Whilst its title proved a bit of an over exaggeration, Disney's football drama "Invincible" was the clear winner in the last game of the Summer film season.
The Mark Wahlberg-led flick took in a strong $17 million debut, more than double that of its near competitor. The result comes despite the film going against three other new releases, and being stuck in what's generally considered one of the weakest weekends of the year.
Also doing well was the first wide weekend of indie hit "Little Miss Sunshine" which has been sneaking up the charts and is now sitting comfortably in third place with a solid $7.5 million. The film continues to hold extremely well, even in cities where it has been open for over a month.
Despite these rosy results, the rest of the frame wasn't so lucky and ties with May 12th as the lowest-grossing weekend of 2006. Newcomers like the comedy "Beerfest" ($6.5m) and kiddie film "How to Eat Fried Worms" ($4.1m) failed to drill up much business. The former is about equal with Broken Lizard's first film "Super Troopers".
Playing on about one third the screens of the other wide releases, Outkast musical "Idlewild"
took in $5.9 million and had the best per theatre average ($6,055 per screen), but ultimately only did alright. Its repeat business viability remains to be seen.
Last week's openers showed drastically different results with "Snakes on a Plane" plummeting 58% from first to eigth place, whilst comedy "Accepted" held quite well with only a 35% fall. Other strong holders include "Barnyard" (-28%), "World Trade Center" (-41%) and "Talladega Nights" (-42%).
Limited release saw Ed Norton starrer "The Illusionist" continue doing strong business with a $12,687 per screen average, as did Ryan Gosling drama "Half Nelson" with a $10,007 average. Not faring so well were Elisha Cuthbert thriller "The Quiet" ($4,105 per screen) and other already opened flicks like "Quinceanera", "Factotum" and "Trust the Man".
Finally "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" left the Top Ten, but with a $407.6 million has pulled ahead of "Spider-Man" and now will probably sit comfortably as the sixth highest domestic grossing film of all time.
