Box Office Takedown 12/5-12/7

The weekend after Turkey Day is traditionally one of the quieter at the box office, as everyone has already stuffed themselves silly with portions of food that would make even Jabba the Hutt hit the gym. Accompanying this feeling of suddenly gaining 30 pounds of turkey, pumpkin, and yams is the realization of two things, the first being that eating a tub of Cool Whip by itself it most assuredly not a good idea, and the second being the thought of, "Shit! it's only three weeks until Christmas and I haven't done any shopping!"

Naturally, this tends to lead to an sudden decrease not only in theatre attendance, but also in the amount of available parking spots at the shopping mall.


However, this didn't keep the Tom Cruise Japanese epic The Last Samurai from owning the box office, commanding a record-breaking $24.4 million in its debut weekend. The previous film to hold the After-Turkey weekend debut was 2001's Behind Enemy Lines, which managed to sneak in $18 million. The Tom Cruise epic has received good-to-high marks from most major critics, with near universal praise being lauded at Cruise's costar, Ken Watanabe, who plays the titular title character Katsumoto. With director Edward Zwick being named Best Director by the National Board of Review and the Oscar season hitting its stride, the film should have strong legs in the months to come.


It was also not a good weekend to be a kid's flick, as all three offerings fell over 60% this weekend. Taking it especially hard was the Mike Meyers crapfest The Cat in the Hat, which took a 70% hit as the terrible word of mouth finally kicked in. The film, which cost $150 million to make and market, looks set to crawl past $100 million if it's lucky. Let's hope this is enough to prevent Brian Grazer from green lighting a bastardization of Green Eggs and Ham starring Ashton Kuchter as Sam.

Here are the top ten films at the box office, supplied by Variety.com and BoxOfficeMojo:

1. The Last Samurai $24,420,000
% Change from last weekend: NEW
Gross to date: $24,420,000

2. Honey $14,021,000
% Change from last weekend: NEW
Gross to date: $14,021,000

3. The Haunted Mansion $9,536,000
% Change from last weekend: -60.7%
Gross to date: $46,116,000

4. Elf $8,125,000
% Change from last weekend: -62.5%
Gross to date: $139,626,000

5. The Cat in the Hat $7,346,000
% Change from last weekend: -70%
Gross to date: $85,502,000

6. Bad Santa $7,077,000
% Change from last weekend: -42.4%
Gross to date: $27,202,000

7. Gothika $5,320,000
% Change from last weekend: -58.7%
Gross to date: $49,620,000

8. The Missing $4,400,000
% Change from last weekend: -59.4%
Gross to date: $22,181,000

9. Master and Commander $3,800,000
% Change from last weekend: -68.5%
Gross to date: $72,634,000

10. Love Actually $3,729,000
% Change from last weekend: -54.6%
Gross to date: $48,910,000