The Lion, The Witch And The Big Opening

Fantasy ruled the weekend again as The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe swept to number one at the US box office. The $67.1 million opening is the second biggest ever for a film in December, trailing only The Return Of The King (which grabbed $72.6 million). It’s the third biggest debut of the year, after Star Wars: Episode III and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. Sensibly, the other studios decided not to try and compete.

Syriana, starring George Clooney and Matt Damon proved that oil and politics definitely mix at the cinema. Stephen Gaghan’s drama climbed to the second spot as it entered wide release, and has earned $13.5 million so far, $12 million of that from this weekend alone.

Harry Potter wasn’t completely out of the game, grabbing $10.3 million in its fourth weekend, a 48% drop. The film now sits at 37th on the all-time domestic blockbuster list and 29th worldwide, with $576.9 million.

Fifth was Walk The Line, which continues to do well, taking a healthy $5.8 million, for a current take of $77 million. But there was less good news for Aeon Flux, which sank 63.5% in its second weekend to $4.6 million for the weekend. It now stands at $20.3 million, and will have to hope that DVD helps get its $62 million budget back. Aeon arrived in the charts below Yours, Mine And Ours, which logged $5.2 million, making its total $40.9 million.

The rest of the charts is taken up with the likes of Just Friends at seventh, with $3.9 million, Pride & Prejudice at eighth with $2.5 million, Chicken Little at ninth with $2.3 million and finally, at tenth, Rent took in $2 million.

Next weekend, expect a certain giant gorilla to dominate the box office around the world...