The Box Office Three

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On Friday there were three big horses in the box office steeple chase. All the other releases were Shetland ponies flailing around far back in the field ...

Warner Bros. woke up to discover that its hit comedy "The Hangover" held on to the number one box office spot in its second Friday, grossing an estimated $10.44 million at 3,355 venues.

After posting strong midweek figures, the second Friday for "The Hangover" dipped 38%, giving the laffer a running eight-day cume of $82.4 million. The running B.O. for "The Hangover" is almost on par with that of last summer's R-rated comedy champ "Sex and the City" which raked $85.3 million largely from the female set in its first eight days.

Disney-Pixar's "Up" stayed afloat in second place dipping just 33% in its third Friday with $8.8 million from 3,886 theaters ...

Coming in third for Friday was newbie The Taking of Pelham 123, collecting $8,250,000 and looking for a reasonable amount of box office boodle by Sunday night..

Add On:: The weekend finish is about as expected: The Hangover gallops in with $33.4 million (and a $105.4 million total), making Warner Bros perform a jig of joy.

Up comes in second (and third on a per-screen basis), collecting $30.5 million out of a $187.2 million total.

Pelham 1 .2 .3 rakes in $25 million during its initial weekend, achieving the second highest per-screen average for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Monsters Vs. Aliens, down in eighteenth place, has now collected $195.2 million for its domestic run.