Special applause for two debuts

Whether it amounts to the reversal of a trend is too early to tell, but “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “The Wedding Crashers” lured audiences back to the movies this weekend.

Director Tim Burton’s offbeat family film “Charlie,” starring Johnny Depp as the eccentric candy-man from Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book, took in an estimated $55.4 million, Warner Bros. reported Sunday. The R-rated comedy “Crashers,” directed by David Dobkin and featuring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as a pair of lotharios who depend on the nuptials of strangers for hookups with women, brought in $32.2 million, according to New Line Cinema estimates.

The performance of “Charlie” makes it Depp’s best opening, topping “Pirates of the Caribbean” ($46.4 million in July 2003), according to box office tracking firm Nielsen EDI. The numbers also represent the third-best Friday-Saturday-Sunday opening this year, after “Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith” and “War of the Worlds.”

Audiences for “Charlie” skewed female among all age groups, said Dan Fellman, president of distribution for Warner Bros., who added, “This weekend is the first substantial uptick in box office in quite a while.”

The estimated box office tally of $159 million for all films in the current weekend is 4% ahead of the comparable period last year, according to EDI.

For New Line, the solid showing for “Wedding Crashers” validated the studio’s decision to stay true to the material and stick with an R rating.

“We’ve got a really funny movie,” said David Tuckerman, president of distribution for New Line.

“Obviously the R rating will hurt you, but this movie would not be the same movie.”

Among holdovers, “Fantastic Four” dropped 59% in its second weekend, with 20th Century Fox reporting $22.7 million for the comic book film about a quartet of unlikely superheroes. “War of the Worlds” added $15 million more, bringing the domestic total for Steven Spielberg’s science-fiction saga to $192.2 million.

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Box Office

Preliminary results (in millions) based on studio projections.

*--* Movie 3-day gross Total

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*--* Charlie and the Chocolate Factory $55.4 $55.4

Wedding Crashers 32.2 32.2

Fantastic Four 22.7 100.1

War of the Worlds 15.0 192.2

Batman Begins 5.6 182.7

Mr. & Mrs. Smith 5.1 168.1

Dark Water 4.4 18.7

Herbie: Fully Loaded 3.4 55.7

Bewitched 2.4 56.9

Madagascar 2.1 183.8 Source: Nielsen EDI Inc. Los Angeles Times

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