I don’t generally do box office posts but I thought I would this week for a few reasons.

First, I Am Legend is heading for a monster opening at about $76 million. I wonder how much of that box office number is attributable to the trailer for The Dark Knight and the six minute prologue in the IMAX version?

Second, last week I predicted that The Golden Compass would bring in about $11 million this weekend. It looks like I was a bit optimistic because it’s on track for earning just over $9 million. It’s also earning more overseas than here in the U.S. as I also predicted.

It looks like the brilliant concept of opening a big budget fantasy film based on an anti-Catholic children’s book a couple of weeks before Christmas shockingly didn’t work out too well.

New Line Pictures, who brought us the most excellent Lord of the Rings trilogy thought that box office lightning might strike again with their release of The Golden Compass.

As Alex Trebek would say: Sorry… no.

I hesitate to call a $26 million opening weekend “bombing,” but when a PG-13 family-targeting movie’s budget is $180 million – it probably applies.