Sony's Underworld: Evolution topped the weekend box office with an estimated total of $27.6 million, the fourth highest January opening in history. The original Underworld film opened in September of 2003 with a $21.8 million total and went on to earn $52 at the domestic box office. Game publisher White Wolf, Inc. and author Nancy Collins sued Sony over the original Underworld film based on a number of similarities between the film's Romeo & Juliet love affair between representatives of long-feuding tribes of vampires and werewolves and stories and scenarios written for White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Ms. Collins' story 'Love of Monsters,' which was set in White Wolf's World of Darkness (see ' White Wolf & Nancy Collins Sue Sony').
Underworld: Evolution, which like the first Underworld film stars Kate Beckinsale and her skintight leather pants, demonstrated once again the box office potential of the sexy vampire genre by earning a very respectable $8,606 per location. The only film in semi-wide release that came close to that average was Brokeback Mountain, which came in at #5 and earned $6,548 per theater.
Hoodwinked, the computer-animated reworking of Little Red Riding Hood, which was the #1 film last week, declined only 11% and finished in second place with an estimated total of $11 million.