'Blades of Glory' wins box office gold

(AP)
Updated: 2007-04-02 08:29

Jon Heder and Will Ferrell in a scene from the film "Blades of Glory" in a photo courtesy of DreamWorks Pictures.[Reuters]

Jon Heder took the box office gold for the weekend. Paramount and DreamWorks' "Blades of Glory," with Ferrell and Heder playing figure-skating rivals who become the sport's first men's pair, debuted as the No. 1 movie with $33 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Disney's animated adventure "Meet the Robinsons," about the time-traveling journey of a brilliant but lonely orphan, debuted in second place with $25.1 million.

The previous weekend's top movie - the Warner Bros. animated tale "TMNT," a revival of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" franchise - slipped to fourth place with $9.2 million, down a steep 62 percent from its $24.3 million debut. "TMNT" raised its 10-day total to $38.4 million.

After a monthlong surge, the overall box office declined. The top 12 movies took in $115 million, down 13 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Ice Age: The Meltdown" opened with $68 million.

"This is still a good weekend, a pretty healthy one-two punch with `Blades of Glory' and `Meet the Robinsons' at the top," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers.

Movie attendance is up 4 percent so far this year, Dergarabedian said.

Teaming with "Napoleon Dynamite" star Heder on "Blades of Glory," Ferrell scored the second-best opening of his career, behind last summer's "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," which took in $47 million in its first weekend.

"It starts with a great concept, and the whole picture was cast so well," said DreamWorks spokesman Marvin Levy. "Another part of the surprise was, we got a ton of very, very good reviews."

"Meet the Robinsons" played in about 3,400 theaters and did especially well in a 3-D version at 600 cinemas, said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Disney. The studio did not have a precise breakdown, but cinemas reported that screens playing the 3-D version pulled in about double the grosses of theaters running the regular 2-D version, Viane said.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Blades of Glory," $33 million.

2. "Meet the Robinsons," $25.1 million.

3. "300," $11.2 million.

4. "TMNT," $9.2 million.

5. "Wild Hogs," $8.4 million.

6. "Shooter," $8 million.

7. "Premonition," $5.1 million.

8. "The Last Mimzy," $4 million.

9. "The Hills Have Eyes 2," $3.9 million.

10. "Reign Over Me," $3.7 million.