Will Smith
John Stanton/Getty
John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix's fire-fighting adventure Ladder 49 opened strong, but suffered in comparison to the box-office bite of Shark Tale, which features the voices of Will Smith, Renee Zellweger, Robert De Niro and Angelina Jolie. Both movies had received decidedly mixed reviews.
The two newcomers helped bumped the previous weekend's top movie, The Forgotten, to third place. Also notable was the debut, in limited release, of I (Heart) Huckabees, an ensemble comedy from David O. Russell (Three Kings), which had a spectacular debut in limited release, notes the Associated Press.
Huckabees, whose cast includes Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Jason Schwartzman, Naomi Watts, Jude Law and Mark Wahlberg, took in $300,062 in four New York City and Los Angeles theaters, averaging a blockbuster $75,016 per screen, compared with $12,226 in 4,016 cinemas for Shark Tale.
The Top 10 movies at the box office this weekend, according to studio estimates, were as follows:
1. Shark Tale, $49.1 million
2. Ladder 49, $22.8 million
3. The Forgotten, $12 million
4. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, $3.4 million
5. Mr. 3000, $2.6 million
6. Woman, Thou Art Loosed, $2.5 million
7. Shaun of the Dead, $2.4 million
8. Resident Evil: Apocalypse, $2.3 million
9. First Daughter, $2.15 million
10. Cellular, $2 million
