With just two movies opening wide this should have been a good week, and while the wide releases did ok, the holdovers really suffered. In the end the weekend was down 10.6% from last weekend, and even more telling was its 3.5% drop from last year. Granted, it was Easter this time last year, but it's not that important of a holiday to make a large enough difference.

Very strong DVD sales, including 2 million units in the first 24 hours helped boost Kill Bill: Volume 2's Friday night box office by a substantial amount. However the rest of the weekend went according to expectations leading to a $25.1 million box office. Slighty better reviews should help mitigate some of the sequel effect leading to a final box office close to the original's.

Number two on the list was The Punisher, which also played up to predictions, more or less. Opening with $13.8 million was just below expectations. And given its weak reviews and the poor legs of Marvel Comic it will have to work hard just to match its production budget.

The next two films on the list were able to meet each others' performance expectations. Johnson Family Vacation finished with $6.0 million while Hellboy made $5.7 million.

The last 2-D animated film done in Disney's studio can officially be described as a bust. Home of the Range, which cost $150 million to get to theatres, brought in another $5.5 million with a total box office of just $50 million in store.

It didn't make the top five, in fact The Passion of the Christ barely made the top ten. It completely collapsed at the box office dropping almost 75% to just $4.1 million. With the smallest per theatre average in the top ten it should shed almost all its theatres in the next couple of weeks wrapping up one of the most unusual box office run in recent history.

Connie and Carla couldn't match lowered expectations taking in just $3.3 million in its opening weekend. Its per theatre average was just $3210; it took 28 weeks for My Big Fat Greek Wedding to have a per theatre average that low. With reviews that are just on the average side don't expect long legs, or any legs for that matter.

13 Going On 30 latest sneak peak was very successful with 90% attendance skewing significantly female. That bodes well for its debut this Friday.


Submitted by: C.S.Strowbridge

Date posted: 2004-04-19