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Moviegoers continued to rush to the multiplexes to catch up on holiday holdovers as the North American box office kicked off 2008 with robust ticket sales that were led by mostly the same movies from last week. Nicolas Cage's adventure sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets remained at number one for the third straight frame, indie darling Juno grew even bigger jumping into third place, and Hollywood's only new release One Missed Call settled for a fifth place finish although its debut was stronger than expected.

Uncovering an estimated $20.2M in its third expedition, the new National Treasure installment retained its box office crown dropping 45% from last weekend. After only 17 days of release, the Disney blockbuster has already grossed a stunning $171M nearly matching the $173M that the first film grossed during its six-month run in theaters. Book of Secrets should surpass that total on Monday or Tuesday and become Cage's top-grossing film ever.

The PG-rated adventure also raced past the studio's own hit Wild Hogs to rank number 12 among all of 2007's blockbuster hits. Secrets should crack the top ten by next weekend joining a long list of other sequels which dominated moviegoing last year. At its current pace, the Cage smash should end up in the neighborhood of $220M domestically. Overseas, Book of Secrets broke through the $100M mark this weekend and stands at a global tally of $271.6M and counting.

There was a tight three-way race for the silver medal this weekend between the last man on earth, a pregnant teen, and a trio of chipmunks. Studio estimates put them within $375,000 of each other and rankings could change on Monday once all of Sunday's votes are counted.

Narrowly taking second place with an estimated $16.4M was Will Smith's superhit I Am Legend dropping 40%. With a towering $228.7M in 24 days, the action hit has become the third biggest blockbuster in the A-list actor's career trailing his mid-90s alien smashes Independence Day ($306.2M) and Men in Black ($250.1M). Legend now ranks as the sixth highest-grossing film of 2007 and the second biggest non-sequel after Transformers ($319.1M). Overseas, the Warner Bros. actioner enjoyed big number one bows in Australia, New Zealand, and Greece and boosted its cume to $170.2M putting the global tally at just under $400M. In North America, Legend seems on course to conclude with $260-270M.

Fox Searchlight gave a major expansion to its runaway hit comedy Juno widening it from 1,019 to 1,925 locations and grossed an estimated $16.2M over the weekend. The per-theater average dipped by only 19% to a sturdy $8,429. Independent films that expand this wide rarely retain such strong averages. Word of mouth has been propelling Juno on the charts and the PG-13 high school tale continues to find new fans, especially with young women. The cume to date shot up to a remarkable $52M with sizable potential still ahead.

Juno now looks set to reach a couple of major milestones at the box office. It will easily surpass the $71.5M of Sideways to become the highest grossing film in company history for Searchlight. At its current pace, the $2.5M-budgeted pregnancy pic will smash through the $100M mark and could go much higher depending on added buzz the film may receive from Golden Globe wins and Oscar nominations. The Ellen Page hit may even challenge Disney's Amy Adams comedy Enchanted to become the top-grossing female-led film of the year.

Right behind with an estimated $16M was Fox's comedy sensation Alvin and the Chipmunks which dropped by 45% in its fourth frame. The PG-rated family film has now collected a massive $176.7M and is less than a week away from surpassing the $183.1M of The Simpsons Movie to become the studio's top-grossing film of 2007. It will also become one of last year's top ten overall blockbusters when it beats Homer and pals. Budgeted at under $70M, Alvin should zoom past the double century mark and finish with $210-220M.

The weekend's only new release found itself with a solid fifth place debut. One Missed Call, a remake of a Japanese horror film, grossed an estimated $13.5M from 2,240 theaters for a strong $6,038 average. The PG-13 film was expected to open with less than $10M. Warner Bros. marketed Call as a creepy thriller for teens and young adults and scored impressive results. Not facing any other new openers also helped.