Johnny on the (top) spot

Well, I called it: "Jackass: Number Two" came in at the top of the weekend box office, with a hefty $27.9 million in over 3,000 theaters. The real shock is how many good reviews the movie got. Nothing succeeds like excess.

The other shocker is that "All the King's Men" was unable to squeak out more than $3.7 million, with a $2,460 per-screen-average -- truly puny for a studio film with a known star on opening week. It even got beaten out by "Flyboys" ($5.2 million) and the animated family flick about the talking baseball ($4.7 in its second week). Chalk it up to poisonous reviews, bad word of mouth, and a general sense that Sean Penn had better be doing something incredible to get middle America to pay attention.

A glimmer of art-house hope to wash the taste of "Jackass" from your mouth: Michel Gondry's "The Science of Sleep" pulled in a heroic $25,000 per-screen-average at 14 theaters. Yes, small potatoes, but tasty ones just the same.

More box office noodling here.