Darkness Gets Burned By Fat, Fockers

"Darkness", the not-quite-new horror film from director Jaume Balagueró, opened on the lower half of this week's top ten grossing movies list at number six. "Darkness" has seen its share of bad reviews from the nation's critics - those that bothered to go see the movie at all. The film was originally completed in 2002, but didn't see the light of day until this last weekend, possibly out of fear for how well it would, or would not, do at the box office. Considering it was Christmas weekend, not a time typically known as strong for horror movies, it definitely didn't do as bad as it could have, grossing over 6 million dollars at 1700 screens.

Universal's "Meet the Fockers" dominated the weekend, ringing up $68.5 million since it debuted Wednesday in 3,518 theaters. The movie did $44.7 million over the three-day weekend, finding $19.1 million -- the biggest Christmas Day gross ever -- under its tree on Saturday.

Fight for second place was tight. Based on estimates released Sunday, 20th Century Fox claimed the No. 2 spot for "Fat Albert," which brought in more than $12.7 million from 2,674 theaters in only two days starting on Christmas.

It was closely trailed by Paramount's holdover pic "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events," which did $12.5 million -- down 58% -- from 3,623 locations, bringing cume in its second week to $59.3 million.

Source: Variety