The feature film remake of The Dukes of Hazzard television series topped the weekend box office with an estimated gross of $30.575 million and a solid $8,097 per theater average.  The moonshining saga, which features the General Lee, one of the top TV cars of all time, garnered poor reviews, but this is exactly the kind of film that Hollywood insiders consider 'critic-proof.'  However the Dukes' Friday through Sunday decline doesn't indicate that it will have the kind of 'legs' demonstrated by the weekend's number two film, The Wedding Crashers, which declined only 16.5% in its fourth week -- the strongest fourth weekend showing enjoyed by any film so far in 2005.  Tim Burton's version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory continued to do well in its fourth week of release -- dropping just 35.5% and earning an estimated $10.5 million.

Superhero films also demonstrated some strong 'legs' with the Disney comedy Sky High falling only 38% while earning an estimated $9 million.  Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four film declined only 42% in its sixth frame.  The FF movie earned an estimated $4 million and raised its cumulative total to nearly $144 million -- not too far from the original X-Men film's total of $157 million.  Although it remains outside the Top Ten, Batman Begins earned an estimated $1.8 million in its eighth week and brought its domestic cumulative to $199 million.

Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects dropped another 52.5% and finished fourteenth with an estimated total of $1.3 million, but remains a prime candidate to fare far better on DVD than it did at the box office.  And the cult status of the film is driving sales of the products available, such as the NECA toys, regardless.

Overall the box office total for the top 12 films in week 31 of 2005 was a whopping $40 million below the total for the same week in 2004.