1. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby—$23 million
We have a paranoid suspicion that Sony has now compiled a chart that converts various Will Ferrell antics into opening weekend box office dollars, indicating that each time the jiggly, pasty Ferrell frantically runs in circles while wearing nothing but a helmet and his underwear, another $10 million is accrued. The studio is currently pressuring the actor and screenwriter/director/caddy Adam McKay to build an entire movie around a similar money shot, in which Ferrell would star as a semi-nudist Viking middle-distance runner who believes his skills are derived from his magic, horned racing hat. And because we've now written ourselves into a corner with this conceit, we must provide a working title for the project: Horns Of Victory: The Thor Bj rnsson Saga.

2. Step Up—$21 million
By following up Save the Last Dance with Step Up screenwriter Duane Adler has clearly established himself as the go-to guy for movies that no straight male or female above the age of 17 should ever be allowed to see.

3. World Trade Center—$19.096 million
Paramount's executives will express public happiness about their nonexploitative 9/11 product's opening weekend, but WTC is all sad-face :-( over not evening getting to $20 million this weekend and finishing behind a silly dance movie that totally sucked up all the teen moviegoing dollars it had been hoping for. Drop by your best online pal's MySpace page and reassure it that it's still pimp =]!

4. Barnyard: The Original Party Animals—$10.069 million
Our minds are still kind of blown over Paramount's bizarre, anatomically nonsensical decision to slap udders on all of its Barnyard "cows," regardless of gender. We suggest that all male Paramount employees bring their babies to work and insist on publicly breastfeeding them as a show of protest against the studio's stupidity.

5. Pulse—$8.456 million
From IMDb: "Imagine our wireless technologies made a connection to a world beyond our own. Imagine that world used that technology as a doorway into ours. Now, imagine the connection we made can't be shut down. When you turn on your cell phone or log on to your e-mail, they'll get in, you'll be infected and they'll be able to take from you what they don't have anymore — life."

So this is where we stand in the horror genre right now: A cellphone message alert shatters an incredibly eerie silence, a terrified teen scrolls through her inbox, opens up a text message, then drops dead, having discovered the hard way that American Idol vote confirmations can be so very deadly.

• August 4-6, 2006 Studio Estimates [Box Office Mojo]

1. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby—$47 million
By opening Talladega Nights in shouting distance of $50 million, studios will decide that not only is Will Ferrell the biggest comedy star in Hollywood, he is the only comedy star in Hollywood. Accordingly, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey, and Steve Carell will be dropped from all projects currently in development and their roles reassigned to Ferrell, and movies already in production will undergo extensive reshoots to include a co-leading Ferrell character. (All Luke Wilson projects will just be scrapped.) Any writer or director who fails to begin a comedy pitch with the phrase, "Will Ferrell is a [occupation typically performed by men brimming with dim-witted bravado]" will be laughed out of the office, and only ideas that incorporate Sacha Baron Cohen as a gay or gay-seeming, foreign-born foil will have any chance of being greenlighted. Ferrell's quote will quickly swell to $50 million per picture, but risk-averse studios who have been burned by too many Duprees and Super Ex-Girlfriends will happily pay it.

2. Barnyard—$16.04 million
Apparently, no one bothered to tell any of the animators or Paramount creative executives responsible for Barnyard that "male cows" do not have udders. We'd really love to have been present for the conversation that resulted in all of Barnyard's male bovines being rendered with mammary glands:

"Well, you see, udders...they produce milk. Only the females of the species have them."

"Hold on, what?"

"Udders. Mammaries. Think about it this way: would you have wanted Tom Cruise to have breasts in M:i:III?"

[long pause for serious contemplation] "Probably not. No. Why has no one brought this up before?"

"We've been trying to tell you this for months."

"Let's not assign blame here. How much is it going to cost to digitally de-udder the males?"

"$10 million."

"That's just not in the budget."

"So what the hell do we do? We're gonna get killed on this by anyone who's got above a kindergarten education."

"Fuck." [longer pause] "I've got it! If anyone asks, the boy cows don't have udders. They have four penises. Throw in a line about how the farmers' use of pesiticides made all of the boy cows grow extraneous genitalia. How much would that cost?"

"Nothing, Mr. Grey."

"Done. Whew, I feel so much better about this."

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest—$11.01 million
At this point, there's really nothing left to say but just give you the current domestic total: $379,709,000. Do with that number what you will.

4. Miami Vice—$9.683 million
If you haven't seen Vice yet, you've been depriving yourself of the opportunity for a lively, post-show debate over whether the Irish-born Colin Farrell or Chinese co-star Gong-Li won their on-set wager over who could deliver the most lines completely without intonation or affect.

5. The Descent—$8.8 million
Needing to retrench after a disappointing opening weekend, Lionsgate will alter all promotional materials for The Descent to include the copy, "Exactly like Saw and Hostel in every way—just think of it as Saw III and Hostel 2 rolled up into one movie!"

• August 4-6, 2006 Studio Estimates [Box Office Mojo]