Collateral Damages US Box Office Opposition

There are few things in life that we can depend upon, year-in year-out. Liverpool will flatter to deceive in the Premiership, for one. The Best Picture Oscar will go to the wrong film, for another. And that any film starring Little Tommy Cruise, regardless of its certificate or status, will barrel to the top of the US box office with all the confidence of a very short person who's worth an awful lot of money. And so it proved this weekend, as Cruise's latest movie, Collateral, swept to the top of the box office in the US, making it the eleventh no. 1 opener in a row for a Cruiser starring vehicle (Magnolia, in which he took a supporting role, didn't hit no. 1). The Michael Mann-directed crime thriller, co-starring Jamie Foxx, took in an estimated $24.4 million for a decent (though not amazing, by any means) per-screen average of $7,653. The question before the opening was: will American audiences accept Cruise as a bad guy (he plays Vincent, a hitman who finds himself entangled with Foxx's cabbie on a night's work in LA)? The answer is 'yes... but barely'. Collateral's opening is a record for a movie directed by Mann, and its R rating must be taken into consideration. The movie echoed the opening of Cruise's last vehicle, The Last Samurai. That movie made it to the magic $100 million mark. It's a fair bet to say that Collateral will do the same, though coming off a run of three straight $50 million plus opening weekends (The Bourne Supremacy, I, Robot and The Village), the overall impression is of vague under-achievement. Speaking of under-achievement... M. Night's The Village fell in its second weekend, and fell hard. The latest twistfest from the Sixth Sense auteur opened well last week, but a Friday-to-Saturday drop suggested that word-of-mouth (coupled with bilious reviews) was not going to be good on the creepy thriller. And so it proved with an estimated 67.3% drop, racking up just $16.5 million. It will still make the seven figure mark, but if drop-offs like this persist, it will be seen as a strike for Shyamalan. The other new entry in the US Top 10 this weekend was Brittany Murphy's rom-com, Little Black Book, which debuted to a paltry $7 million. With the failure of this and the relative disappointment of Jennifer Garner's 13 Going On 30, the search for a new Julia Roberts/Sandra Bullock continues. Landmarks were few and far between in the Top 10. The Bourne Supremacy held up pretty well and now stands at an estimated $124 million after just three weeks, while The Manchurian Candidate dropped 40% to $10 million for the three-day period. The Jonathan Demme/Denzel Washington picture now looks like topping out around $60 million. Falling out of the Top 10 this weekend? Will Ferrell's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which has accrued a decent $81 million thus far. And George W. Bush can breathe a sigh of relief, for Michael Moore's record-breaking, Bush-bashing documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11 has finally dropped out too. Word of warning, though, Dubya: it is at no. 11, it has made $113 million and there is an election to come, so don't think we've seen the last of Moore's polemic just yet... Next week should see another new entry at the top spot. It won't be Anne Hathaway returning in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, though. It will be, instead, a duke-out between the two ugliest critters in sci-fi. Paul W.S. Anderson's AvP (Alien vs Predator) may not have the netgeeks abuzz at the moment, but with a PG-13 certificate, years of build-up and the mouth-watering prospect of the most eagerly awaited fight since Ken Barlow punched Mike Baldwin's lights out, chances are that it will post a very big number before succumbing to drop-off hell. Watch this space...