By Brill Bundy
Zap2it.com
LOS ANGELES - Despite largely scathing reviews, Jane Fonda’s return to movies to terrorize future daughter-in-law Jennifer Lopez topped the box office with an estimated $24 million, according to Exhibitor Relations. The comedy, which also stars Alias''' Michael Vartan, average $7,017 among its 3424 screens. But it came nowhere close to last year's winner, Troy,’’ which opened to $46.9 million.
For his fifth wide release in a row, Will Ferrell’s Kicking & Screaming'' opened in the No. 2 spot with $20.9 million, joining the ranks of Anchorman,’’ Elf,'' Old School’’ and Zoolander.'' Opening wide but only on 1955 screens, Jet Li's Unleashed’’ came in third with an estimated $10.6 million.
Kingdom of Heaven'' ($9.6 million) and Crash’’ ($7.2 million) round out the Top Five. Kingdom of Heaven'' dropped 51 percent from last week's No. 1 debut, bringing its total gross thus far to $35.1 million. The rest of the Top 10 are made up of films in their second to fourth weeks of release, except for Mindhunters,’’ the thriller starring Val Kilmer, LL Cool J and Christian Slater, which debuted at No. 10 and averaged $1,926 for each of its 1040 screens, bringing its estimated gross to $2 million.
Overall, this week’s Top 12 grossed an estimated $95.5 million, up 21.7 percent from last weekend. Next week, the summer movie season kicks into gear with the premiere of George Lucas’ ``Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith’’ on Thursday.