This weekend, Sony will be partying like it's 2003.

On Friday, February 14, 2003, Daredevil (Fox), starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, opened to the third biggest February three-day weekend in history at $40.3 million, on its way to a total domestic gross of $102.5 million. Lightning is about to strike again -- we've got a story about a B-level comic book character, featuring a leading man with a spotty box office record in the title role, and a rising young ingénue providing the romantic interest, all in a film written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson. As I reported on Tuesday, Ghost Rider (Sony) is tracking through the roof.

It's really tough to get all geeked out when the No. 1 film in the country grosses a mere $15 million, especially in the middle of the holiday season. Certainly those who drafted Apocalypto AFTER their cohorts drafted The Holiday and Blood Diamond can take a measure of satisfaction out of collecting 5 Top 5 points, but it will all be short-lived with the trio of big openers due out this weekend (Charlotte's Web, The Pursuit of Happyness and Eragon).

It's great to know the Good Lord and His/Her followers recognize pandering when it's as obvious as New Line's Hallmark retelling of The Nativity Story. With less than $10 million in projected receipts, it's clear that those who flocked and flocked to the Christian-friendly The Passion of the Christ, were not moved to the theaters to watch what, by all accounts, is a slow, by-the-book telling of the Joseph and Mary story. So if you drafted it early in hopes the little-served religious audiences would put Natvity on their Movie wish list, then you put your faith in the wrong film.

Ho-Hum. Staying very strong atop the box office this week are Happy Feet and Casino Royale. Finishing 1-2 for the second weekend in a row, both films show little erosion from their opening numbers for the three-day weekend -- especially when you figure in the elevated Wednesday-Thursday-Friday figures because of the Thanksgiving Holiday. Happy Feet has proven to be THE family film to own in the regular Moguls game having just about reached the $100 million plateau after just 10 days in release. 

Now I'm no lawyer, but with the rash of lawsuits being hurled at 20th Century Fox and the producers of Borat, I'm wondering why Michael Richards and his lawyers haven't adopted the "under the influence of Borat" defense for his Laugh Factory tirade. Seems plausible. The movie about the Kazakh reporter is in the forefront of the current zeitgeist and Mr. Richards hasn't been relevant for eight-plus years … so I'd buy this explanation. I'd also, of course, accept that he's a bigot. 

So now everybody got their predictions right.  After an opening weekend for Borat that definitively proved the adage often quoted on this site, “Nobody Knows Anything” (and in this instance, not only was every prognosticator wrong, but so was the all-mighty ‘tracking’, and 20th Century Fox), Borat comfortably finishes this weekend at Number 1. 

What a country!  Not since Yakov Smirnoff uttered these words have Americans embraced a merry prankster from the Baltic States quite like they have Borat Sagdiyev. (Unless of course you include Gorbachev and his wacky attempt to instill capitalism in Russia.)

Guess what movie you should think about drafting in your Moguls 2007 game?  Yes, an opening weekend of $34 million guarantees Horror fans the premiere of Saw 4 next Halloween.  And nobody could blame you for wanting to own it.  Defying the recent trend of Horror fatigue, the annual domination of this clever series featuring the mastermind of torture, Jigsaw, continues to show its teeth.  Get it?  Teeth.  Like teeth from a saw blade…okay, it’s been a rough weekend so I’ll refrain from further comedy.

Does this mean we're about to see studios put 20 magicina pictures into production? Fearing The Illsuionist had stolen much of its thunder, a concerned Disney opened The Prestige, the Chris Nolan directed period piece about competing magicians to a surprisingly healthy 1st place showing.

Wither a genre? Evidently the answer is yes. Just one short year after entrancing audiences, it seems we are experiencing a collective Truman Capote fatigue as Infamous fails to connect with an upscale crowd. With a flailing PTA hovering just above $2000 per theater, it's a sad day for the studios who had no less than seven more films on the release schedule focusing on the enigmatic, resplendent, socially connected author of In Cold Blood. Wait. That's not the genre proven to be a death's door after this weekend? Oops. Okay then. I guess I will also declare that Horror is dead too.