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LOS ANGELES – Hollywood made audiences repeat senior year. Disney's "High School Musical 3: Senior Year" hauled in $15 million to remain the top movie for the second straight weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Starring Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens in a big-screen sequel to the Disney Channel TV movies, "High School Musical 3" raised its 10-day total to $61.8 million.
Debuting at No. 2 with $10.7 million was the Weinstein Co. comedy "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as pals who do a skin flick to dig themselves out of debt.
Lionsgate's horror sequel "Saw V," the latest tale about psychokiller Jigsaw, slipped from second place to third with $10.1 million, lifting its 10-day total to $45.8 million.
Expanding nationwide after a weekend in limited release was Clint Eastwood's "Changeling," which took in $9.4 million to finish at No. 4. The Universal Pictures drama stars Angelina Jolie as a single mother victimized by police who botched the investigation into her missing son.
Freestyle Releasing's "The Haunting of Molly Hartley" debuted with $6 million to come in at No. 5. The movie stars Haley Bennett as a traumatized teen who finds fresh terror at her new school.
"RocknRolla" — the latest from Madonna's soon-to-be-ex-husband, Guy Ritchie — was a dud as it expanded from limited to nationwide release. The crime romp featuring Gerard Butler and Thandie Newton took in just $1.8 million, finishing well outside the top 10. Madonna and Ritchie announced their separation last month.
After a big surge the previous weekend, Hollywood revenues plunged. The top 12 movies took in $75.2 million, off 38 percent from the same weekend last year, when "American Gangster" opened with $43.6 million and "Bee Movie" debuted with $38 million.
Non-scary movies were hurt with Halloween falling on Friday. "High School Musical 3" did just $1.7 million on Friday, but it rebounded with $8.2 million Saturday.
"The target audience was out collecting candy or trick-or-treating Friday, but Saturday came back like a monster," said Mark Zoradi, president of Disney's motion-picture group.
Likewise, "Zack and Miri" opened with only $2.2 million Friday but pulled in $4.8 million Saturday. The movie also faced some audience resistance over the racy subject matter and the word "Porno" in the title.
"I would anecdotally speculate that that hurt us," said Steve Bunnell, head of distribution for Weinstein, which had trouble placing ads because of the movie's title and themes. "We were surprised that we ended up with the controversy. We thought everybody in America would understand that it was a joke."
The film has nudity but is tame compared to hard-core adult films. Yet the ratings board of the Motion Picture Association of America initially slapped it with an NC-17 rating, the kiss of death at the box office.
Writer-director Kevin Smith talked it down to an R rating on appeal.
James Bond got off to a big start overseas in advance of the U.S. debut of the super-spy's latest adventure, with Sony's "Quantum of Solace" taking in $38.6 million in Great Britain, France and Sweden.
"Quantum of Solace" opens in 57 more countries this week and arrives in U.S. theaters Nov. 14. The film picks up where 2006's "Casino Royale" left off, with Bond (Daniel Craig) out for payback over his lover's death.
Hollywood blockbusters rarely open weeks in advance of their U.S. premiere, but the Bond franchise does a huge ratio of its business overseas. "Casino Royale" took in 72 percent of its $600 million worldwide total outside the United States, said Mark Zucker, Sony's president of international distribution.
"Bond is like a national hero in the UK," Zucker said.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.
The clergyman told stunned casualty nurses he fell backwards on to his kitchen table while hanging curtains.
He happened to be nude at the time of the mishap.
The embarrassed reverend, in his 50s, had to undergo a delicate operation to extract the offending vegetable.
The spud was yesterday revealed to be among a litany of objects medics in Sheffield have removed from people’s nether regions.
Others include a can of deodorant, a cucumber, a Russian doll — and a carnation.
Like most of the other patients, the red-faced vicar insisted to staff at the city’s Northern General Hospital that his predicament was NOT the result of a sex game gone wrong.
A & E nurse Trudi Watson said: “He explained to me, quite sincerely, he had been hanging curtains naked in the kitchen when he fell backwards on to the kitchen table and on to a potato.
[...]She admitted some sex-related emergencies had made staff chuckle. But she urged anyone contemplating sticking something where the sun doesn’t shine to think again.
Ms Watson said: “My advice? Don’t do it.”
SUMTER, S.C. – A 12-year-old boy was shot to death through a front door while trick-or-treating with his family, shocking residents of a South Carolina neighborhood where most people know each other well.
"I just hate it that that little kid got killed. It used to be the quietest place. I knew everybody and everybody knew me," Vivian Johnson, 81, said Saturday.
She has lived for decades two doors from the house where the boy was killed and his father and brother injured Friday night, but she said she does not know the people who live there now.
Police offered no motive and said it did not appear the family knew the people in the house, which is off a busy, two-lane road in Sumter, a city of about 40,000 people 45 miles east of Columbia. On Saturday, shattered glass still covered the front stoop and about 20 bullet holes peppered the front door and a front-window casement.
A 22-year-old man was charged with murder but it wasn't clear how — or if — he was connected to the family.
BERLIN (Reuters) - A public toilet in Munich which has been transformed into an art museum has attracted hundreds of people in the first days after opening, a spokesman for the city's tourism agency said on Thursday.
Built in 1894, the toilet house was originally constructed to serve nearby households which lacked necessary facilities.
After being in use for over a hundred years, the toilets were locked up in 1992 because they were very rarely used.
"On the night we opened, around 800 people came to see our work," initiator of the museum project, Mathias Koehler told Reuters.
He said that a toilet was a great place for artistic expression because art is a form of relief in the same way that going to the toilet is.
The art exhibited is mainly graffiti often with a political theme. Examples include images of Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel flanking a urinal in the corner of the room. Four artists contributed their work to the exhibition.
Although the 70-square meter museum is only temporary, Koehler said he could not rule out making it permanent if public interest remains high.
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