It looks like a great weekend at the Box Office with excellent debuts from National Treasure and The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. Nicholas Cage returns to the top of the box office on Friday with an excellent $11M gross for National Treasure. With an $11M gross on Friday, National Treasure will likely gross between $30-33M over the Fri-Sun weekend, making this Cage’s best opening ever.

Not far behind is Paramount’s latest Nickelodean entry The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. It grossed a spongy $9.4M on Friday and looks likely to end the weekend with $28-30M. This figure betters previous Nickelodean debuts from The Rugrats Movie ($27.3M) and Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius ($13.8M).

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason opened wider this weekend and saw it’s number improved slightly over last weekend’s. It grossed $3.3M on Friday and looks likely to end the weekend with $10-11M.

With all this activity from new entries this weekend, The Incredibles, which ruled the box office for the last two weekends, experienced a 50% dropoff from last Friday‘s figure. It grossed $6.6M, still good enough for third.

Box Office Estimates for Friday, Nov. 19 2004

1. National Treasure $11M
2. The Spongebob Squarepants Movie $9.4M
3. The Incredible $6.6M
4. The Polar Express $3.7M
5. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason $3.3M
6. After the Sunset $1.6M
7. Ray $1.2M
8. The Grudge $1.2M
9. Saw $0.9M
10. Seed of Chucky $0.9M


Source: Box Office Mojo © 2004, used with permission.