Road Kill

There's only one major new release at the cineplex this weekend...And it's a remake at that. From the looks of things though, the 2007 version of The Hitcher (reviews) doesn't hold a candle to the 1986 original. Other than that, the race at the box office is all about the award winners

Zachary Knighton (left) and Sophia Bush (right) get ready to fire their agents

In a tag team article for Variety Gabriel Snyder and Dave McNary write:

With only one new wide release this weekend -- Rogue's frightener "The Hitcher," bowing at 2,831 theaters -- most of the activity this weekend will be for kudos contenders expanding to take advantage of this week's Golden Globes and Tuesday's Oscar nominations announcement.

Miramax's "The Queen," for which Helen Mirren won actress (drama) at the Globes, is making the most dramatic expansion, jumping from 344 screens to 1,586, which will be the widest point of release in its 17-week run.

Also expanding are Paramount Vantage's "Babel," which will go from 173 to 889 screens after winning best dramatic film at the Globes; Picturehouse's "Pan's Labyrinth" is going from 194 screens to 609; after Forest Whitaker won a Globe, Fox Searchlight's "The Last King of Scotland" will go from four screens to 495; and Warner Bros.' Globe winner for foreign film, Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima," will get a bump from 35 to 360 theaters.

In addition, Paramount and DreamWorks' "Dreamgirls," which is going into the weekend with a cume of $69 million, will get a bump from 1,907 theaters to 2,214 this weekend after winning best picture in the comedy/musical Globes category.

"Obviously with the publicity we received from the Golden Globes, we wanted to expand by another few hundred runs," said Par distrib topper Jim Tharp. Though the film is now in national release, he said new screens will mostly be in existing markets, "but we're adding some smaller markets."

All the expansions, along with strong holdovers including last week's B.O. champ Sony's "Stomp the Yard" and Fox's holiday hit "Night at the Museum," as well as Sony's "The Pursuit of Happyness," make for a hard-to-predict frame.

Because of the three-day weekend for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, which helps Sunday grosses, falloffs should be steep this weekend.

Sony distrib chief Rory Bruer said, "You hope for the best because of course you're going to get an inflated drop just because of the holiday weekend, but the exits (on 'Stomp the Yard') were so good that we're hopeful that it'll continue to play well."

While many of the pics in the market, including "Stomp" and the prestige pic expansions, are skewing slightly older, Rogue's "Hitcher" is tracking better with the under-25 crowd that tends to support horror pics ...

Bad reviews aside, as the sole big opener of the week, Joshua Rich of Entertainment Weekly says Look for ''The Hitcher'' to ride in front; Adding--Horror remake figures to leave Stiller and ''Stomp'' in the rearview mirror

As an EW Bonus for today: Adam B. Vary reports on Day 1 of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival...and guess what? Event chairman Robert Redford kicked things of on a political note. Imagine that!