Meet the Spartans Takes Box Office
January 28, 2008

In what is surely a sign of the apocalypse, the widely reviled comedy Meet the Spartans took the top spot at the box office, proving that there's not a lot of competition for the movie dollar in January. Meet the Spartans made an estimated $18.7 million for Fox, barely edging out Rambo, which grossed $18.2 million for Lionsgate. As these numbers are estimates, there's a chance that the order could be reversed when final numbers are released and Sly could claim the top spot. Meet the Spartans continued the trend of critically hated early-year comedies for Fox with Date Movie opening with a similar $19.1 million in February of '06 (on its way to almost $85 million worldwide) and Epic Movie making $18.6 million in January of '07 (on its way to $87 million worldwide). Meet the Spartans made almost exactly the same as those two previous comedies.

It may not have claimed the top spot, but $18.2 million for Rambo has to be seen as a major success, especially considering how long the franchise has been dormant. Let's keep in mind that Rocky Balboa only opened with $12.2 million in December of '06 and went on to make over $155 million worldwide. If Rambo approaches that number, it has to be seen as a major hit. The fact that it opened with almost 50% more than Rocky Balboa is already impressive and Rocky had legs, which led it to $70.3 million domestically.

The bigger story at the box office this weekend might be the second week drop for Cloverfield, a film that smashed records last week after a brilliant marketing campaign, but has crashed back down to Earth this week. Cloverfield fell 68% and tumbled all the way to fourth place with only $12.7 million, but has still made an amazing $64.3 million in ten days on a budget of only $25 million. 27 Dresses held better, actually leap-frogging Cloverfield by dropping only 41% with $13.6 million and $45.3 million on a budget of $30 million. Both Cloverfield and 27 Dresses are two of the biggest January hits ever.

The other new release of the week was Untraceable with Diane Lane and Colin Hanks. The Screen Gems thriller brought in $11.2 million with a decent per screen average of $4,729. It's not a horrible start, but it will be tough for the film to make back its $35 million budget domestically.

The rest of the top ten were filled out by Juno ($10.3 million this weekend and $100.2 million to date), The Bucket List ($10.2 million; $57.7 million), There Will Be Blood ($4.9 million; $14.8 million), National Treasure: Book of Secrets ($4.7 million; $205.4 million), and Mad Money ($4.6 million; $15.3 million).

This week sees the release of a number of movies not screening for critics, including Paramount's Strange Wilderness, Lionsgate's The Eye, and Buena Vista's Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour. New Line counterprograms with the Eva Longoria romantic comedy, Over Her Dead Body.

(Source: Box Office Mojo)