Fox's animated sequel Ice Age: The Meltdown conquered the box office on Friday with the biggest opening day gross of any film since The Chronicles of Narnia. The PG-rated toon collected an estimated $21.7M in its first day of release which was a robust 58% improvement on the $13.7M first-day take of the original Ice Age four years ago. For the Friday-to-Sunday period, Meltdown might capture a stunning $67-72M making it by far the biggest opening ever in either March or April.

The teen hip hop drama ATL debuted to an estimated $4.6M on Friday in its first day in theaters. The Warner Bros. pic should gross about $12-13M for the weekend.

Two other films opened on Friday, but saw disappointing results. Universal's horror-comedy Slither bowed to an estimated $1.4M while Sony's Basic Instinct 2 premiered to just $1.1M, according to estimates. Weekend grosses look to reach $4M for Slither and $3M for Instinct.

Among holdovers, Friday-to-Friday declines were 49% for Inside Man, 61% for Stay Alive, and 55% for Larry the Cable Guy.

The top ten films grossed an estimated $42.2M on Friday which was up a stellar 28% from a year ago when Sin City opened on top with $11.6M on its way to a $29.1M weekend launch.

For a NEW review of Slither visit The Chief Report.

Last Updated: April 1, 2006 at 12:30PM EST

Written by Gitesh Pandya