It’s now official: America is well up for sexytime with Borat. After all the tracking polls indicated that Kazakhstan’s finest bumbling reporter wasn’t exactly catching the public’s imagination, the US Fox bods scaled his opening weekend down to just 837 theatres (from an original plan of more than 2,000). But Borat fever has spread and the film leapfrogged the two big family releases – The Santa Clause 3 and Flushed Away – to take the top spot with an astounding $26.4 million.
Oh, and an extra aside for numbers fans - the feat is even more impressive when you consider that, with its small number of release screens, Borat scored the third highest per-cinema average for a wide release ever, estimated at $31,511, putting it just behind Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and the original Spider-Man.
So what does that mean for the rest of the charts? Well, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, which had been favourite to win the weekend, found the second-place prize in its Christmas stocking (a Satsuma, in case you were wondering), taking $20 million – and that’s appearing in 3,458 cinemas, which makes you realise just what a phenomenon Borat became in the last three days. It saw some of its target audience lured away by Flushed Away, the new DreamWorks/Aardman CG ‘toon. Despite an even wider release than either of the other two films, it could only get $19 million, which puts it far behind the likes of Shrek and Madagascar, though it does signal a more successful launch than either of the previous Aardman films.
Reach fourth, and you find the first of week’s returning film – Saw III, which had its audience sliced by a little more than half, making $15.5 million and taking its running total to $60 million.
Still bringing in the cash is Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which dropped slightly to fifth but is also now well over the $100 million mark. Just beneath it is The Prestige, which made sixth place and took $7.8 million. Chris Nolan’s box of tricks has now made $39 million.
Despite marching into more cinemas, Flags Of Our Fathers continued to drop heavily down the charts to seventh. It’s taken just $26.6 million so far in the US. Meaning that, in overall takings, it’s actually behind Robin Williams’ political satire Man Of The Year, which, though it turned up in eighth, actually has $34 million in the bank so far. Meanwhile, Sony’s Open Season finally started to flag, which is understandable given the new kiddie film arrivals at the top of the charts. But it’s still made $81.4 million so far.
Finally, all rise for the entrance of her maj into the top 10. The Queen arrived at tenth, with the film’s freshly expanded release nabbing $3 million, with a total of $10 million to date. Very nice!
In my country, top film is not that which make most money, but that with director who can hold largest weight suspended from sexy sacks…. Am proud to delight in The Charts!
1
**Borat
** $26,375,000
$34,300,000
1
2
**The Santa Clause 3
** $20,000,000
$20,000,000
1
3
**Flushed Away
**
$19,100,000
$19,100,000
1
4
**Saw III
**
$15,500,000
$60,077,000
2
5
**The Departed
**
$8,000,000
$102,282,000
5
6
**The Prestige
**
$7,784,000
$39,414,000
3 7
**Flags Of Our Fathers
**
$4,500,000
$26,631,000
3
8
**Man Of The Year
**
$3,821,000
$35,034,000
4
9
Open Season
$3,8100,000
$81,386,000
6
10
**The Queen
**
$3,010,000
$10,087,000
6