BOX OFFICE: You made the SMART and let's face it, only choice this weekend!

Thank God, Get Smart topped the weekend and not The Love Guru. Thank the heavens. Steve Carell once again proves his draw as one of America's top actors. The Warner Bros. remake of the 60's Mel Brooks t.v. show Get Smart opened with an impressive $39.2 million taking, Carell quickly putting the lame duck that was Evan Almighty behind him.

Budgeted at $80 million, Get Smart needed a really good leap out of the blocks and it got it, easily outbeating the kind of similar spoof... the 1997 Bond homage Austin Powers by $30 million. Austin Powers of course starred Mike Myers and propelled him into one of the most popular comedians of the turn of the century and two big money making sequels. However in June 2008, The trailer for The Love Guru, showed a Michael Myers who has completely lost touch with his audience and was an embarrassing return to live action movies after a four year break since The Cat in the Hat. With his movie about Pitka, a strange Indian guru and with all the traits of an Austin Powers mannerisms, supporting characters and humor - one really does wonder why he didn't just return with a fourth movie to the popular series? In the end The Love Guru was the worst opening for a Myers led film in over ten years with $14 million and fourth place. Well, well below it's $62 million budget. 1 Get Smart (2008) $39.2M $39.2M 2 Kung Fu Panda (2008) $21.7M $156M 3 The Incredible Hulk (2008) $21.6M $96.5M 4 The Love Guru (2008) $14M $14M 5 The Happening (2008) $10M $50.3M 6 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) $8.41M $291M 7 You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008) $7.2M $84.1M 8 Sex and the City (2008) $6.46M $132M 9 Iron Man (2008) $4M $305M 10 The Strangers (2008) $1.95M $49.6M A good second week for Kung Fu Panda, the Jack Black voiced Dreamworks animated comedy dropped a meager 35% and has now totalled $156 million. It has the Pixar giant Wall-E to contend with next week so this was a very good number. Marvel though won't be so pleased with it's second big superhero release of 2008. The Incredible Hulk dropped another 61% and $96 million over two weeks and a weekend. It's currently $4 million behind Ang Lee's movie at the same point, which is not good news at all. The big drop off's from the original 2003 film led to a big new direction for the series, so God knows how they will handle this one but a sequel ain't as guaranteed here as it is for Iron Man. M. Night Shyamalan's loyal legion of fans took the journey to The Happening on the opening weekend, not leaving much of an audience for the second week. It dropped a big 67% and currently totals $50 million. The two biggest films of the year - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is on $291 million domestic (and over $600 million worldwide) and Iron Man on $304 million ($554 million worldwide). source - coming soon