Will Ferrell's Talladega Nights topped the box office charts for the second weekend in a row, while Sony's superhero comedy, Zoom, based on Jason Lethcoe's comic book, Zoom's Academy for the Super Gifted, crashed and burned on take-off, earning only $4.6 million and averaging a paltry $1,839 per venue.  Zoom, which starred Tim Allen as an over-the-hill superhero, was the subject of lawsuit between Marvel (and Fox) and Sony over Zoom's release date and similarities between Zoom and the X-Men (see 'Fox and Marvel Sue Sony').  As it turns out, it appears that Marvel and Fox didn't have much to worry about.

 

Meanwhile Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest added another $7 million to its total ($392.4 million).  It is now the seventh highest grossing film of all time and has a chance to pass Spider-Man's $403.7 million total from 2002.

 

Superman Returns earned $1.2 million bringing its total to $192.6 million. It now seems likely that Superman Returns will finish just south of the $200 million mark. 

 

Two films that are clearly in the home stretch of their theatrical runs are Pixar's Cars, which should finish with $240 million (a great total for any normal movie, but somewhat of a disappointment for a Pixar release), and Kevin Smith's Clerks II, which is now down to just 415 screens and should end up with about $24 million, a tenth of what Cars earned, but then Clerks II's $5 million budget was only a twenty-fourth what Pixar spent on Cars.