The Legend of the Box Office

Will Smith. Alvin. Box office fixed.

Hollywood set aside its broken Golden Compass and came back to life with two huge openings: a historic one for Smith's I Am Legend; and a bigger than expected one for Alvin's Alvin and the Chipmunks.

The sci-fi remake I Am Legend was the number one film, grossing $77.2 million, per final studio figures compiled Monday by Exhibitor Relations. The CGI-updated Alvin and the Chipmunks was a super-size number two, with a $45 million take.

Combined, the two accounted for about 80 percent of all ticket sales among the weekend's top 10 movies.

"It just shows how the market can expand when you have pictures that people want to see," Chris Aronson, Fox senior vice president of distribution, said Sunday.

Fox was the studio that had been expecting a $20 million bow from Alvin and the Chipmunks, while Warners was the beneficiary of Smith's biggest-ever opener.

New Line, meanwhile, was the woozy-feeling patient after its would-be franchise starter The Golden Compass (third place, $8.8 million) fell off a cliff, down 66 percent from a disappointing debut weekend.

So far, the $180 million fantasy film is the unwanted fruitcake of the holiday season, having taken in just $41 million overall. (It has performed stronger overseas; so, perhaps any sequels could be made expressly for Slovakia, et al.)

So goes The Golden Compass, so goes star Nicole Kidman's box-office year: Terrible. From failing to heat up the summer with The Invasion, costarring fellow Golden Compass traveler Daniel Craig to failing to catch on at art-houses with this fall's Margot at the Wedding, Kidman has been on the outs with ticket buyers. (In the paycheck department, however, she continued to do just fine. According to the Hollywood Reporter, she banked $15 million-$16 million for the $15.1 million-grossing The Invasion.)

Smith's presumed eight-figure quote for I Am Legend probably looked like a bargain after his last-man-on-Earth act opened $25 million bigger than any movie in his 12-year string of hits.

I Am Legend, meanwhile, goes down in the books as the highest grossing film version of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel of the same name. (The two earlier versions, 1964's The Last Man on Earth, and 1971's The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston, were produced in preblockbuster Hollywood.)

Elsewhere, the Golden Globe-nominated Juno, pound for pound, theater for theater, put up the best numbers of the weekend, grossing $1.4 million ($2.2 million to date), and almost cracking the top 10 on the strength of—not 1,000, not 100, not even 50—but 40 screens.

By comparison, August Rush needed 2,007 theaters to cobble together a take of $1.77 million ($28 million overall) and nab a 10th place finish.

Atonement, the top film nominee at the Globes, had a strong weekend (although not nearly as strong as Juno's). It moved up to ninth place, with $1.81 million from 117 theaters.

Among awards-show hopefuls still in release, the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men (fifth place, $2.8 million; $33.4 million overall) was the top-grosser.

The Kite Runner, balancing out its two Globe nominations, with a PR nightmare involving the film's young Afghan stars now fearing for their safety in their home country, managed a smooth but unspectacular opening: $471,713 from 35 theaters.

Youth Without Youth ($27,815 at 6 theaters) was only a minor player, despite being Francis Ford Coppola's first film as director in 10 years.

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

1. I Am Legend, $77.2 million
2.  Alvin and the Chipmunks, $44.3 million
3. The Golden Compass, $8.8 million
4. Enchanted, $5.5 million
5. No Country for Old Men, $2.9 million
6. The Perfect Holiday, $2.28 million
7. This Christmas, $2.26 million
8. Fred Claus, $2.2 million
9. Atonement, $1.81 million
10. August Rush, $1.77 million

(Originally published Dec. 16, 2007 at 1:02 p.m. PT.)