By Kofi Outlaw

Welcome to critics rant, where we are now officially psychic! Well not really, but if you do recall, (and here’s a nice fat LINK to help you,) last week I predicted that Animated film BEE MOVIE starring Jerry Seinfeld would make a second-week dash to the top of the box office, once mommy and daddy had cooled off enough from AMERICAN GANGSTER to drive Jr. to the theater.

Turns out I should have been a movie producer.

BEE MOVIE was No. 1 at this week’s box office, taking in an estimated $26 million to barely nudge GANGSTER out of the top spot. Christmas-in-November flick FRED CLAUS debut at $19.2 million to take the No. 3 spot, while political drama LIONS FOR LAMBS landed at No. 4, grossing just $6.7 million despite its all-star cast, and once again proving that times are rough for post-9/11-themed films. The film was star Tom Cruise’s worst debut in more than twenty years—though it still did better than RENDITION.

All in all the box office was down, about 13% from this same time last year when a certain reporter from Kazakhstan gave the box office quite an unexpected boost. Very nice. The box office decline was strange considering that both GANGSTER and BEE MOVIE retained more than 60% of their audiences compared to last week. Guess you can’t win them all.

If you’re wondering what my prediction for next week is I’m going to have to say BEOWULF will slaughter the competition, and maybe even earn some critical cred for adult-themed CGI films. There’s always hope. My wildcard prediction is that, fueled by rabid fan praise across the blogsphere, ‘P2’ will become an overnight smash and go on to become the highest grossing movie of all time.

Until then, rant back and let me know what you think about my new psychic abilities. Pretty sweet right?