Movie box office goes prehistoric

The prehistoric adventure tale “10,000 BC” (Warner Bros) swept the box office for the weekend ending March 9 with a whopping $35.7 million in ticket sales, according to film gross estimates released today. The film by blockbuster director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Godzilla) depicts a group of early civilization dwellers struggling to survive, and the film generated more than twice the amount of any other film this weekend.

Coming in second was the Martin Lawrence comedy “College Road Trip” with $14 million. “Vantage Point,” in its third weekend, brought in $7.5 million, while last week's top film, the basketball spoof “Semi-Pro,” fumbled to the number four position with a $5.8 million score. The weekend's other widely released new film, “The Bank Job,” about a heist in 1970s London, opened with $5.7 million.

The overall movie box office was down 36 percent from the same weekend last year, and it was the fourth straight weekend of down revenue compared with 2007, according to USA Today. Attendance is up just 0.5 percent so far in 2008 compared with a year ago, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "The advantage we've been enjoying over the last couple of months has really taken a punch in the gut," Paul Dergarabedian, Media By Numbers president, told USA Today.

Box office chart from NYTimes.com.