Without any football to distract moviegoers, multiplex attendance is up 28 percent from a week ago when a Steelers playoff game savaged Sunday movie attendance.
Family films, newcomers and awards winners were the primary beneficiaries.
"Big Momma's House 2," with Martin Lawrence as an FBI agent going undercover and into drag again, is the No. 1 movie here and across the country in its debut.
"Nanny McPhee," written by star Emma Thompson, premieres a distant No. 2 nationally but a close second in the Pittsburgh area. Thompson plays an unattractive nanny who restores order to a motherless home from which the seven children have chased 17 earlier nannies.
Third here is the steadily expanding "Brokeback Mountain," whose attendance increased by 48 percent. Already the season's leading awards winner, it figures to do even better when Academy Award nominations are announced today.
The animated spoof "Hoodwinked" ranks fourth locally, up seven percent.
"Annapolis" debuts in fifth place. It contains some of the elements of "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982) but without the name players.
"Underworld: Evolution," last week's champ, tumbles to sixth place locally with a 43 percent dip in revenue.
"Glory Road" slides into seventh spot, down 31 percent.
"The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is eighth here, doing 95 percent better than last week. Sounds as if more Sunday-afternoon chauffeurs and chaperones were available.
"Walk the Line" is rebounding mightily in its 11th week with stars Joaquin Phoenix and especially Reese Witherspoon winning awards and having clips from their film exhibited on every show. The film is running ninth locally.
"Fun With Dick & Jane," which turned out to have more staying power than "King Kong," checks in at No. 10, down only 14 percent.
Of note among the pictures not playing here, Steven Soderbergh's $1.5 million "Bubble" did only $72,000 at 32 theaters in the country's largest markets, including New York City.
The film's main point of interest is that within the space of a week, it premiered in theaters, on the HDNet cable channel and on DVD.
Due Friday in theaters are "Ballet Russes," "Mrs. Henderson Presents," "When a Stranger Calls," "Ellie Parker" and "Something New."
You'll be able to get the best seat in the house at any moviehouse here during the Super Bowl Sunday evening.
Blockbuster finale
The third local engagement of a national touring company of "The Phantom of the Opera" concluded its four-week engagement Sunday at Benedum Center with a final week in which 22,558 patrons paid $1,272,236. That's 99.99 percent of capacity.
The entire engagement grossed $4,930,149.
During the touring company's local engagement, its New York City sibling became the all-time longest running show in Broadway history.
