Box office fumble

Week One in a new and unfamiliar post-Charlton Heston universe.

Spring is as slow to come to the national box-office as it is to New England: The weekend take was down 9% from last week and 25% off this time last year.

The top movie was "21" with $15 million its second weekend, beating out newcomers "Leatherheads" ($15.5 million), "Nim's Island" ($13.3 million), and "The Ruins" ($7.8 million). Please note that a football movie starring George Clooney almost got its clock cleaned by a kiddie film featuring a character named Nim.

"Shine a Light," the Rolling Stones concert movie directed by Martin Scorsese, managed a soft $1.5 million at 276 theaters; if I can dig up the IMAX subtotal anywhere I'll post it. The most striking limited-release returns were from a pair of Chinese filmmakers: Wong Kar-wai's first English-language film "My Blueberry Nights" (starring Jude Law and Norah Jones, above) averaged $12,000 per screen in six theaters and Hou Hsiao-hsien's "The Flight of the Red Balloon" made $18,600 per screen in two theaters. Boston gets both films April 18th.

More box office musings from Box Office Mojo and Leonard Klady at Movie City News.