Weekend box-office: Ricky Bobby keeps audiences laughing

By Scott Rosenberg Aug 14, 2006, 1:11 GMT

Will Ferrell’s Ricky Bobby kept audiences laughing for a second week, last week racing to a $23 million win at the box-office for a two week take of $91.2 million.

"It's nice to have a movie that is making people laugh throughout the country," said Rory Bruer, Sony's president of distribution which handled “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.” It seems to be a recipe for success."

Well as we wrote in this column last week, maybe the severe nature of our times, with the new terrorist airplane bomb threats in the UK last week, is driving folks into the theaters for a little comic relief.

Besides Ricky Bobby coming in first place, another demonstration of the need for comedy is the poor box-office showing of the critically acclaimed 9/11 drama helmed by Oliver Stone, "World Trade Center.”

Possibly tempered by the real life drama unfolding at airports around the world, movie came in third place this weekend with only $19 million, which added to its $7.8 mid week opening amounted to a paltry $26.8 million.

Even though it did beat April’s “United 93” release from Universal which opened in far fewer theaters and brought in $11.5 million in its opening weekend.

Rob Moore, Paramount’s president of marketing distribution and worldwide operations said,”Everybody has a strong reaction to what happened. We knew this going in that Oliver had made a very moving motion picture and at the same time, some people might have resistance to it.

In second place this weekend was Disney’s low budget teen draw, ‘Step Up’.  Pulling in $21.1 million from 2,467 locations, this light hearted musical dance feature targeted the young female teen demographic with a strong net marketing campaign.

Paramount’s animated  ‘Barnyard: The Original Party Animals’ was only able to take in $10.1 million from 3,311 locations to come in fourth place and indie thriller ‘Pulse’ lagged behind in fifth place with box-office of $8.5 million from 2,323 locations.

The continued winner this week was’ Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ which dropped out of the top five but still pulled in a respectable $7.2 million domestically in its sixth week running.

It remained the number one movie internationally for the sixth straight weekend with $44 million in foreign ticket sales which included a record opening of $11.5 million in Spain.

The international total for "Pirates" now stands at $463 million with several key countries yet to open.