ThinkFilm’s Spymate may have slipped on critical banana peels (see Critical Mass, p. 10), but it sold enough tickets to claim the top of the box office among domestic films for the week starting March 3.

Featuring a chimpanzee who is partnered with a spy, the tween-aimed comedy climbed its way to a total two-week gross of $256,182 across 87 Canadian screens and posted a tepid per-screen average of $840 in its second week.

Running a surprise second was Claude Gagnon’s Canada/Japan copro Kamataki, which averaged a strong $8,740 at five theaters in Quebec after a March 3 opening. Written, directed and edited by Gagnon, it tells the story of a suicidal young man who is helped by an eccentric uncle. No word on whether last year’s People’s Choice Award winner at the Montreal World Film Festival will platform into more theaters.

Sturla Gunnarsson’s medieval tale Beowulf & Grendel stirred up a respectable gross of $125,260 in 32 theaters over three days since opening Friday, March 10. Gunnarsson told Playback the film was to expand into two additional theaters for the March 17 weekend, which will likely put it at the top of the box given that there aren’t any big Quebec releases on the horizon.

As of March 13, the doc Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey had boosted its total to $67,965 at 11 theaters in its second week, while John Hazlett’s dark comedy These Girls brought in $16,727 at 21 theaters after opening March 3, according to distrib Seville Pictures.

Filmmaker and Cuppa Coffee animator Aaron Woodley finally got to see his debut feature Rhinoceros Eyes in release. The TIFF 2004 Discovery Award winner, about the lengths a prop-house employee goes to win the object of his affection, was picked up by Capri Releasing, and opened on March 10 in a single theater in Toronto.

Woodley’s next directing gig comes courtesy of indie producer Lee Daniels. He’s set to direct Mariah Carey in her follow-up to Glitter.

Meanwhile, the drama Lucid, directed by Sean Garrity, is on target for a March 17 release on five screens, followed by the noirish Niagara Hotel, directed by Gary Yates, on March 24. David Christensen’s first feature, the domestic drama Six Figures, opens March 17 in Vancouver and then March 31 in Toronto.