Pirates: second week at the top

Given the box-office behemoth that Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest has become, it’s no shock to see it sweep to victory for a second week at the US box office. With more than $62 million this weekend, the nautical number cruncher continued to break records and haul in the punters. Its Stateside total now stands at a hefty $258 million.

The more interesting battle was for second place, as slacker comedy You, Me And Dupree, which stars Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson, faced off against Little Man, the latest high-concept laugher from the Wayans brothers. While the final studio figures are still too close to call, the estimates have the Wayans in front by about $400,000, which means people wanted to see Marlon Wayans as a midget jewel thief ($21.7 million) just a bit more than Owen Wilson gate crashing Matt Dillon’s marriage to Hudson ($21.3 million). These are troubling times.

Superman Returns settles in at number four. While Bryan Singer’s comic-book adap suffered less of a drop this weekend, it still isn’t exactly flying high: $163 million in the US so far is good, but far from the stellar figures Warner Bros were hoping for. And it earned just $1 million more this weekend than The Devil Wears Prada, which is in around a thousand less cinemas. It’s not looking good for the mooted Superman sequels.

Cars dropped to sixth place, but still managed to attract $7.5 million, with the Pixar movie now the third highest earner of 2006, behind X3 and, of course, Pirates. Seventh belonged to Click, which has made $119 million so far. Eighth was The Lake House, which grabbed $1.6 million, just ahead of Nacho Libre at ninth, with $1.5 million. Finally, A Scanner Darkly cracked the top ten in its second week, making $1.2 million even though it's still on a limited release. It goes wide in two weeks’ time…