Read into this what you will. Last week, we reported that the box office take in the US for New Line’s big potential trilogy hope, The Golden Compass, had fallen some way behind expectations. Its ratified take for its opening weekend was ‘just’ $25.7m, and while it’s been doing better intertnationally, that’s still an amount some $10m below expectations.

Its second weekend results are now in, and The Golden Compass has sunk still further. It dropped off an immense 65% from its first weekend take, bringing in $9m on its second week, for a running total of $40m. It’s taken nearly ten days to bring in what New Line would have been hoping for in three, and even if the international box office does help pull it through, there’s such a hole on the Excel spreadsheet now that it’s all but certain the trilogy plans are dead.

So are you ready to be depressed? What did clean up while The Golden Compass was floundering was Alvin and the Chipmunks. It brought in $45m in its opening weekend, and you can bet your arse there’ll be a sequel to that on the way.

The US box office, incidentally, was topped by the opening of I Am Legend, which pulled in a huge $76.5m. That’s an opening weekend in excess of Transformers, of The Simpsons Movie, of The Bourne Ultimatum and many more. Expect Will Smith to go back to the sci-fi well again in the future. You can find our review of I Am Legend here…