Box Office: Olympics Take Gold, Watcher Gets Silver, Bait Earns Bronze

September 17 -- The lowest box-office numbers in more than three years are being blamed on the Olympics, which kicked off in Sydney, Australia, this weekend.

Audiences mostly stayed home, refusing to take the Bait offered by the new comedy-thriller starring Jamie Foxx or to watch The Watcher.

The Keanu Reeves serial killer The Watcher, in its second week, topped an enervated box office with an estimated $5.7 million, while Bait nipped at its heels with $5.5 million. Warner Bros.' Dan Fellman, commenting on Bait's performance, said, "This has been a tough weekend with the Olympics. I think the Olympics did take attention away … there's no question about it."

Not since January 1997 — when another sporting event, Super Bowl XXXI, kept folks out of theaters — have we seen a worse weekend performance. (The No. 1 movie that dismal week? Director Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire, which had opened six weeks prior.)

Almost Famous Only Bright SpotSpeaking of Cameron Crowe, the rock and roll opus Almost Famous, his first film since Jerry Maguire, proved to be the only bright spot in the weekend Top 10. Playing on only 131 screens, the film, which stars Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Kate Hudson, and Jason Lee, averaged a whopping $17,557 per screen, for a No. 8 ranking.

DreamWorks plans to open the critically acclaimed Famous slowly, as it did with its Oscar-sweeping American Beauty last year. Almost Famous is already one of the best-reviewed movies of the year, and Oscar talk is beginning for the nostalgic, autobiographical film by former rock journalist Crowe.

Duets' Dull DebutGwyneth Paltrow's karaoke drama, Duets, directed by her father, Bruce Paltrow, opened in ninth place with $2 million. And Crime + Punishment in Suburbia, the Cliff's Notes-meets-MTV take on the classic existential tale by Dostoevsky, opened out of the Top 10 with a mere $10,000 from five screens.

Scary Movie, Beneath Rise AgainTaking advantage of the weakened theater offerings, Miramax pushed Scary Movie onto 1,997 theaters, compared with 373 sites last week. The move paid off for the horror movie spoof, which rose from No. 34 to tie with Duets for ninth place.