Weekend box-office: Will Ferrell's 'Blades' skates to glory

By Scott Rosenberg Apr 2, 2007, 1:17 GMT

A somewhat anemic weekend with sports comedy ‘Blades of Glory’ starring Will Farrell taking top spot in the line-up. With estimated weekend take at $33 million from 3,372 locations, opening was second highest for Ferrell who’s ‘Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,’ topped in take with $47 million in its first weekend.

Distributor Dreamworks’ spokesperson Marvin Levy expressed surprise at the “ton of very, very good reviews,” “Blades” picked up.

"It could be because it starts with a great concept, and the whole picture was cast so well,” he said.

Disney’s ‘Meet the Robinsons’ and ‘Meet the Robinsons in 3D’ (copyrighted name) took second place this weekend with $25.1 million from 3,413 locations.

Chuck Viane head of distribution for Disney said the 3D version which played in about 600 3D auditoriums across the US pulled in nearly double the gross of theaters playing the regular version. However no specific breakdown was given.

3D digital has been purported to be the new "Holy Grail" in cinema watching according to the major Hollywood studios.

“Robinsons” is an animated adventure story of a brilliant and lonely orphan who travels through time.

And the battle between Spartans and Ninjas lingers on as last week’s number one ‘TMNT’ finds the Teenage Mutant ninja Turtles dropping 62 percent into fourth place taking in a weak $9.2 million from 3,120 locations. 10 day total is now at $38.4 million.

Spartans won this week as ‘300’ in it’s fourth week of release dropped almost 44 percent to land in third place with $11.1 million from 3,004 locations. Total cume rose to $179.6 million.

In fifth place, dropping 39.4 percent but still staying within the top five, is ‘Wild Hogs’ in its fifth week of release, (hmmm, maybe Jim Carrey should have done a movie called “5” instead of “23” – which, by the way, is off the charts after 35 days of release having grossed $35.1 in the domestic US market and $18.3 million internationally).

Other openers this week: Miramax’s thriller ‘The Lookout,’ finished in 11th place pulling in only $2  million from 955 locations.

In what seemed like a month long surge in box office – this week declined overall, down 13 percent from the same weekend last year, when ‘Ice Age: The Meltdown.

However, number crunchers still point out that movie attendance is up 4 percent so far this year.