Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle won this weekend's box office derby with an estimated gross of $38 million. But in spite of a massive marketing campaign, a larger number of screens, and the presence of Demi Moore, Full Throttle failed to improve on the original Charlie's Angels, which grossed $40.1 million during its opening weekend in 2000.  Though critics may complain about sequels, in recent years Hollywood has been able to increase the take on heavily marketed 'franchise' sequels such as X2 (up 57%), 2 Fast 2 Furious (up 26%), The Mummy Returns (up 57%), and Austin Powers Goldmember (up 33%).  Since it was widely expected to top the original Charlie's Angels, Full Throttle's 'victory' has to be seen as a major disappointment and a bad sign for this TV-inspired franchise.

 

Speaking of bad omens, Ang Lee's Hulk suffered the biggest second week drop of any box office champ this year, plummeting some 70% from $62 million plus to an estimated $18.4 million.  The Hulk's difficulties only increase next weekend with the massive release of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.  Though its cumulative gross is already over the $100 million mark, it appears that the Hulk will have a hard time reaching $150 million.

 

Nemo, the little fish that could, just kept chugging along in its fifth weekend of release, bringing in an estimated $13.4 million and running its cumulative $253.9 million.  Finding Nemo will easily pass Monsters Inc. ($256 million) this week to become the highest grossing Pixar picture of all time, and could eventually catch The Matrix Reloaded ($268.9 million), which fell out of the top 10 for the first time since its mid-May release.  Next weekend Finding Nemo will find its stiffest competition yet with the release of Dreamworks' animated feature, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas.

 

Overall movie attendance was down some 15% compared with the same weekend last year.  Good weather across much of the country may have lured potential patrons outdoors, and some of the films that didn't measure up this weekend could rebound.  The only film that surpassed expectations this weekend was the British horror film 28 Days Later, which grossed almost $10 million in spite of a fairly limited release.