Monday Morning Box Office: A Third Weekend Of Stiller Supremacy
Your heaping Monday morning helping of the still-steaming weekend box office results:
1. Night at the Museum—$24 million
After three weeks at number one and with $164 million already in the bank, it's probably time to start talking sequel. We're not willing to spend any more time hashing out the concept than Fox's development executives will, so we'll just go with the first thing that pops into our heads. OK, got it: In Another Night at the Museum, Ben Stiller's bumbling security finds himself transferred to the lobby of the National Archives following his harrowing evening being chased around by dinosaur bones in New York, and on his first night at the new job, unwittingly revives an ancient curse that brings to life original copies of the Declaration and Independence and Constitution, which then escape the building and terrorize tourists in Washington DC. See, we told you we weren't going to spend a lot of time on it.
2. The Pursuit of Happyness—$13 million
Fortunately, the based-on-a-true-story nature if Happyness limits its sequel possibilities, sparing us from having to concoct scenarios in which Will Smith's character loses his hard-earned Wall Street success, once again finds himself homeless, and triumphantly fights his way back to the top of the financial world.
3. Children of Men—$10.295 million
We saw Children of Men last night and loved it so much that we're already preparing to have our hearts broken on Oscar Night, when it will probably lose Best Picture to unexpected nominee Little Man.
4. Freedom Writers—$9.705 million
This is easily the best "white lady inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school" flick since that one with Michelle Pfeiffer.
5. Dreamgirls—$8.825 million
We still haven't seen Dreamgirls, but Jennifer Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" is so powerful that we openly weep every time we read about it in a story about her Oscar hopes.