It’ll be a seriously tight three-way race to number one this weekend, with last week’s top two, Up and The Hangover battling it out with a new film, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. While Imagine That also opening and trying to crack the top five.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 will give the box office it’s first action film in a couple of weeks so moviegoers will like tat, plus it marks the fourth time Denzel Washington has collaborated with Tony Scott, and those ventures always do nicely, and it puts in John Travolta as a bad guy, which sould be good for ticket sales.

Denzel does okay with films like this, Man on Fire made about $23M on its opening frame and Inside Man did about $29M, and American Gangster made over $40M but I doubt this one will match that, instead look for it do like the second one and make around $30M this weekend.

Eddie Murphy has been firing blanks at the box office as of late, what with recent films like Meet Dave failing to attract sizeable audiences, this weekend he returns to that kid-friendly market with Imagine That and even though reviews have been mixed (which is better than what Murphy’s been getting recently) and promotional material thanks to Nickelodeon has been solid enough. However competition for the kids is still there thanks to Up and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian so its take shouldn’t be that big. Look for it to make just a bit over $10M this weekend.

The Hangover was obviously the biggest surprise of the summer with that exceedingly great take on its first weekend, and its hold over the week has been stunning, plus this sort of films, R-rated comedies with great buzz nearly always enjoy terrific legs (like Wedding Crashers or Knocked Up) so look for The Hangover to hang in there with about $30M gettings its cume over $100M, and will probably enjoy unbelievable legs.

Up will probably surpass X-Men Origins: Wolverine to become the year’s third biggest grosser and will probably make just over $30M for the weekend, so you can see how damn tight the race for number one will be. That would get Up’s total to over $185M.

The other family pic, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian will probably make $10M or so. The horrible Land of the Lost will continue its way to become this summer’s Speed Racer, and will probably make only $8M or so this weekend for a horrible total of under $35 on its first ten days.