Those of you who follow our weekly Box Office Report may have noticed that we skipped our report last week. It wasn’t for any other reason than it was the saddest and weakest week that the US box office brought in all year. It was pretty depressing.

We figured, given the fact that two blockbusters (one with a soft opening of 425 theaters) and a kids’ threequal was hitting theaters, there was bound to be a boom in ticket sales. Or so we thought.

This weekend, the big hit (and that’s speaking wildly) was Warner Bros’ Sherlock Holmes 2, which netted only $40 Million. That’s about $20 Million less than the first film brought in on its first weekend.

The margin after that first film was also pretty massive, as Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked pulled in a whole third of their production budget with a total of $23 Million for the weekend. This was the lowest of the three films’ opening weekends, which was about half of both films’ respective opening totals.

Jason Lee is one of very few actors to cross couple of different thresholds in Hollywood. He’s achieved cult status for his work in the Kevin Smith films, received mainstream notice and plenty of award nominations for his work on My Name is Earl, and he’s recognized by thousands of kids for his role as Dave in Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Now Jason is moving to something a little different and takes the lead in TNT’s upcoming Memphis Beat as a detective who moonlights as an Elvis Presley impersonator.

We recently got a chance to sit in on a discussion with Lee about his role in the upcoming show, the fate of My Name is Earl, his tendency to drift towards comedy rather than drama, and his new found appreciation for Elvis.

What is it about this show and the character that appealed to you and made you want to be part of it?

Well you know on the surface it was clear that it was very different than anything I’ve ever done.  And you know so that was a big part of it and then the fun of getting to play a detective and certainly the fun of getting to play a detective who also performs the music of Elvis on stage.