Front Page, Industry News

‘Dreamgirls’ Xmas Day crowd pleaser, while ‘Museum’ easily tops box office

Tuesday December 26th 2006

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ It was a great Christmas for the Paramount Pictures musical "Dreamgirls." The film, starring Eddie Murphy and Beyonce Knowles, earned US$8.7 million on Christmas Day according to studio estimates as it expanded from three locations to 852 theatres. That was good enough to push it into the top-10 grossing films for the four-day holiday weekend, knocking the religious-themed "The Nativity Story" to 11th place.

"The response to the movie has been spectacular," Rob Moore, president and chief operating officer at Paramount, a unit of Viacom Inc., said Tuesday.

The studio will release the film to about 2,000 theatres in a few weeks, giving the musical a good financial head start, Moore said.

The film, which also stars Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Hudson, also has dreams of Oscar.

"Dreamgirls is an Oscar contender if ever there was one," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "It’s a crowd pleaser."

The Ben Stiller comedy "Night at the Museum" retained its No. 1 standing, pulling in $42.2 million over the holiday weekend, including $12.4 million on Christmas Day.

The horror flick "Black Christmas" from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer earned a respectable one-day total of $3.3 million on its debut Monday.

"There’s always an audience that wants to be counter to the norm," Dergarabedian said.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Monday at U.S. and Canadian theatres, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Wednesday.

1. "Night at the Museum," $42.2 million.

2. "The Pursuit of Happyness," $23.1 million.

3. "Rocky Balboa," $17 million.

4. "The Good Shepherd," $13.9 million.

5. "Charlotte’s Web," $9.5 million.

6. "Eragon," $9.3 million.

7. "Dreamgirls," $8.9 million.

8. "We Are Marshall," $8.6 million.

9. "The Holiday," $7 million.

10. "Happy Feet," $6.6 million