Buoyed by a young, heavily African American audience (35%), the R-Rated Bad Boys II, featuring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, bludgeoned its way to the top of the box office with a stellar $46.7 million dollar opening weekend.  Although it fell from the top spot after only one week, Pirates of the Caribbean suffered only a 28.7% drop, the smallest decline endured by any number one film so far this year.  With great word of mouth and an eye-popping ten-day total of $132, Pirates could easily overtake The Matrix Reloaded for the second spot on this year's box office list.  The top spot will most likely go to Finding Nemo, which suffered the smallest decline of any film in the top 10 (just 14%) and ran its cumulative total to some $303 million.  There is no longer any doubt that Finding Nemo will soon surpass The Lion King and become the all-time animated box office champ.

 

The comic book-based League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which had a respectable $22 million opening last weekend, became the tenth film this year to drop more than 50% in its second weekend, declining by some 56.2% to $10.1 million.  With a two-week total of some $42.5 million it is unlikely that LXG will break the $100 million mark domestically.  Terminator 3 suffered another 52.8% decline in its third week.  It is now quite clear that Terminator 3 will fall well short of the $200 million plus earned by James Cameron's Terminator 2.  Ang Lee's Hulk suffered a 62% decline and fell out of the top ten and landed in thirteenth place this weekend.  It now appears unlikely that the Hulk will earn more than $135 million.