Epic Movie dominates the US box office

Despite the fact that the more recent spoof-stacked films (such as Date Movie) are, for want of a better term, big stinking piles of dog poo, that hasn’t stopped a healthy box office return and studios happy to give the filmmakers money to create new ones.

New, of course, is a subjective term when you have a film completely made up of comically-twisted bits of other movies, but snarky critique aside, Epic Movie – which takes on the likes of Narnia, Pirates Of The Caribbean and Harry Potter – has stormed to the top of the box office with $19.2 million. That puts it very slightly ahead of Date Movie’s opening.

Third was Night At The Museum, which might actually now be at the end of its chart reign. Still, it managed to grab $9.4 million despite having been out for six weeks, bringing its total to $216.7 million. In fourth we find the week’s third new release, Catch And Release. Despite featuring the talents of Jennifer Garner, Kevin Smith and previously Oscar-nominated writer/director Susannah Grant, the movie could only fish for $8 million, which is a distinctly poor showing given that its main competition was aimed primarily at a male audience.

Jostling around eighth and ninth places were Mexican fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth and Britain’s big Oscar hope The Queen. Guillermo del Toro’s latest took in $4.5 million, while Stephen Frears’ film made $4 million. And then, falling like a stone from its already lousy opening to 10th, The Hitcher was struck by the double whammy of new, popular competition and a resurgence from the Oscar guard, managing just $3.6 million and limping home with no ride and having taken only $13.4 million so far.

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