Rank
Title
Weekend
Gross
Cumulative
Gross
Weeks in Release
1

Ice Age: The Meltdown
$34,500,000

$116,400,000
2
2

The Benchwarmers
$20,500,000

$20,500,000
1
3

Take the Lead

$12,700,000

$12,700,000
1
4

Inside Man
$9,100,000

$66,000,000
3
5

Lucky Number Slevin
$7,100,000

$7,100,000
1
6

Failure to Launch
$4,100,000

$79,100,000
5
7

ATL

$3,700,000

$17,200,000
2
8

V for Vendetta
$3,300,000
$62,200,000
4
9

Phat Girlz
$3,100,000
$3,100,000
1
10

Thank You for Smoking
$2,400,000
$6,200,000
4

Every movie studio has their computer rendering software cranked on overtime trying to find their own Pixar-sized hit (as far as return on investment, not necessarily quality), and Fox has already found a reliable franchise with the meandering prehistoric creatures of Ice Age. The sequel was half-frozen since last week, but it was still enough to give the cold shoulder to all the other new releases, and that’s all the frost-covered puns for this week. 

Batting second was the new comedy The Benchwarmers, which as far as I can tell is about a retarded baseball team (it stars Rob Schneider, so this is not a stretch of the imagination), while Antonio Banderas waltzed into third with his dancing flick Take the Lead. The unfriendly titled Lucky Number Slevin didn’t have a favorable roll of the dice, which might be due to the fact that it missed the post-Pulp Fiction copycat gravy train by about 10 years.
Phat Girlz, the new comedy from repellent Sassy Black Chick Mo’Nique, was appropriately bottom-heavy in ninth, while one of the year’s supposed best movies, Thank You for Smoking, wafts onto the chart after weeks of limited release. And we shan’t mention the rather distressing fate of Slither.

Next week brings yet another in the seemingly endless and certainly unwelcome Scary Movie series, while Disney tries to take on the reigning mammoths with their own CG animated animals in The Wild, and limited release offers tasty treats Hard Candy and The Notorious Bettie Page.