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Another full slate of films greets this January weekend, as studios try to shed that Christmas fat. Four new releases jump into the market, with a couple of holiday holdovers still hoping to stay in the mix.

In what seems to be a lesson taken overly literally, Glory Road is this January's basketball movie, after Coach Carter surprised with a $29 million opening. Now, Josh Lucas is no Samuel L. Jackson, but the story behind this film is potentially even more compelling. Here he plays Texas Western coach Don Haskins, who in 1966 started the first ever all-black college basketball lineup, winning the national championship in the process. It bears more than just a little resemblance as well to Remember the Titans, which dealt with the integration of a southern football team in the 1960s.

Lucas isn't incredibly well known, but you more than likely know his face from Sweet Home Alabama, Hulk, or even Stealth. But while he was playing second fiddle to Reese Witherspoon, CGI effects and a miserable excuse for a script in those three films, this one puts him out on his own. Inspirational sports stories usually do quite well, and this has been advertised often and well (if a bit blandly). A modest screen count of just over 2,200 venues should limit it slightly, but look for it to bring in about $16 million this weekend.

Last Holiday is a remake of a 1950 film, which this time around stars Queen Latifah as a meek and sheltered woman, who after being diagnosed with a fatal disease (but mysteriously, it's symptom free ... I'm thinking brain cloud) decides to live it up in her brief remaining time on the Earth. After borrowing an extensive amount of money, she flies to a European resort, where it's all mud wraps, gourmet dinners and snowboarding lessons. Here she's a star, here she's famous. Meanwhile, the co-worker (played by LL Cool J) who had been attempting to crack her out of her shell (along with out of a few other things) to begin with is left wondering just where she went. No points will be awarded for guessing the outcome of Miss Latifah's medical condition or her love life.

As predictable as the film seems, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it's all about joie de vivre (quite literally, in fact) and seems to have a good heart. As a piece of fluff, it just might fit the winter movies bill. Latifah broke into the mainstream with the surprise hit Bringing Down the House three years ago, and spun off her character from the Barbershop films into Beauty Shop, which opened to a respectable $12 million last year. It's the widest opening film of the weekend with around 2,500 screens and it should come in with around $14 million.

Since Toy Story introduced the world to the "genre" of computer animation, it has been an almost unbridled success, with film after film bringing in box office gold, even films that barely counted as movies (I'm looking at you, Robots). That streak was broken last year by the "have you heard of it?" Valiant, a Disney pickup that earned just $19 million, total. This weekend could see another entry in that group, with the Weinstein Co's Hoodwinked. Barely even bothering to pretend it's not ripping off the success of Shrek, Hoodwinked is "the true story of Red Riding Hood", which re-frames the tale as a police procedural in the woods, with every character having a little more to their story than you've heard before.

Voice talent here includes Anne Hathaway as Little Red, Glenn Close as Granny, Patrick Warburton as the Wolf and James Belushi as the Woodsman. So, it's a talented group if not one that will have people beating down the doors. You might say many Pixar films didn't have this behind them either, and you'd be right. But they also had the Pixar branding behind them, which as we've seen in the past, absolutely matters.

A late bump in the release schedule, moving it out of the crowded Christmas season to the dead zone of January, especially for a family film, is pretty much the opposite of confidence. Ads have been light on hooks, and have resorted to that old desperate standby, showing the actors in the recording studio. Which, like, proves they really said the lines, or something. This tactic didn't help Sinbad with Brad Pitt, and I don't see it helping here. Look for it to earn about $7 million this weekend.

The last of the new openers is Tristan & Isolde, starring James Franco. A tale dating back to the fifth century (and the basis of an opera by Wagner), it features a romance between the title characters, a knight and a future Queen of England, who inconveniently is married. In pursuing the romance, Tristan is also betraying a man who was like a father to him, albeit one that murdered his real family. It was rougher times back then.

Billed as the original Romeo & Juliet, it's directed by Kevin Reynolds, who was suspiciously close to some of the biggest bombs of Kevin Costner's career. This film looks both overstuffed and underdone, with critical reception coming in distinctly poorly. It's opening on a very modest 1,843 venues, which shows a distinct lack of confidence in the cast-light romance. This all points to a film that is more or less being dumped, with a weekend total of around $5 million for its debut in the cards.

Hostel was the first film since mid-November to be at the top spot of the box office that wasn't Potter, Narnia or Kong related, with the low-budget horror film earning a better-than-expected $19 million. This was more than enough to earn a sequel green-light, but as we've seen in the past several years, these horror flicks tend to fizzle out very rapidly. Look for a drop to $9 million this weekend.

So, though it won't regain top spot, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe should be able to leap back above it. It's within a stone's throw of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for second highest grossing film of 2005, but time is rapidly running out, it should earn another $9 million and change this weekend, keeping it in third place, but only a few weeks left to earn over double that to pass it.

For all the hemming and hawing surrounding King Kong's status as a blockbuster, it's about to pass the $200 million mark this weekend. Early hype and hope about its reception by an epic-hungry public proved to be overblown, with calls for it to pass Titanic being just so many bananas. It'll earn about $7 million this weekend.

Brokeback Mountain expands once again this weekend, adding 50% more screens to reach 683 total. Critical acclaim, awards, and controversy keep piling up around the film and have so far translated into a modicum of box office success. Now with $25 million in the bank, it should continue along its current earning level with this expansion, bringing in $6 million.

Forecast: Weekend of January 13-16, 2006
Rank	Film	Number of Sites	Changes in Sites from Last	Estimated Gross ($)
1	Glory Road	2,222	New	16.4
2	Last Holiday	2,514	New	14.2
3	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	3,224	-290	9.6
4	Hostel	2,337	+142	9.1
5	King Kong	2,805	-677	7.5
6	Fun With Dick and Jane	3,239	+57	7.0
7	Hoodwinked	2,391	New	6.8
8	Brokeback Mountain	683	+200	6.5
9	Memoirs of a Geisha	1,654	+65	5.5
10	Tristan & Isolde	1,843	New	5.3