Disney's Enchanted easily won the holiday weekend with a five-day take of more than $50 million, nearly double that of the number two film. It is a very good film that deserves the attention as it is much more than it appears. Enchanted is well on its way to becoming a big box office hit, and even at this early stage is garnering Oscar buzz surrounding Amy Adams' performance in the lead role of Giselle. It will be interesting to see how far it goes.
Regardless of the Oscar talk, the film has that something that brought families out to theaters. Those families will translate to strong word of mouth, which will translate to strong legs through the upcoming weeks leading to Christmas.
Four other movies made it to the top ten, contributing to the 50% turnover of the nation's top films. The first one, following Enchanted is This Christmas, a film I did not think would crack the top ten. I guess I was wrong! It surprised most analysts with its strong showing, decisively taking the second spot on the list with its gross of more than $27 million.
Next on the new movie hit list is the video game adaptation Hitman. I have a strong feeling this will disappear rather quickly. It is not a very good movie. It has some stylish action but the story is so paper thin as to nearly be non-existent. The Xavier Gens-directed action flick placed fourth place with a solid $21 million.
Slipping down to seventh you will find the musical drama August Rush. Here is a movie that deserves to do better. It is a wonderful fairy tale brought to life that may be dripping with sentimentality, but has so much infectious heart that you cannot help but feel for the main characters and the journey they have taken.
Right behind that, in eigth place, is the latest Stephen King adaptation, The Mist. I had thought this would have performed better than it did. Perhaps if it had opened in mid-October, during the build-up to Halloween, it would have started out stronger. It is a creepy, apocalyptic, and dreadfully bleak, yet classy horror film adapted and directed by Frank Darabont. If you like horror, this is well worth your time.
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