Chuck and Larry Ousts Harry

Mon., Jul. 23, 2007 3:54 PM PDT by Joal Ryan

Harry Potter's no more magical than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Like the crime-fighting reptiles, the young wizard's run atop the weekend box office was brief, ousted after one weekend by Adam Sandler and Kevin James' I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

Make no mistake: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix made a lot of money—$32.5 million (second place), per final studio tallies compiled by Exhibitor Relations. Its overall 12-day take is a very impressive $207.9 million.

Still, the Potter franchise, for all its power, couldn't produce a lasting number one hit. And make no mistake: It's not alone.

This summer, only Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End have spent more than one Sunday as the weekend's top movie. No movie all year has logged more than three consecutive weekends as number one. (And no, the turtle-populated TMNT wasn't one of them.)

But if Hollywood isn't producing marathon runners, it's making up for it with on-the-money sprinters. To date, the 2007 box office is up 5 percent when placed against last year's.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry contributed $34.2 million (first place) to the cause. The they're-gay-married-but-not-really comedy opened far bigger than the Sandler drama Reign Over Me ($7.5 million in March) but smaller than any Sandler comedy since 2000's Little Nicky.

The weekend's other major new release, Hairspray, was one of four movies to top at least $20 million. Its $27.5 million (third place) marked the second-biggest debut of star John Travolta's career, after this past spring's Wild Hogs. Officially, Hairspray will also go down as the movie musical with the biggest opening ever. Its title, a song-and-dance confection based on a Broadway show that itself was based on the 1988 John Waters comedy, couldn't help but take.

Hairspray opened at far more theaters (3,121) than other musicals, past or near present. Last year's Dreamgirls, for instance, bowed at three theaters and took months before it topped even 2,500 sites. The same cautious release pattern was used for the likes of The Producers and Chicago.

Impressive or not, Hairspray has its prize, and Transformers has another $20.5 million (fourth place) in the tank. Overall, the Michael Bay crash-'em-up has grossed $263 million, planting itself in fourth place among the year's top-grossing movies, per Box Office Mojo.

Elsewhere, Sicko ($1.9 million, $19.2 million overall) and Ocean's Thirteen ($1 million, $114.5 million overall) fell out of the top 10 in their fifth and seventh weeks, respectively.

Business for the torture opus Captivity, which debuted out of the top 10 last weekend, didn't get better this weekend. Showing at 719 theaters, the movie "grossed" $318,545.

In limited release, the Danny Boyle sci-fi effort Sunshine ($242,964) put more bodies in seats, per capita, than any other movie. Its per-screen average of $24,296 was about three times bigger than Harry Potter's and more than twice the size of Chuck and Larry's. Milos Forman's roughly reviewed Goya's Ghosts managed only $159,671 at 49 theaters.

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

1. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, $34.2 million
2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, $32.5 million
3. Hairspray, $27.5 million
4. Transformers, $20.5 million
5. Ratatouille, $10.9 million
6. Live Free or Die Hard, $7.1 million
7. License to Wed, $3.6 million
8. 1408, $2.62 million
9. Evan Almighty, $2.55 million
10. Knocked Up, $2.3 million

(Originally published July 22, 2007 at 5:01 p.m. PT.)