21 Trumps Clooney, Foster

A-listers' Leatherheads, Nim's Island can't topple card-counting flick

By Joal Ryan Apr 07, 2008 8:01 PMTags

All George Clooney and Jodie Foster had to do was beat a deck of cards—make that a surprisingly resilient deck of cards.

21 reigned again as the No. 1 movie at the weekend box office, topping Clooney's new Leatherheads and Foster's new Nim's Island, per figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations.

The card-counting drama pulled in another $15.3 million, bringing its two-week total to $45.3 million.

Despite preliminary Sunday estimates showing Leatherheads ahead of Nim's Island, final studio tallies on Monday had them flip-flopped.

A children's adventure starring former child star Foster and current child star Abigail Breslin, Nim's Island finished the weekend with $13.2 million. Leatherheads, a screwball comedy about old-school football directed by and starring Clooney, along with Renée Zellweger and The Office's John Krasinski, finished in third with $12.7 million.

Beyond where they finished in the standings, Nim's Island had the far worse weekend than Leatherheads. The family film played on nearly 1,000 more screens than the football comedy, but earned about $800 less per screen.

For a Clooney-directed film, Leatherheads was a relative blockbuster, making nearly as much in three days as Confessions of a Dangerous Mind made in four months.

But judged against other recent romantic comedies, Leatherheads came up short, unable to match the debuts of 27 Dresses ($23 million) or Fool's Gold ($21.6 million).

Elsewhere:

  • The horror movie The Ruins was the weekend's other major new release, not that you could tell that by its fifth-place finish, or tepid $8 million take.
  • Overall, ticket sales continue to slump—business was down nearly 30 percent from the same weekend last year. May 2 and Iron Man can't come soon enough for Hollywood.
  • The Iraq War drama Stop-Loss ($2.3 million; $8.2 million overall) fell out of the top 10 after only one weekend.
  • Also losing their places were College Road Trip ($1.7 million; $40.9 million) and The Bank Job ($1.7 million; $26.8 million overall). Both had four-weekend runs in the top 10.
  • Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese's new Rolling Stones-powered concert film, did well, scoring $1.5 million at 276 sites—the bulk ($1.1 million) of that coming from 96 Imax screens.
  • In very limited release, the drama My Blueberry Nights ($74,146 at six theaters) goes down as the biggest-grossing Norah Jones movie on record—it's also the first Norah Jones movie on record.
  • The Aaron Eckhart-Jessica Alba comedy Meet Bill ($35,201) was barely greeted upon its arrival in 36 theaters.
  • Memo to Nim's Island: Next time, don't skimp on the red balloons and French people. Some 50 years after the French-language children's film The Red Balloon began its classic run, the French-language The Flight of the Red Balloon took in $35,222 at two theaters for a weekend-best, $17,611 per-screen average.

Here's a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on final Friday-Sunday studio figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. 21, $15.3 million
2. Nim's Island, $13.2 million
3. Leatherheads, $12.7 million
4. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, $9.1 million
5. The Ruins, $8 million
6. Superhero Movie, $5.4 million
7. Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns, $3.42 million
8. Drillbit Taylor, $3.41 million
9. Shutter, $2.83 million
10. 10,000 B.C., $2.8 million

(Originally published April 6, 2008 at 1:23 p.m. PT.)