After a long lull, the weekend box office finally stirred up a little excitement as "American Gangster" and the "Bee Movie" brought theater-goers out in droves.
The Ridley Scott film American Gangster, led by Denzel Washington, finished in the No. 1 spot for the weekend, ending with an estimated $46.3 million for its first time around. Opening at a solid 3,054 venues, the film averaged a strong $15,175.
With their strong marketing campaign, it'll interesting to see if "Gangster" can hold next weekend, after word of mouth gets around.
Meeting expectations, Bee Movie with Jerry Seinfeld came in second, also ending with a solid estimated $39.1 million for the weekend.
Paramount launched this one across a huge number of venues - 3,928 - and finished with a pretty good average of 49,954. Jerry Seinfeld headed up this show, not only scripting it, but also producing and of course voicing in it as well.
With the costs of production coming in at $150 million, it may be difficult to recoup that domestically, although family movies do have longer legs than other films. When considering Over the Hedge though, they opened just about at the same level as Bee Movie, and were able to finish at around $155 million domestically.
The problem Bee Movie has will be the growing number of films focusing in on the family during the holiday season. That could cut into their overall numbers.
While Saw IV finished in third place in their second time around, the big 65 percent drop in numbers, which ended at an estimated $11 million, shows that the audience for this franchise is not growing at all, and some of the glitter is coming off the series. So far it has earned $51.1 million domestically.
The top ten for the weekend:
| 1 | American Gangster | $46,344,000 |
| 2 | Bee Movie | $39,100,000 |
| 3 | Saw IV | $11,010,000 |
| 4 | Dan in Real Life | $8,125,000 |
| 5 | 30 Days of Night | $4,000,000 |
| 6 | The Game Plan | $3,853,000 |
| 7 | Martian Child | $3,650,000 |
| 8 | Michael Clayton | $2,900,000 |
| 9 | Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married | $2,730,000 |
| 10 | Gone Baby Gone | $2,400,000 |
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