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It was one of those rare Oscar weekends when not one nominated movie made it into the top 10 at the U.S. box office.

Neither the Academy Award hopefuls nor the four wide releases entering the market did enough business to dislodge Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion from first place. Madea’s took in an estimated $13 million, bringing its two-weekend total to about $48.1 million.

Its closest competitor, the Bruce Willis-Mos Def vehicle 16 Blocks, grossed about $11.7 million in its debut.

Other newcomers in the top 10 were the Milla Jovovich sci-fi/action movie Ultraviolet with $9 million in fourth place, mermaid-out-of-water comedy Aquamarine in fifth with $7.5 million, and the hip-hop musical documentary Dave Chappelle’s Block Party in seventh with $6.5 million.

While business for many Oscar-nominated films had fallen in recent weeks, it increased for a few.

Brokeback Mountain, which lost 87 theatres, saw nearly a 10 per cent increase over last weekend with $2.5 million and a total of $79.9 million.

With 269 additional theatres, Capote jumped almost 89 per cent to $2 million, and $25.9 million to date.

The Weinstein Co. and IFC Films more than doubled the theatres for actress nominee Felicity Huffman’s Transamerica to 656, resulting in an almost 85 per cent jump to nearly $1.6 million and a total of $6.6 million.

Among foreign-language film nominees, Joyeux Noel opened in six theatres with about $50,133.

With most of the Academy Award nominees peaking in the weeks after the nominations, and the current weekend’s ho-hum debuts, box office was down 14 per cent compared with last year’s Oscar weekend (which was a week earlier), according to tracking service Nielsen EDI.[[In-content Ad]]

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