Spielbergian Box Office

To nobody's surprise, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Noggin is the top money spinner on this box office weekend:.

``Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,'' the fourth film about the archaeologist- adventurer from Viacom Inc.'s Paramount, earned $56 million in ticket sales over two days and may be headed for a record ...

Way back down the track we find Chronicles of Narnia (second go-round) and Iron Man clumped in the second and third positions, with box office totals of $74.7 mill and $237.5 million.

Paramount looks to be having a fine Spring, with Indy and Iron Man racking up big numbers. Less fine for Summner Redstone's shop is that Paramount only collects distribution fees on these two flicks, but that will still pile up into a nice, neat tower of change.

Update: Indy wallops the competition with a $101 million weekend ($126 million to date).

And there are now two Top Ten features enjoying triple digit returns.

Meanwhile Narnia: Prince Caspian takes a 58% dive as it ekes out a second weekend, second-place win against muscular Iron Man (37% drop and a $252.3 million total.)

Using the Koch Box Office Calculator (c), Mr. Jones will likely end his run in the $300 million range (3-4 times initial weekend gross.)

(Caveat: the three-day holiday weekend will maybe skew final numbers a bit.)