The last weekend before a 16 days school break posted slow box office receipts in Israel. 16% off from last week. Even “Monsters Vs. Aliens”, leading the pack. got off slowly (50% of the tickets sold were for the 3D shows, although 3D screens are one-fifth of all of “MVA”’s screen count).

Israeli-French production of “Comme Ton Pere”, directed by Marco Carmel, posted even weaker numbers in its opening weekend, coming in at number 7.

It should be noted that the best selling movie in Israel right now is “Slumdog Millionaire”, with receipts of over 2.4 million dollars (over 300,000 tickets sold, nearly as much as last year’s box office champ, “Kung Fu Panda”). But the film’s distributor, Lev Cinemas, refuses to disclose actual figures, so it’s off the chart.

And as usual in Israel: animation, family movies and romantic comedies are at the lead. Horror movies and comic book adaptations are terrible with local crowds.

Here are the top 12 movies at the Israeli box office for the weekend of 26-29 March, 2009:

1 Monsters Vs. Aliens, $117,057. 55 screens. $2,128 average. $117,057 Cume. Week 1
2 Duplicity, $73,267. (change: -38.8%). 29 screens. $2,526 average. $230,042 cume. Week 2
3 Marley and Me, $42,198. (change: -33.9%). 19 screens. $2,221 average. $286,939 cume. Week 3
4 Gran Torino, $32,190. (change: -30.5%). 19 screens. $1,694 average. $484,410 cume. Week 5
5 Beverly Hills Chihuahua, $19,992 (change: -30.2%). 28 screens. $714 average. $375,482 cume.
6 Watchmen, $18,196. (change: -43.1%). 19 screens. $958 average. $235,819 cume. Week 4
7 Comme Ton Pere, $16,000. 19 screens. $842 average. $16,000 cume. Week 1.
8 He’s Just Not That Into You, $14,456 (chnge: -31.6%). 12 screens. $1,205 avrg. $630,868 cume.
9 Hotel for Dogs, $13,043 (change: -32.9%), 15 screens. $870 average. $202,031 cume. Week 3
10 Friday the 13th $7,774 (change: -52.0%), 10 screens. $777 average. $70,012 cume. Week 3
11 Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, $2,725 (change: -76.7%). $545 average. $16,919 cume. Week 2
12 Rachel Getting Married, $1,909 (change: -5.1%). 1 screen. $1,909 average. $12,229 cume. Week 4