Shia Keeps Going Higher

Mon., Apr. 16, 2007 2:41 PM PDT by Joal Ryan

How are things going? Pretty good? Better than Shia LaBeouf?

You sure about that?

Days after he officially joined the cast of the new Indiana Jones movie, LaBeouf reigned at the weekend box office with his new thriller, Disturbia.

The movie, a sort of teenage Rear Window, dominated with $22.2 million, per studio figures tallied by Exhibitor Relations Co.

Elsewhere, the combined star power of Halle Berry and Bruce Willis conjured up $11.2 million for their thriller, Perfect Stranger, a sort of murder-minded The Devil Wears Prada, for an unimpressive fourth-place debut.

Pathfinder, a sort of non-animation-look 300, was a non-300 draw, finding only $5 million (sixth place) in its first weekend. The battle epic, pitting the Vikings against a Native American tribe, boasted no stars, with apologies to Karl Urban, but a not-small budget ($45 million, per the Internet Movie Database). Fortunately for Fox, it's proven to be a bigger draw overseas, having already grossed $9.4 million in foreign markets, according to Box Office Mojo stats.

Redline, a sort of Eddie Griffin-graced Fast and the Furious, finished out of the Top 10, despite loads of YouTube plays for Griffin's crashing of his producer's Enzo Ferrari at a photo-op last month. Opening on the smallish side of big—1,607 screens—the movie debuted with $4 million, and averaged $2,466 per theater. Disturbia, by comparison, did business at a $7,598 per screen clip.

Compared to Slow Burn, however, Redline was a blockbuster. Slow Burn, very much of an attic relic, unearthed from its corner after four long years of dust-collecting, "grossed" $778,123 on 1,163 screens. That's a per-theater average of $669. Given 2006's average ticket price of $6.55, that's about 102 people per theater. Given an estimated five showings a day, that's about 21 souls on hand for each showing.

All in all, Slow Burn star Ray Liotta's had better weekends.

300's had better weekends, too, but its $4.5 million (ninth place) in its sixth weekend wasn't bad, and, in fact, was good enough to bump it over the $200 million mark cumulatively.

The Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez double-feature, Grindhouse (10th place, $4.3 million; $19.8 million overall), saw its disappointing opening weekend turn into a disastrous second weekend, with business down 63 percent. The Will Ferrell-Jon Heder comedy, Blades of Glory (second place, $13.8 million; $90 million overall), landed safely in its third weekend, albeit its first weekend out of the top spot.

In limited release, the Cartoon Network-spawned Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters opened without incident or without scaring the bejesus out of Boston, bowing with a relatively quiet $3 million on 877 screens. Writer-turned-director Mike White's Year of the Dog made a splash with $108,223 on only seven screens.

Disturbia's weekend win, meanwhile, marks the first time LaBeouf has starred in a number one film—no, his Project Greenlight movie, The Battle of Shaker Heights, didn't quite cut it at the box office.

LaBeouf could star in his next number one movie as soon as this summer—that's when he'll headline Michael Bay's 'toon-to-live-action transformation, Transformers.

Filming on the untitled Indiana Jones movie, the fourth adventure in the blockbuster franchise, is scheduled to begin in June. There's been no word on what character the 20-year-old former Disney Channel star will play. It looks like he's just going to have to trust those Steven Spielberg and George Lucas fellows.

Here's a rundown of the top 10 films based on final Friday-Sunday figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. Disturbia, $22.2 million
2. Blades of Glory, $13.8 million
3. Meet the Robinsons, $12.5 million
4. Perfect Stranger, $11.2 million
5. Are We Done Yet?, $9 million
6. Pathfinder, $5 million
7. Wild Hogs, $4.7 million
8. The Reaping, $4.6 million
9. 300, $4.5 million
10. Grindhouse, $4.3 million