New Line's Billy Bob Thornton comedy Mr. Woodcock dropped 43% in its second weekend to an estimated $5M putting the ten-day total at $15.7M. A $25-28M final seems likely. Fellow comedy Superbad grossed an estimated $3.1M, off 39%, giving Sony $116.2M to date. The studio also crossed the $1 billion mark in domestic tickets sales for the sixth year in a row.
 
Universal's assassin smash The Bourne Ultimatum dipped only 32% to an estimated $2.8M pushing the domestic haul to $220.2M. Universal can now claim the only two summer films to spend eight weeks in the top ten as the Matt Damon smash joined studio stablemate Knocked Up. Rounding out the top ten was the fantasy adventure Dragon Wars with an estimated $2.5M, down 50%, for a ten-day cume of only $8.6M.
 

Debuting to scorching results in limited release was Sean Penn's latest directorial effort Into the Wild which banked an estimated $207,000 from only four theaters for a potent $51,649 per site. The Paramount Vantage release stars Emile Hirsch, earned strong reviews, and helped critics get the bad taste of Penn's All the King's Men out of their mouths. Wild expands to the top dozen markets next weekend.
 

Warner Bros. got off to a solid start with its Old West tale The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford which made off with an estimated $144,000 from 15 theaters for a $9,600 average. Ten of the locations were in Austin with most double-screening the nearly-three-hour outlaw tale. The Brad Pitt-Casey Affleck starrer earned generally good notices from reviewers and will widen on Friday.
 

With all the new films in wide release, four pictures dropped out of the top ten over the weekend. New Line's Rush Hour 3 took in an estimated $2.2M, off 33%, giving the Jackie Chan-Chris Tucker vehicle $136.1M to date. Look for a final domestic gross of about $142M. Fellow franchise flick Halloween tumbled 56% to an estimated $2.2M as well giving MGM $54.6M to date. A finish of $58M seems likely.
 

A weekend estimate of $1.7M greeted the comedies Balls of Fury from Focus and Mr. Bean's Holiday from Universal. The ping pong pic fell 47% for a cume of $31.3M while the Rowan Atkinson Eurotrip eased 36% and has gathered $30.8M to date. A final domestic tally of $35M should result for each.
 

Expanding successfully was the Sony musical saga Across the Universe with an estimated $2.1M from only 276 theaters for an impressive $7,428 average. The Julie Taymor-directed pic expanded from its platform debut in 23 venues last weekend and has raised its total to $3M.
 

Paramount launched the summer megahit Transformers in Imax theaters over the weekend and saw its weekend take jump 196% to an estimated $1.4M (including sales from standard-format screens). That pushed the cume to $313.6M putting the robots in disguise at number 21 on the list of all-time domestic blockbusters and less than $1 million away from tossing The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ($314.2M) out of the Top 20.
 

The top ten films grossed an estimated $76.2M which was off 1% from last year when Jackass: Number Two debuted in first place with $29M; and down 10% from 2005 when Flightplan opened in the top spot with $24.6M.

Author: Gitesh Pandya, www.BoxOfficeGuru.com