Man, those penguins are hot. Documentaries continue to be hot.

The wonderful March of the Penguins leapt all the way to #3 on the list of all-time biggest grossing docs this weekend. (Great chart of the top 264 at that link.)

And it doesn't even hit full distribtion until next weekend. It will pass Bowling for Columbine for second around next Sunday.

There's an interesting story here about how the Penguins' distributor made the bold move to hurl the film into national distribution two weeks ago. Previously, that had only been attempted three times with documentaries: two featuring rock stars. (The the third, of course, was Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, riding a huge wave of controversy and publicity that helped it shatter all the rules and records.)

The Penguins are riding a huge trend--the explosion of popular documentaries. Four of the top five of all time have come in just the past three years. And 15 of the top 20.

Yes, inflation accounts for some of the surge but not too much. For all films, only one of the top five on the all-time domestic chart came in the last three years. Nine of the top 20.

(I hate it the way the moron media reports on films breaking records nearly every other week, when in fact, they're lumbering down a steep descent in theatre attendance. (Now making the bulk of their money on DVD.) On the adjusted-for-inflation list, for example, Titanic drops to #6, and the next film from the past decade is all the way down at 19. Yes, Gone with the Wind, from 1939, still sits at #1.)

But the bigger story is the ceiling being blown off a doc's financial potential. Before 2002, the only doc ever to hit $10 million had Madonna as a draw (Truth or Dare, which the Penguins just pushed down to fourth). The penguins will end up several times that figure.

(Of course there's nothing comparable with all films. Titanic, from 1997, still sits with nearly 50% more than the top film from this decade (Shrek 2), even without factoring in inflation.

The documentary surge is particularly stunning after the brutal decade they just broke out of. From mid October 1994, to early October 2002, not a single documentary shows up on all-time top 20 list.

Then, on Oct 11, 2002, Michael Moore released Bowling for Columbine. He knocked Madonna out of first place by a healthy margin, and nearly tripled the gross of any doc not featuring a rock star (near the peak of her popularity, no less.)

That seems to have changed everything.