Ghost Rider once again rode high atop the box office for the weekend. Even though it dropped over 55% from last week, it was still well ahead of the rest of the pack and seems to be on its way to becoming the first $100 million earner of the year. After two weekends it sits just shy of $80 million.

The only other film to potentially reach the century mark is Norbit, sitting at $74 million after three weekends. Overall, it was a decent weekend that was considerably slower than last weekend, no doubt affected by Sunday night's Oscar telecast.

Far from a critical darling, Ghost Rider sits at a healthy 24% on Rotten Tomatoes, yet still has found itself an audience. It is proof that some movies are critic proof — if they appear to offer up enough fun, people will go see them. I guess I should come clean and say that I enjoyed the movie and that it was more or less successful. Whatever the reason, it has drawn good numbers and must be considered a success for the studio.

Jim Carrey's new film, the thriller The Number 23, was tops among this week's new class of films. It came in second, approximately $5 million behind the leader, which has to be considered a disappointment. I believe this was expected to make a strong run for the leader, and give Carrey another hit. I saw the film, and it had its moments, but was not quite as good as I had been hoping for, and the gross seems to fall in line. It did have a strong Friday, pulling very close to the flaming biker, but tapered off further into the weekend. It should also be noted that it was a very tight race with the number three film, the excellent Bridge to Terabithia, a mere half million between them.

Among the other new entries, Reno 911! made its big screen debut with a take large enough to cover production costs. It also stands as the funniest film of this young year. It is ridiculous, sophomoric, and just flat out funny. It was also a part of the second close race, taking fourth by just $200,000 over the Eddie Murphy comedy, Norbit. The top ten is rounded out with another pair of new films, The Astronaut Farmer and Amazing Grace — the former, a disappointment, the latter a success for its smaller scale release.