Nicolas Cage may be running out of storage room for his loot.
Walt Disney Pictures' "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," with Cage as a history buff on the trail of a lost city of gold, was the No. 1 box office draw for the third straight weekend with $20.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday (Jan. 6).
"Book of Secrets" raised its domestic total to $171 million in three weeks, putting it just $2 million shy of the total that 2004's "National Treasure" rang up during its entire run.
The first weekend of 2008 was promising for Hollywood , continuing a holiday box office surge that followed a weak fall season. The top 12 movies took in $123.9 million, up 18.5 percent from the first weekend of 2007.
In “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” Ben Gates (Cage) once again sets out on an exhilarating, action-packed new global quest to unearth hidden history and treasures. When a missing page from the diary of John Wilkes Booth surfaces, Ben’s great-great grandfather is suddenly implicated as a key conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s death. Determined to prove his ancestor’s innocence, Ben follows an international chain of clues that takes him on a chase from Paris to London and ultimately back to America . This journey leads Ben and his crew not only to surprising revelations – but to the trail of the world’s most treasured secrets.
Opening across the Philippines on Jan. 8, “National Treasure: Book of Secrets” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International through Columbia Pictures. – Jay Gonzales
