Van Helsing slayed the competition on Mother's Day weekend, taking first place in the box-office rankings with about $54.2 million, the Associated Press reported. Van Helsing also earned $53 million internationally after opening simultaneously in 41 countries, the wire service reported.

The first-weekend ticket sales landed between director Stephen Sommers' two previous monster smashes The Mummy, which had $43.3 million in 1999, and The Mummy Returns, which had $68.1 million in 2001, the AP reported. Van Helsing is released by Universal Pictures is currently a unit of Vivendi Universal, which also owns SCIFI.COM. Universal is in the process of being sold to General Electric Co.

The Jennifer Garner fantasy comedy 13 Going on 30, meanwhile, dropped to fifth place, with $5.5 million for the weekend and a three-week tally of $42.6 million, the AP reported.

How??? :unsure:

Perhaps some form of Witchcraft? :blink:

I loved every minute of Van Helsing. Others will probably hate it, but I'm big into my monsters at the moment, and even though it messed with every single piece of vampire/werewolf lore you can think of I still thought it was great fun. There's very little story, but it moves at a cracking pace, the cgi is a bit too much but it is very good, and the score is superb.

Oh, and Kate Beckinsale... :rolleyes:

Wait a minute, she's not a redhead :o

But I bet she could be if she wanted to... :)