..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

You Got Clipped! Barbershop 2 was Back in Business as the sequel bettered its inspiration with an estimated $24.5 million debut to lead the weekend box office charts. There was also good news for Disney's ice hockey opus Miracle with a second place finish of $18.9 million. The two films propelled the weekend to roughly $110 million, a 15% higher gross from last weekend when movie going was eroded by Super Bowl Sunday. However, business declined about 9% from 2003 when the top two films, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Shanghai Knights debuted respectively with $23.8 million and $19.6 million. While the collective gross for the respective pairs was identical, what lies beneath changed substantially. The chief difference is that the traditional Oscar boost hasn't occurred with the same sort of force in the past. At this stage, there isn't a startling transformative commercial result domestically on the order of, for instance, The Pianist. Nor is there a well-timed campaign that has capitalized on awards for box office such as happened to Chicago in 2003. Barbershop 2 arrived with a gross roughly 20% better then the 2001 original. However, the sequel by dint of the prior success was able to open in about 1,100 more theaters and on location averages declined some 30%. The result was still considerably better than the norm for follow-ups and strong exit response could well result in a final tally comparable to the first film's $75 million record. Miracle, based on the surprise 1980 Olympic victory for America's inexperienced hockey team, made excellent mileage emphasizing the drama and downplaying the sporting theme. Disney marketing has created a mini-genre in this arena with such films as Remember the Titans and The Rookie that others, particularly Sony's Radio, have emulated against the industry advice that: sports movies is poison at the box office. The third national release - the pre-teen-targeted Catch That Kid - failed to ride the same commercial wave, finishing sixth overall with approximately $5.9 million. The best one could say about the programmer was that it looks like a recouper … but that's just a nice spin and not the Hollywood business plan. Sony's holdover teen pic You Got Served proved to have more bounce than anticipated despite the seemingly steep 54% second week drop to $7.4 million. What's staving off a more rapid decline is the film's unexpectedly fierce appeal to kids and young teens that generally aren't polled by industry trackers. The frame also saw a number of specialized debuts that included Fox Searchlight's five- screen launch of Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial The Dreamers. The sexually explicit period drama grossed an impressive $144,000 with many more hurdles to clear before one can determine its ultimate appeal. There's also a big question mark hanging over Sony Rep's horror spoof Lost Skeleton of the Cadavera that scored a little better than $11,000 on a single L.A. screen. The current template for this sort of film is Bubba Ho-Tep that's still in limited release with a gross of more than $1 million to date. Also bowing were a couple of touted but didn't make the cut foreign-language hopefuls. Venice-prized The Return from Russia generated an OK near $20,000 from three theaters while Afghanistan's Golden Globe winning Osama racked up more than $50,000 from four screens. Brazil's City of God - nominated in four categories - added 160 engagements and got a nice second wind of $330,000. Other current Oscar beneficiaries include Mystic River, Lost in Translation and Master and Commander. Award recognition is also keeping In America afloat, providing Girl with a Pearl Earring a strong niche profile and contributing mightily to the commercial stamina of Monster. - by Leonard Klady