'Cars' Passes 'The Omen,' Lindsay Lohan In Box-Office Race
Owen Wilson and Paul Newman revved their engines and drove the animated film "Cars" straight to #1 on the box-office top 10.
The Pixar family film debuted in the top spot with $62.8 million, according to early estimates. That number was high enough to make the film the third-best opening for Disney-Pixar films, behind "The Incredibles" and "Finding Nemo."
"Cars," which knocked last week's #1 film, "The Break-Up" to #2, centers on Wilson's Lightning McQueen, a speed-hungry race car who finds himself slowed down in the sleepy town of Radiator Springs.
"The Break-Up," starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn as a couple that decides to separate but can't agree on who should get their shared apartment [article id="1533270"] (see "Aniston And Vaughn Fight For Laughs In The So-Familiar-It-Hurts 'Break-Up' ")[/article], shifted down a spot, coming in at #2 with more than $20.4 million.
Also slipping a notch this week is "X-Men: The Last Stand." The series' latest installment -- which focuses on the X-Men's choice to embrace or fight a possible cure for their mutations (see [article id="1532557"]"Nine Things You Need to Know Before Seeing 'X-Men' This Weekend"[/article]) -- fell from #2 to #3, earning more than $15.5 million during its third weekend in theaters. The movie, which broke a box-office record with its Memorial Day weekend earnings, reached another milestone this week, becoming the first film of the year to earn more than $200 million.
Embracing the once-in-a-millennium 6.6.06, the remake of "The Omen" -- starring Julia Stiles as the mother of a child who may be the spawn of Satan (see [article id="1533329"]"For The 'Omen' Cast, All Signs Point To Good Old Evil"[/article]) -- opened Tuesday in hopes of cashing in on the fright-inducing date and earned $12.6 million and set a Tuesday box-office record in the process. The film, which took in more than $15.4 million from Friday to Sunday, opened at #4 on the weekend box-office top 10 and earned an estimated $35.7 million over six days.
With two new releases cracking the upper half of the top 10, "Over the Hedge" dropped two spots from #3 to #5 with more than $10.3 million. Avril Lavigne, Steve Carell and Bruce Willis lend their voices to the family film, which centers on a group of woodland creatures that find themselves wondering whether the grass really is greener on the other side -- of the hedge recently erected in the middle of the land they call home (see [article id="1532012"]"Look Out For Avril, Bruce Willis Digging In Your Trash"[/article]).
"The Da Vinci Code" also dropped two notches, slipping from #4 to #6. The movie, starring Tom Hanks as a symbologist dispatched to solve a mysterious death at the Louvre (see [article id="1531661"]"Ian McKellen Sticks Up For Evil In 'Da Vinci Code,' 'X-Men' "[/article]), earned $10.3 million.
The Robert Altman film "A Prairie Home Companion," starring Lindsay Lohan and Meryl Streep, bowed at #7 with more than $4.6 million.
Rounding out the box-office top 10 are "Mission: Impossible III," which fell from #5 to #8 with more than $3 million; "RV," which dropped from #7 to #9 with $2 million; and "Poseidon," which tumbled from #6 to #10 with more than $1.8 million.
Overall, ticket sales were up from the corresponding weekend last year.
Next week, look for "Nacho Libre," "The Lake House" and "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" to debut on the box-office top 10.
See everything we've got on "Cars," "The Break-Up" and "X-Men: The Last Stand."
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