Thanks to pathetic showings by the weekend's new releases, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Wedding Crashers maintained their hold on the top spots at the box office.
Charlie, the latest collaboration between Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton, fell 50 percent from its debut to $28.3 million, bringing its 10-day total to $114.1 million. Wedding Crashers, meanwhile, benefited from excellent word of mouth, slipping just 23 percent in its second weekend to gross another $26.2 million. After 10 days, the Owen Wilson/Vince Vaughn comedy has earned $80.9 million.
Fantastic Four held on to third place, falling 46 percent to $12.3 million. Meanwhile, the new action thriller The Island premiered with an embarrassing $12.1 million, thanks to a vague title and hard-to-describe premise. Despite the appearance of Star Wars' Ewan McGregor and rising star Scarlett Johansson, audiences simply didn't care to see the film, which was directed by Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor), who's not used to such small box office figures. In fact, The Island's tally is the lowest gross for the top debut of the week so far this year.
The news was also bad for Billy Bob Thornton's remake of Bad News Bears, which opened with only $11.5 million, placing it fifth. Behind it was War of the Worlds, whose $8.8 million gross made it only the second movie this year to push past $200 million in domestic box office.
The weekend's two other new releases, Hustle and Flow and The Devil's Rejects, debuted with $8.1 million and $7 million, respectively. Hustle's numbers are actually impressive, given the film's relatively small theater count (about 1,000): Its per-theater average was almost $8,000. If only the other new releases showed such hustle.
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