Weekend Box Office

That bumbling mall cop Paul Blart stays on top, while Notorious takes a second-week nosedive.

The economic chill that’s currently blowing through the music industry seems to have carried over to the big-screen as well.  After banking a healthy $20 million during its opening weekend, the Notorious B.I.G. biopic Notorious tumbled to tenth place in its sophomore outing with a sluggish $5 million gross, pushing its total cume to $32 million.  While that’s not an embarrassing number by any means, it does indicate that the film failed to cross over outside of Biggie’s built-in fanbase.  A decline that steep also indicates that there was little in the way of repeat business, which suggests his fans may not have loved what they saw.  But there’s always a silver lining: the film should do strong business on DVD, particularly if Fox Searchlight decides to package it with some kind of collectible Biggie keepsake.

Kevin James keeps the peace as mall cop Paul Blart

Repeating in the top spot was the family-friendly comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop starring Kevin James as an accident-prone security officer.  With $65 million in the bank so far, this is one mall cop who’ll be able to retire a wealthy man.  Underworld: Rise of the Lycans fell just short of dislodging Mr. Blart from his perch, earning $20.7 million to Paul Blart’s $21.5 million.  Next weekend will be the real test as to whether the Underworld franchise returns for another installment.  The first two films grossed $51 million and $62 million respectively, so if Rise of the Lycans is able to enter similar territory, you can probably expect a fourth film in another year or two.

Oscar nominations were announced on Thursday and the movie that benefited the most from the Academy’s attentions was Slumdog Millionaire, which now sits comfortably in the #5 spot with a $55 million to-date gross and plenty more coin on the way.  Once a longshot to join the $100 million club, Slumdog should hit that mark by the time it wins the Best Picture Oscar on February 22.  Meanwhile, its fellow nominees Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button didn’t experience much of a post-Oscar bounce, although the latter film has already grossed over $100 million so the studio probably isn’t sweating that too much.

The full Top Ten (courtesy of the-numbers.com) is included below.  Come back next week to find out whether the horror film The Uninvited or the action movie Taken will be able to take down the seemingly unstoppable Paul Blart.

1. Paul Blart: Mall Cop - Weekend: $21.5/Total: $64.8
2. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans - Weekend: $20.7/Total: $20.7
3. Gran Torino - Weekend: $16/Total: $97.6
4. Hotel for Dogs - Weekend: $12.4/Total: $37
5. Slumdog Millionaire - Weekend: $10.6/Total: $55
6. My Bloody Valentine - Weekend: $10/Total: $37.7
7. Inkheart - Weekend: $7.7/Total: $7.7
8. Bride Wars - Weekend: $7/Total: $48.7
9. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Weekend: $6/Total: $111
10. Notorious - Weekend: $5.7/$31.7