Box Office Battle (April 10th)

Hannah has second highest Easter weekend opening ever

BY COLIN ENQUIST

Playing in 3118 theatres, Hannah Montana: The Movie grossed an estimated $34M, with a Friday gross of $17.3M which is the highest ever for a live-action G-rated film on its opening day. Though not able to break the weekend gross of Scary Movie 4, Disney can probably thank Miley Cyrus' star status for bringing out the teenagers off of school on Good Friday to see the film which is also Disney's highest April take in the companies history.

Universals' Fast and Furious surpassed the $100M mark, becoming the fifth movie this year to do so. Dropping 59% into second, the Vin Diesel and Paul Walker film raked in $28.7M, making the decision easy for Universal, who signed both stars to a come back for yet another film for the franchise. The film also crossed the $200M mark worldwide over the weekend.

Monsters vs. Aliens brought in $22.6M, bringing its impressive total up around $141M. The film is still playing in over 4000 theatres, and with only a 30% drop in ticket sales, we should expect this to become the highest grossing film of the year sometime over the next week.

The dark comedy, Observe and Report opened in fourth place at $11.1M. Warner Bros. has high expectations for the Jody Hill comedy starring Seth Rogen, the studio is hoping it follows the line drawn by Kevin James' Paul Blart: Mall Cop which is the current number one grossing film this year. With the much darker material, the audience will be quite different.

Slots five through seven were filled by Alex Proyas and Nicolas Cage's sci-fi thriller Knowing with $6.7M, the Paul Rudd R-rated buddy comedy I Love You, Man with $6.4M and haunted house thriller The Haunting in Connecticut with $5.7M. They've grossed $68M, $59M and $46M respectively.

The biggest dissapointment would be Fox's Dragonball: Evolution, which opening only in 2181 theatres and bombed its way to $4.6M. The opened a few weeks back in the foreign market and has grabbed $25.3M overseas already.

Rounding out the top ten, Adventureland took in another $3.4M bringing its two week total around $11M. Duplicity earned another $2.9M, making the four week total $36.8M.

3-2-C (April 10th)

New This Friday: Observe and Report, Hannah Montana: The Movie, Dragonball: Evolution

Amongst the new movies in theatres this Friday (April 10) is a(nother) comedy about a mall cop, a big-screen adaptation of a hit Disney TV series, and the first feature film in the Dragonball franchise.

With Paul Blart: Mall Cop still in the Top 20 at the box office (#16 last weekend), Seth Rogan puts on his own mall security uniform for his own take on a similar story, in Jody Hill's Observe and Report (pictured bottom left), which co-stars Anna Faris (Scary Movie series) and Ray Liotta (Powder Blue).

With the third season of the Disney TV phenemenon, Hannah Montana, airing worldwide, its star Miley Cyrus makes the move to the big screen in Hannah Montana: The Movie (bottom center). Directed by Peter Chelsom, The Movie also brings back Billy Ray Cyrus as Montana's father, and Emily Osment (yes, Haley Joel's younger sister) as her best friend Lilly.

James Wong brings the mega children's franchise Dragonball to theatres for the first time, with the live action Dragonball: Evolution (bottom right), which stars Canadian-born Justin Chatwin (War of the Worlds) as Goku. Already playing in several Asian markets for almost a month now, Dragonball also stars James Marsters ("Spike" on TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and former MTV reality star Jamie Chung (The Real World: San Diego).

The only other feature film opening this Friday will be a small rockumentary titled Anvil! The Story of Anvil (top right), which takes a look behind the scenes of Canadian '80s metal band Anvil. Director Sacha Gervasi, who was a roadie for the band on three of their tours, also wrote Anvil, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January 2008. It is limited to screenings in New York and L.A.