It was a slow weekend at the box office, but the competition for B.O. champ was exciting nonetheless. A mere $300,000 separated the No. 1 and No. 2 films, while just half a mil stood between the No. 3 and No. 4 movies. Here is what I predicted the top five flicks would be this weekend ...

1. The Hitcher
2. Stomp the Yard
3. Night at the Museum
4. Dreamgirls
5. The Pursuit of Happyness

And the actual top five were ...

1. Stomp the Yard - $13.3 million
2. A Night at the Museum - $13.0 million
3. Dreamgirls - $8.7 million
4. The Hitcher - $8.2 million
5. The Pursuit of Happyness - $6.7 million

Get the full box office report here.

Although all of my picks were in the top five, my faith in scantily clad, shotgun-weilding heroines in horror flicks proved more lethal than picking up a deranged hitchhiker. 'The Hitcher,' the week's only new wide release and my pick for No. 1, earned just $8.2 million, good enough for a fourth place finish ahead of Will Smith's 'Pursuit of Happyness' ($6.7 million). Meanwhile, last week's box office victor, 'Stomp the Yard,' narrowly defeated Ben Stiller's blockbuster with very long legs, 'Night at the Museum,' which has now grossed a whopping $206 million. Rounding out the top five was 'Dreamgirls,' which saw its box-office take jump from $8.1 million last week to $8.7 million this week, most likely the result of its Best Picture win at last Monday's Golden Globes. Also of note this week was the strong performance of 'Pan's Labyrinth,' the mesmerizing adult fairy tale from Spanish director Guillermo del Toro. The film improved its box office 118% this week, grossing $4.7 million and catapulting it from 18th place last weekend to seventh place this weekend. The reason: It's just that good.

Of those of you who posted box-office picks, two predicted 'Stomp the Yard' would repeat as box-office champ, but no one guessed all five slots correctly. The high score this week goes to Liesse00 with 12 points. Congrats!

Name - This Week/Overall

1. Patricia - 7 points/135 points
2. zsxxx03 - 8/133
3. chrisnbn - 7/129
4. Mario/crzydcguy84 - 7/111
5. Bubba8193 - 7/ 95
6. Liesse00 - 12/85
7. Tangoeco - 7/80
8. Isaac/laraeruiz - 0/66
9. bostons leppard - 7/61
10. Evilone1414 - 7/26
11. MrPKI - 0/6
12. Lazy Bum - 0/9

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

Hey all. Tommy here, pinch-hitting for regular box-office soothsayer Patricia, who is off battling near-sub-zero temperatures in Park City, Utah, to attend the Sundance Film Festival this week.

So here's what's happening this weekend at the box office. In the wake of the Golden Globes and in anticipation of this coming Tuesday's Academy Award nominations, a slew of Oscar contenders (most of which were released in 2006) are expanding to more theaters. These include Golden Globe Best Picture winner 'Babel,' the critically acclaimed 'The Queen,' the enthralling adult fairy tale 'Pan's Labyrinth,' Clint Eastwood's other World War II flick 'Letters From Iwo Jima,' the powerful indie 'The Last King of Scotland' and the Edward Norton period drama 'The Painted Veil.' Alas, despite their lofty aspirations and high caliber, these almost-sure-to-be-nominated flicks will get crushed -- and I mean crushed with AUTHORITY -- by this week's only new wide release 'The Hitcher.'

Despite its R-rating, 'The Hitcher' appeals to that primal desire in a large group of moviegoers to watch a beauitful scantily clad woman (in this case Sophia Bush) flee from an eerie-looking -- and clearly deranged -- dude (in this case Sean Bean) who likes to thumb rides in the rain and then end the lives of his car-pool "buddies." Prediction: 'The Hitcher' will be riding solo atop the box office come Sunday.

Prediction deadline: Saturday at noon

1. The Hitcher
2. Stomp the Yard
3. Night at the Museum
4. Dreamgirls
5. Pursuit of Happyness

POST: What's your weekend top five prediction?

POST: What do you think of these movies?

It strikes me a little funny that despite a long and varied career in the English film industry, Sean Bean has pretty much been relegated to the "British baddie" role in Hollywood movies. Well, that and the occasional so-so horror flick.

Solace in Cinema reported on a new trailer for Bean's latest film, Outlaws. The movie was directed by Nick Love, and is about a British military man (Bean) who returns home and bands together with some local malcontents to form a vigilante group. The local heroes then set out to solve society's ills. If you have seen Love's The Football Factory, you know Love isn't necessarily a fan of slow-paced introspective character studies. So don't expect these guys to organize grass-roots political action: It's all pipe bombs and ski masks. Rounding out the cast is Bob Hoskins as a policeman sympathetic to their cause that begins to supply them with what he considers to be some well-deserved targets.

The web site for the film promises a UK release date of March 9th, but as of yet there hasn't been any mention of any North American release. So until then, it's back to bad guys for Bean when The Hitcher hits theaters later this month.

[via JoBlo.com]

At SXSW 2005 I was invited to have dinner with a few new friends and filmmakers -- one of whom was the achingly adorable Laura Breckenridge, who was there to support her movie Southern Belles (which is now on DVD and quite charming). Since then the doe-eyed doll has played small parts in flicks like Havoc and Loving Annabelle, but it was her work on WB's TV series Related that (I thought) offered her the best chance at a wider audience. And then the show was cancelled.

But now Ms. Breckenridge has signed on to star in a horror movie, and that makes me very happy indeed. One of my favorite "up & coming" actresses working in my favorite genre: The spoooooky one! Yep, according to THR, Laura and a bunch of other attractive young people (Katheryn Winnick, Jessica Lucas, Keir O'Donnell and Tad Hilgenbrick) have signed up for Amusement, a horror movie penned by Jake Wade Wall (aka the guy who has the When a Stranger Calls remake to atone for -- and who also wrote the impending Hitcher remake) that focuses on three young women (and two boyfriends) who must contend with a serial killer from their childhood. The director of Amusement will be John Simpson, he of the under-the-radar (and underrated) thriller Freeze Frame.

According to the IMDb, it looks like the intimidating character actor Kevin Gage is also on board, and I can only assume he'll be playing the part of "serial killer." Production on Picturehouse's Amusement is about to get underway in Budapest.

If you're a horror fan who's even close to my age, then you probably have a geek-crush on filmmaker Eric Red -- and you might not even know it. Mr. Red made a big splash in the genre arena with The Hitcher in 1986, and his Near Dark (1987) would eventually go on to become a bona-fide cult classic -- even if it didn't exactly set the world on fire upon its original release. After those successes, the guy wrote and/or directed flicks like the little-seen Cohen and Tate (1989, Roy Scheider & Adam Baldwin), the intense Blue Steel (1990, Ron Silver & Jamie Lee Curtis), the semi-clever Body Parts (1991, Jeff Fahey & Kim Delaney), the really solid The Last Outlaw (1994, Mickey Rourke & Dermot Mulroney), the bizarre Undertow (1996, Lou Diamond Phillips & Mia Sara), the half-decent Bad Moon (1996, Michael Pare & Mariel Hemingway) -- and then ... nothing.

What happened to Eric Red? Well, part of it was a horrific car crash in 2000 in which two people were killed, the details of which can be found in this LA Times article. (The headline reads: "Horror filmmaker Eric Red crashed his Jeep, killing two. Then he slit his own throat. That was only the beginning." Yikes!) But now it looks like the guy is primed for a big-time comeback and, as The Arrow tells us, Eric Red's got a pretty nifty idea for a ghost story.

The 100 Feet plot goes like this: An abused wife kills her horrible husband, only he was a cop, and now his ex-partner is staking the widow out, desperately hoping she'll set off her ankle collar so he can cart her back to jail. So all she has to do is stay in the house, right? Well, yeah, but the evil ghost of her dead husband has other plans for his former Mrs.!! (I think it's a pretty cool concept, so there.) Mr. Red tells Mr. Arrow that "This is an elevated, old school and classical supernatural thriller that relies on suspense, character and suggestion," but he also promises a little gore, too. Cool. 100 Feet begins shooting in Hungary early next year.

I know, I know: You freakin' love The Hitcher and you've been sick to your stomach ever since the remake got green-lit. But the flick is coming whether you want it or not (on February 7th, to be precise), and now we have certifiable visual evidence that this new-fangled version of The Hitcher is almost ready to roll. So here are the pics that a lovely publicist just sent me:



And that's pretty much all we have so far. As a re-cap, I'll remind you that The Hitcher comes from Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes outfit, is being directed by music video mega-pro Dave Meyers (from a screenplay by Eric (Highlander: Endgame) Bernt and Jake Wade (When a Stranger Calls) Wall), and stars the likes of Zachary Knighton, Sophia Bush and Sean Bean as the hitchhiker your mom warned you about. Repeatedly. Recap of the Platinum Dunes output so far: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, the Amityville Horror remake and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake prequel. You dole out the grades.

It was announced today that Focus Features, Universal's art-house division, will now be handling international distribution. This is a big deal for Focus, as they have become very successful with their releases in the United States in the past year. Films such as Brokeback Mountain and The Constant Gardener, both of which won an Oscar or three this year, have also done well in foreign markets, but Focus did not handle their distribution outside of the U.S. Instead, the rights to each release were sold to different companies in different markets. Now, however, Focus will be able to manage its films easily under one roof.

The drawback for audiences here is that Focus may be going broader with its films in order for them to play better overseas. The six films first added to Focus Features International, as the new expansion is called, are the Steve Carrell comedy Dan in Real Life; Michel Gondry's next film Be Kind, Rewind; Ben Garant's Balls of Fury; David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises; the Michael Bay-produced remake of The Hitcher; and Sean Penn's next feature, Into the Wild. None of these sound too horrible, but the crop does seem a bit more mainstream Hollywood than art-house. I doubt any will be Oscar contenders, anyway.