'Black Hawk Down' stays on box-office top

LOS ANGELES -- A slow Super Bowl weekend at theaters helped lift "Black Hawk Down" to another box-office victory as the combat thriller took in $11.5 million to remain the No. 1 film for the third straight weekend.

Only a couple of fresh movies were released, leaving the top 10 largely the same as last week, when studios dumped out a rush of new films.

"Snow Dogs" was No. 2 for the third weekend in a row, grossing $9.9 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. The rest of the top five was bunched tightly, with "The Count of Monte Cristo" at $9 million, "A Walk to Remember" at $8.8 million and "A Beautiful Mind" at $8.5 million.

The gross-out campus comedy "Slackers" debuted weakly with $3 million, tying for No. 10 with "Orange County." Playing in 1,893 theaters, "Slackers" averaged just $1,585, compared to $3,659 in 3,143 theaters for "Black Hawk Down."

Nicole Kidman's latest, "Birthday Girl," took in $2.5 million in 1,000 theaters for a $2,500 average. Kidman plays a Russian mail-order bride whose arrival wrecks the life of a lonely British bank clerk (Ben Chaplin).

"The newcomers couldn't get arrested this weekend," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks the box office.

"Black Hawk Down," director Ridley Scott's fiery dramatization of a U.S. military operation gone awry in Somalia, has taken in $75.5 million. The film was in its third weekend of wide release after a limited debut in December.

Because of the Super Bowl, studios lowered estimates for Sunday film revenues, expecting the game to keep audiences at home. Sony figured ticket sales for "Black Hawk Down" on Sunday would be off about 65 percent from Saturday. The normal drop between Saturday and Sunday would be 35 to 40 percent, said Jeff Blake, Sony president of worldwide marketing and distribution.

"The bottom line for the Super Bowl is it's a slow movie-going day," Blake said.