Top Shelf at the Box Office

Yeah, it's a day late, so sue me! My work comp was down so I did next to nothing yesterday. Actually it's still down, so I'm working from the comfort of my basement right now. So if you can imagine it, I'm sitting here in my boxer shorts and Thundercats t-shirt slaving away here. If you've managed to keep your cereal down after that, hopefully you'll keep reading.

1. Fast & Furious- $72.5M

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker ran over the competition this week, blazing a trail that led to $72M in the first three days of release. That's already half the total gross of the first F&F film, and is $10M more than Tokyo Drift earned throughout it's run. Obviously the reuniting of the original stars was the boost the coasting series needed, although they probably would've pulled in a few extra million if only they could've somehow included Bow Wow's "cool" Incredible Hulk car from the last film.

2. Monsters vs. Aliens- $33.5M/$106M

Last week's #1 slips to numero dos, after losing it's one week record for best opening of the year so far. MvA is filling up IMAX theaters and 3-D at a pretty decent clip right now, so the chances are this will hang on to a top 5 spot for a little while. Especially considering that Fast and Furious's word of mouth has been...mixed, to say the least. Obviously Dreamworks has to be happy with the returns on this one.

3. The Haunting in Connecticut- $9.55M/$37.2M

4. Knowing- $8.13M/$58.2M

Knowing is starting to falter a bit, mainly due to powerful competition. Still, that's a pretty good total for a film with an estimated budget around $50M. Also it's faring far better than the other two films that came out that seem week.

5. I Love You, Man- $7.85M/$49.3M

Holding steady, the Rudd/Segel film is actually doing better than Role Models and Forgetting Sarah Marshall did in week 3.

6. Adventureland- $6.01M

The other major debut for the week turned out to be one big disappointment. The coming of age comedy failed to make an impression despite a young, popular cast and interesting storyline. Truly a shame that this comedy will go the way of other recent comedies not sporting the Apatow label, because in my humble opinion Adventureland is the best film of the year. Ok, second best.

7. Duplicity- $4.3M/$32.4M

8. Race to Witch Mountain- $3.35M/$58.4M

9. 12 Rounds- $2.3M/$9.02M

I have to admit, I take some weird pleasure in just how much more money The Rock's film is making ahead of John Cena's turd pie. It's almost like the two are in a vicious WWE angle right now, and the Rock just bashed Cena over the head with a folding chair.

10. Sunshine Cleaning- $1.88M/$4.77M

The beginning of the end? Or the end of the beginning? It's hard to say whether or not this will truly be the "breakout indie" of the season. After expanding to another 500 screens, it's 1.8M take is kinda small. It still pulled in an average of over $3700 per site, which is really good. But there was some powerful competition this week which might have led to the modest number. This week, which features only Observe and Report, a lame looking Dragonball flick, and a Hannah Montana movie might be a better indicator of the...freshness of Sunshine Cleaning.

Also....Alien Trespass debuted in only 40 screens and pulled in $43,437 over the weekend. Here's hoping it hangs on for awhile so that more people can give it a chance.