Box Office Report, July 20th

Dude here again. Did you hear something about a Barry Potter movie opening up? I'm willing to bet it made some money. The kids, they love that Barry and his misadventures. Like the one with the chamber of secrets, where it was revealed his mother was actually a man.

Maybe that was just a dream I had once.

This weekend, Harry Potter inched one step closer to the finite franchise that they managed to stretch out one more beyond the actual books. Pretty impressive, actually. Let's go to the numbers, shall we? (All in millions, remember, and these are the studio estimates. The actuals will be available on Monday).

• 1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (WB) - $79.4, 4325 screens, week 1, $159.6 total (wed open)
• 2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (Fox)- $17.7, 3817 screens, week 3, $152.0 total
• 3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (P/DW) - $13.7, 3857 screens, week 4, $363.8 total
• 4. Bruno (Uni)- $8.3, 2759 screens, week 2, $49.5 total
• 5. The Hangover (WB)- $8.3, 2667 screens, week 7, $235.8 total
• 6. The Proposal (BV) - $8.2, 3043 screens, week 5, $128.0 total
• 7. Public Enemies (Uni) $7.5, 3118 screens, week 3, $79.4 total
• 8. Up (BV) - $3.1, 1706 screens, week 8, $279.5 total
• 9. My Sister's Keeper (WB)- $2.8, 1967 screens, week 4, $41.5 total
• 10. I Love You Beth Cooper (Fox) - $2.6, 1872 screens, week 2, $10.2 total

So those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means that Harry Potter started off strong, with the highest midnight show count on Wednesday (or some ridiculous record), and then slowly calmed down. No other records are broken. Still, it made an obscene amount of money in five days, and it looks on track with the other Harry Potter movies.

Bruno dropped an astonishing 70% from last week's take. I wonder if it's because of that Irish movie theater owner, who proclaimed on his outgoing message that the film was "vile" (Google it if you don't believe me. It's out there on the interwebz).

Nothing else was released wide this week, in fear of the Potter-naut. Most of the movies seem to be slowing down, like the Transforming robots. And the icy hot one.

Below the radar, (500) Days of Summer opened up on 27 screens and took in $838,000. Very impressive for a limited release. It took in the highest per screen average, even more than the movie that had magic. So there you go.

There you have my amazing break down. Next week, a group of animated hamsters come at you... in 3-D!!! Plus that movie Orphan, which has an amazing plot twist you will never see coming, that I wouldn't dare spoil. Unless you ask me. And give me money. Or food. Preferably both.

Until next weekend.......