $10.3 million.

In the wake of the holiday season, Hollywood appears to be taking a breather with only one new film -- a J-horror remake -- going into wide release this Friday.

One Missed Call
What's It All About: Boy, you think your cell phone plan sucks. In this remake of a Takashi Miike's 2003 film Chakushin Ari, college students are dropping left and right after they receive voice mail messages -- seemingly from the future -- in which they hear themselves being murdered.
Why It Might Do Well: This is the only new wide release this week, so if you're dying to see something new, this is pretty much it.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Plot-wise, if you swap a VHS tape for the cell phones this sounds a lot like The Ring.
Number of Theaters: 2,200
Prediction: $8 million

Obviously next week's top five won't be a huge shake up. Taking into consideration the one new release and Juno's expansion into more theaters, I think it will look like this.
1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks
3. Juno
4. I Am Legend
5. One Missed Call

Participation was down last week for our weekly box office prediction competition, though I'm confident our regulars will be returning. Here's how it went:

1. Bubba8193: 13
1. Mjd: 13
2. Anna07: 11
2. Gregory Rubinstein: 11
3. Ray: 6
3. ABIRD0006: 6
4. Matt: 5

This is your big chance. Make it your New Year's resolution to participate in our friendly little competition. Post your predictions in the comments section below before 5:00PM on Saturday. One point for every top five movie correctly named, two points for every correct placement, and one extra point for the top movie.