"Talladega" Outpaces "Step," "WTC"

Ricky Bobby had enough gas in the tank for one more checkered flag.

Despite some competition from a bunch of rookies, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Will Ferrell's spoof of stock car racing, cruised to first place at the weekend box office with $22.1 million from Friday to Sunday.

Tops among the newcomers was the unexpectedly hot to trot Step Up, stepping in with $20.7 million in second place.

In third place was Oliver Stone's World Trade Center with a respectable $18.7 million Friday-Sunday, after opening Wednesday.

The weekend's other two newbies were left in the dust: Pulse flickered in weakly with $8.2 million in fifth place, while Zoom fizzled with just $4.5 million in ninth place.

Ferrell's Talladega dropped 53 percent from its high-octane opening week, averaging $5,812 at 3,807 sites--lower than both Step Up and World Trade Center. Still, the PG-13 Sony release has tallied $90.3 million and should speed by the $100 million mark in less than a week.

Step Up, a PG-13 Disney release pairing hip-hop street kid (Channing Tatum) with ballet school beauty (Jenna Dewan), stunned industry watchers with its number-two showing and $8,374 average at 2,467 sites. The studio's promotional campaign, via Internet and music-centric cable networks, helped to bring in a broader audience than expected, but still the ticket buyers were mainly female.

Although there were some fears that Paramount's PG-13 rated World Trade Center might suffer following last week's news of a thwarted terror plot, Stone's fact-based film about two Port Authority cops (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena) trapped in the collapsed Twin Towers and their worried wives (Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal) held up well, averaging $6,334 at 2,957 locations. The favorably reviewed drama has earned $26.5 million since its Wednesday debut.

Paramount's distribution chief Jim Tharp told Reuters that exit polls indicated 91 percent of ticket buyers rated the movie either "excellent" or "very good." The audience skewed older, with 65 percent over 25.

The Weinstein Co.'s PG-13 Pulse, yet another remake of a Japanese horror film, this one starring Veronica Mars sleuth Kristen Bell as a plucky young woman out to stop creepy phantoms invading our WiFi world, was in need of some serious CPR. The flick only picked up $3,532 per screen at 2,323 locations.

Still, that was better than Zoom. Tim Allen's superhero comedy for kids muscled up a mere $1,350 at 2,501 locations for Sony.

Among newcomers in limited release the clear winner was Half-Nelson. Doing close to capacity business at just two theaters in New York the R-rated ThinkFilm release, starring Ryan Gosling as a crack-addicted junior high teacher trying to save his students from a similar fate, pinned down $53,983, which bodes well for its roll-out, beginning with an Aug. 25 expansion to three more cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

At just one site, Sony Classics' R-rated House of Sand, a multigenerational family drama set in Brazil, earned a reasonably solid $33,104.

Meantime, in its third week of limited release Little Miss Sunshine was still glowing. Adding 95 sites to play at 153 locations, Fox Searchlight's R-rated family road comedy gained 76 percent, earning $2.6 million to bring its total to $5.6 million.

In its second week, Paramount's cartoon Barnyard dropped from second to fourth place, but only fell off 39 percent, reaping $9.7 million for a 10-day tally of $3.7 million.

Descending much further was Lionsgate's The Descent. The creepy cave thriller was off 48 percent, from fifth to eighth place with $4.6 million for a two-week total of just $17.5 million.

Overall business was down 10 percent from last week, but up more than 4 percent over this time last year.

Here's a rundown of the Top 10 weekend films, based on final studio figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, $22.1 million
2. Step Up, $20.7 million
3. World Trade Center, $19.7 million
4. Barnyard, $9.7 million
5. Pulse, $8.2 million
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, $7.2 million
7. Miami Vice, $4.7 million
8. The Descent, $4.6 million
9. Zoom, $4.5 million
10. Monster House, $3.3 million

(Originally published Aug. 13, 2006 at 2:15 p.m. PT.)