RELIGULOUS Soars Past $9M and a Seaworthy Debut for MORNING LIGHT

There's now no doubt that Larry Charles RELIGULOUS will pass U23D this week to become the top nonfiction release of 2008.  The film just had its third million dollar-plus weekend (which no other film has accomplished this year) and had a relatively small fall-off from the previous weekend (just 35.2%).  The film will look to become the first $10M title of the year (and first since last year's SICKO) sometime this week.

Four new films debuted in theatres this weekend.  The Walt Disney-released sailing film MORNING LIGHT opened in 55 theatres for a stable, if not exceptional, $2,351 average.  Total box office $129K makes the opening one of the better for nonfiction titles this year.  The film was produced by Roy Disney and directed by Mark Monroe, previously a writer on two recent docs - AMAZING JOURNEY: THE STORY OF THE WHO and ONCE IN A LIFETIME: THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE NEW YORK COSMOS.

In limited release, Caroline Suh's FRONTRUNNERS had one of the better Film Forum openings this year, grossing just over $10K since Wednesday.  The film expands to five more cities this weekend, including LA's Nuart and Boston's Brattle.  John Henning and Mike Roth's timely SAVING MARRIAGE, which opened last week in San Francisco, expanded to Los Angeles and Boston, with an average of just over $4K per.   It opens at NYC's Quad this weekend.

The new top 15 rankings of the nonfiction box office top is after the jump.

1.    U23D (National Geographic)                                             $  9,554,546

2.    RELIGULOUS (Lionsgate)                                               $  9,068,325

3.    EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED (Rocky)      $  7,614,754

4.    SHINE A LIGHT (Paramount Vantage)                             $  5,355,376

5.    YOUNG@HEART (Fox Searchlight)                                 $  3,966,690

6.    MAN ON WIRE (Magnolia)                                               $  2,667,120

7.    UP THE YANGTZE (Zeitgeist/KinoSmith)                          $ 1,365,131

8.    GONZO (Magnolia)                                                          $ 1,236,561

9.    AMERICAN TEEN (Paramount Vantage)                           $    942,411

10.  ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (THINK)    $   932,590

11.  I.O.U.S.A. (Roadside Attractions)                                     $    726,816

12.   VINCE VAUGHN'S WILD WEST... (Picturehouse)            $    603,894

13.  WHERE IN THE WORLD IS OSAMA... (Weinstein)           $    384,955

14.  THE SINGING REVOLUTION (Abramorama)                    $    335,707

15.  TROUBLE THE WATER (Zeitgeist)                                  $   378,388