Winning its opening weekend, Jim Carrey's comedy YES MAN (Warner Bros., vfx by LOOK! Effects) earned $18.26M, lower than expected because of bad, snowy weather covering much of the U.S.
Will Smith's mysterious drama SEVEN POUNDS (Sony, vfx by CafeFX) opened in second place with $14.85M. Animated feature THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX (Universal, animation from Framestore Feature Animation) placed third in its opening weekend with $10.1M.
Fourth place went to last week's winner THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (Fox, vfx by At The Post, Cinesite, CosFX, Digital Dimension, Digital Domain, Flash Film Works, Hammerhead, Gentle Giant Studios, Hydraulx, Image Design Engine, Screaming Monkey and Weta Digital) with $9.89M and a two-week cume of $48.37M.
Holiday laffer FOUR CHRISTMASES (Warner Bros./New Line) placed fifth (down from second) this week with $7.75M and $100.11M in four weeks.
TWILIGHT (Summit Ent., vfx by CIS Vancouver, ILM, Catalyst Media, Rez-Illusion, PIC Agency, Lola and Gentle Giant) came in sixth with $5.189M and has a five-week gross of $158.4M.
Disney's animated BOLT came in seventh place, earning $4.15M and $94.9M in five weeks.
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (Fox Searchlight), getting a boost to 589 theaters (up from 169), placed eighth with $3.05M. In six weeks it has made $12.04M. Fox's AUSTRALIA (vfx by Animal Logic, Photon VFX, Complete Post, Digital Pictures Iloura, Evil Eye Pictures, Framestore, Fuel VFX, Hydraulx, The LaB Syndney, Lola Visual Effects and Rising Sun Pictures) made $2.17M for ninth place and $41.8M in four weeks.
Tenth place went to Sony's QUANTUM OF SOLACE with $2.05M. The James Bond flick (vfx by Double Negative, Framestore, MK12, Machine and MPC) has made $161.2M in six weeks.
In animated films, DreamWorks Animation's MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA earned $1.57M for the weekend and $172.4M in seven weeks. THE POLAR EXPRESS' IMAX reissue earned $253,852 in 26 theaters and in five weeks has grossed $1.118M.
IGOR (MGM) earned $18,382 and in 14 weeks has made $19.42M. Disney-Pixar's WALL-E made $11,074 and in 26 weeks has done $223.773M. IFC's frightener FEAR(S) OF THE DARK made $617 and has a nine-week limited-release gross of $77,876.
Box office information from BoxOfficeMojo.com.
