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In a cinematic death match that could only happen in the new-release dregs of January, Fox’s spoof comedy “Meet The Spartans” - the most recent in a long line of totally unfunny pop culture send-ups including “Epic Movie” and “Date Movie” - edged out Sylvester Stallone’s “Rambo” with an estimated $18.7 million versus Sly’s $18.2 million. 

It was a great weekend for January. The box office was up over 30% from last year and nearly 20% from 2006. The strong openings of Rambo and Meet The Spartans were supplemented by the decent opening of the Diane Lane thriller Untraceable ($11 million) and strong performances from Oscar-candidate holdovers No Country For Old Men, Atonement, There Will Be Blood (still expanding, slowly), and Juno. The latter film saw a 4% uptick over last weekend despite losing over 100 theatres.

Holiday blockbusters reached milestones over the weekend. National Treasure: Book of Secrets and Alvin and the Chipmunks (yes, Alvin and the Chipmunks) both passed $200 million, while the Will Smith apocalypse actioner I Am Legend crossed $250 million.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Box Office, Movie News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.