 Evan Almighty less than godlike
The Steve Carell comedy Evan Almighty proved less than omnipotent at the weekend as it topped the US box office with $32.1m. The sequel to 2003's Bruce Almighty, in which Jim Carrey was given deity-like powers to teach him how difficult it is to run the world, made less than half the $68m of its predecessor.
In the new film, Carell plays a congressman who is ordered by God, played by Morgan Freeman, to construct a new ark for a forthcoming flood.
'Evan Almighty' had an unusually large budget for a comedy, due to its expensive special effects. However, Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers, says the film might yet make a return on its $175m budget.
"Opening weekend no longer is the only barometer by which you can determine whether or not a film can turn a profit," Dergarabedian says. "If it finds life in the foreign marketplace, on home video, all those revenue streams are really important. It just has to do well in the long term, then have life after its theatrical distribution."
In second spot, the Stephen King horror 1408 made a respectable $20.2m for the Weinstein Company. It features John Cusack as a man specialising in debunking paranormal occurrences who checks into the reportedly haunted room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel.
The top five was rounded out by the previously released films Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which took $20.2m in third, Ocean's Thirteen, which managed $11.3m in fourth, and Knocked Up, which garnered $10.6m in fifth.
The only other new film in the top 10 was the much publicised A Mighty Heart, starring Angelina Jolie as the wife of journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and killled. It came in at no 10 with a very ordinary Ł4m, but could yet find an audience on DVD if it succeeds at next year's Oscars.
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