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''Virgin'' finishes first at the box office | 173036__virginbor_l
SEX SELLS Moviegoers fell in love with Virgin (starring Keener and Carell)
By Dave Karger
Dave Karger
Dave Karger
Dave Karger, a senior writer at EW, also reports on box office and other movie- related matters on NBC's ''Today''

Steve Carell will always remember the first time. The first time he starred in a No. 1 film, that is. Thanks to good buzz and audiences hungry for more comedy after the success of Wedding Crashers, Carell's breakout movie, The 40 Year-Old Virgin opened with $20.6 million, according to studio estimates.

Virgin, which also stars Paul Rudd and Catherine Keener, failed to match the $33.9 million opening-weekend figure of Wedding Crashers, but the comedy should benefit from positive word-of-mouth the way Crashers did.

Meanwhile, Wes Craven's thriller Red Eye, starring Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams, opened fairly well, with $16.5 million over its first three days. That placed it ahead of last week's top film, Four Brothers, which slipped a modest 39 percent in its second weekend to $13 million. Rounding out the top five were Wedding Crashers, down 30 percent to $8.3 million, and The Skeleton Key, which took a 54 percent drop to $7.4 million.

The loudest flop of the weekend was Valiant, the computer-animated film from Disney featuring the voices of Ewan McGregor and Ricky Gervais. Despite the Disney name, the film debuted with a horrendous $6.1 million, making it the worst computer-animated opening ever, behind even Jonah: A Veggie-Tales Movie, which debuted with $6.2 million in 2002. (Even March of the Penguins did better in its ninth week, grossing $6.7 million.) Unless Pixar is involved, audiences apparently don't trust the Disney animation division.


Posted Aug 21, 2005 | Order Article Reprints