Watching last night's Oscar telecast, you may have felt a warm glow of appreciation for the unusually high quality of this year's nominees, a rush of optimism about the state of cinema. Well, settle down there–while you were fine-tuning your Oscar ballot, the rest of the country was turning out to the local cineplex to see a bunch of crap.
The Dennis Quaid/Forest Whitaker terro-drama Vantage Point took the top spot with a respectable 24 million, while last week's top earner, Jumper, dipped down to No. 2 with about 12.5 million. The top five was rounded out by such illustrious fare as The Spiderwick Chronicles (No. 3), Step Up 2 The Streets (No. 4), and Hey Look, Matthew McConaughey Has His Shirt Off Again (No. 5).
The other new release of note this week, Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, tied with last night's Best Original Screenplay winner, Juno, at No. 7, each grossing 4.1 million. Also hanging out in the top 15 were last night's big names, No Country For Old Men (No. 12) and There Will Be Blood (No. 10), which each jumped two spots from last week (huh, wonder why?).
More detailed numbers available at BoxOfficeMojo.com