Cinematical

"Next week is all counterprogramming, with the only wide debuts being the R-rated Sex and the City and The Strangers. Expect Indy to hold on to the crown." - me, last Monday

Yeah, good work, Nostradamus. "Counterprogramming" -- can you believe this idiot? Who let him on here, anyway? Far from headlining mere counterprogramming, Carrie Bradshaw delivered a swift kick to Indiana Jones' man-crotch, winning the weekend with $55.7 million to Indy's $46. Sex and the City's bow is the 5th all-time best opening weekend for an R-rated film. I -- and, in my defense, many others -- obviously underestimated the size of the "niche" audience eager to watch the big-screen finale of the far-too-popular HBO show. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, meanwhile, fell a hefty but hardly uncommon 55% from its first weekend, and it looks likely to eventually overtake Iron Man. That film, in turn, continues to have remarkable legs, dropping only 32% and bringing its cume to $276.6 million. And, since I caught flak for not mentioning it last week, I'll say that What Happens in Vegas is also holding very well, despite sucking.

Rogue Pictures will be very pleased with the debut of The Strangers, a low-budget, R-rated horror film. $20.7 million is a very good number, matching that of the PG-13 Prom Night 8 weeks back. And a #3 turn in last weekend's marketplace is nothing to be ashamed of. Horror films tend to plummet pretty quickly after the first weekend, but word-of-mouth on this one might actually be okay; we'll see. A bit further down the chart, Tarsem's cult-ready The Fall performed unspectacularly in its first weekend of semi-wide release, taking in $361,000 on 108 screens.

Click through for the weekend's top 10, and a couple of very sheepish thoughts about next weekend.

1 - Sex and the City (New Line) - $55.74 ($16,968) - $55.74
2 - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount) - $46.00 ($10,787) - $216.88
3 - The Strangers (Rogue) - $20.71 ($8,393) - $20.71
4 - Iron Man (Paramount) - $14.00 ($3,835) - $276.63
5 - The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Disney) - $13.02 ($3,424) - $115.67
6 - What Happens in Vegas (Fox) - $6.85 ($2,219) - $66.07
7 - Baby Mama (Universal) - $2.22 ($1,244) - $56.15
8 - Speed Racer (Warner Bros.) - $2.14 ($1,033) - $40.56
9 - Made of Honor (Sony) - $2.00 ($1,049) - $42.97
10 - Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Universal) - $1.04 ($1,359) - $60.47.

All numbers from the indispensable Box Office Mojo.

Next week adds Kung Fu Panda and Adam Sandler's You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Seems to me that Panda should take the top spot, with Zohan contenting itself with 2nd or 3rd, but what the hell do I know?