Prom Night Is The Box Office Queen

THIS WEEKEND Teen girls seized control of the North American box office powering the horror remake Prom Night to number one. Adult men settled for the runnerup spot with the Keanu Reeves cop thriller Street Kings as the overall box office failed to generate any kind of notable heat. The marketplace has now trailed last year's grosses during eight of the last nine weekends.

The frame's one major bright spot came in the form of Prom Night, a reboot of the 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis chiller, which captured the crown with an estimated $22.7M in its first weekend in theaters. Attacking 2,700 locations, the PG-13 suspense pic averaged a spectacular $8,407 per venue. Horror films rarely surpass the $8,000 per-theater average mark unless the word Saw is in the title. With a strong marketing campaign from Sony's Screen Gems unit, a recognizable face in Brittany Snow, a commercially friendly rating, and a release date right before prom season making the subject matter very topical, the slasher hit connected with teens and young adults looking for a scare.

Prom was just the latest success story from Hollywood's continuous mission to recycle old horror hits. Audiences came out in huge numbers for other remakes in recent years like 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ($28.1M debut), 2004's Dawn of the Dead ($26.7M), 2005's The Amityville Horror ($23.5M), and last year's Halloween ($26.4M). With Prom Night, Sony also tied Fox for the industry lead of three $20M+ openers this year. With a production cost of nearly $20M, Prom Night should become the latest profitable fright flick for the studio.

Collecting about half as much business in its opening weekend was the Keanu Reeves cop thriller Street Kings which debuted to an estimated $12M. The R-rated actioner averaged a commendable $4,864 from 2,467 sites. Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, and Cedric the Entertainer co-star in the tale of dirty L.A. cops. The Fox Searchlight film played to the opposite audience that rallied behind Prom Night pulling in adults with a male skew. Reviews were not kind. The debut was almost identical to the $11.9M launch of the Bruce Willis film 16 Blocks. Both were star-driven police thrillers released in the spring. Blocks eventually reached $36.9M.

After two weeks as the top card sharks, Kevin Spacey and pals saw their blackjack pic 21 fall to third place with an estimated $11M. Slipping only 28%, the Sony release was still a formidable player with an impressive third-frame gross and $4,020 average. With a solid $62.3M won in 17 days, the card-counting hit should finish up with a terrific $90M.

After a fierce battle over second place last weekend, Fox's Nim's Island and Universal's Leatherheads witnessed vastly different sophomore drops that gave the Abigail Breslin adventure a clear edge this time around. The family film dipped only 32% to an estimated $9M while the George Clooney comedy fumbled by 51% to an estimated $6.2M. Ten-day totals reached $25.3M and $21.9M, respectively. Nim's, which was produced for $37M, is not facing much competition for its core audience so a lengthier run leading to $45-50M seems likely. The $58M-budgeted Leatherheads is suffering from bad buzz and should end its season with a disappointing $35M. But Universal has two more promising players hitting the field this month - the comedies Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Baby Mama - which should allow the studio to recover.

#	Title	Apr 11 - 13				Weeks		Cumulative	Distributor
1	Prom Night	$ 22,700,000				1		$ 22,700,000	Sony
2	Street Kings	12,000,000				1		12,000,000	Fox Searchlight
3	21	11,000,000				3		62,268,000	Sony
4	Nim's Island	9,000,000				2		25,280,000	Fox
5	Leatherheads	6,210,000				2		21,910,000	Universal
6	Horton Hears A Who	6,000,000				5		139,628,000	Fox
7	Smart People	4,200,000				1		4,200,000	Miramax
8	The Ruins	3,250,000				2		13,413,000	Paramount
9	Superhero Movie	3,114,000				3		21,202,000	MGM
10	Drillbit Taylor	2,070,000				4		28,461,000	Paramount