Box Office Review: Semi-Pro a semi-hit

Still the champ but diminished | Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema

It's usually good news for a movie when it wins the weekend box-office race. When the movie severely underperforms expectations, however, that win feels like more of a Pyrrhic victory. Such was the case with Semi-Pro this weekend as it only brought in about half of what was expected--a lowly $15.3M. Last week's champ, Vantage Point, held up well and took second with $13M ($41M). Another vet, The Spiderwick Chronicles also showed resilience as it continued to dominate the family market with an $8.7M haul ($55M).

Newcomer The Other Boleyn Girl performed better than expected, taking in $8.3M and averaging a top-10 best $7118 per venue. Jumper ($7.6M/$66.8M), Step Up 2 the Streets ($5.7M/$48.5M) and Fool's Gold ($4.6M/$59M) took the next three spots, beating out the weekend's final newcomer Penelope which gathered in $4M. Oscar winner No Country for Old Men went wide again after its big night ($4M/$69.5M) while Juno continued to print money ($3.3M/$135.1M). In limited release, neither City of Men ($1626 per theater) nor Chicago 10 ($3200) did much of anything and will likely disappear from theaters very soon.