Rat On Top

(Despite the picture, we're not implying that Mr. Willis is a rat, even though his new flick is the top live-action feature in the marketplace. There are only so many Pixar visuals we like to put up in a given week.)

To nobody's particular surprise, Ratatouille collected $16.6 million in its Friday opening, landing at Numero Uno.

Predictably, the other two animated features that have been sailing along are now victims of Brad Bird's backwash, falling out of the top ten...

Shrek the Third occupied the 11th position on Friday, with a $311,891,000 total. Surf's Up now hangs ten in the twelfth spot, with a cume to date of $52,219,000.

The top live action flick (did we say?) is Live Free or Die Hard at #2, gripping a $25,626,000 cume after a Wendesday bow. Welcome back to the upper reaches of the chart, Bruce. It's been kind of a dry spell, big guy...

(This will be a heavy five or six days, what with July 4th falling on Wednesday.)

Update: As the AP reports:

LOS ANGELES - Disney has put a rodent on top of the box office, though not the studio's venerable mascot, Mickey Mouse.

"Ratatouille," an animated comedy about a gourmet rat that gets a chance to cook in a French restaurant, debuted as the No. 1 weekend movie with $47.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

20th Century Fox's action thriller "Live Free or Die Hard," Bruce Willis's return as unstoppable cop John McClane, opened in second-place with $33.15 million. Since opening Wednesday, the movie has grossed $48.2 million.

Sadly, predictably, Shrek 3 (#11 and $313,811,000) and Surf's Up (#12 and $53,814,000) took negative hits of 51.4% and 63.5%.

Update II: Look for some press hand-wringing about how Ratatouille underperformed its predecessors. But $47 million is just shy of many analysts' projections in a competitive weekend.