Dec 17 2008'Mamma Mia!' is UK's Favorite Movie Ever
Every week, when I report on the weekend's domestic box office totals, I'm totally excluding all the readers from other countries. Sorry about that. The web is worldwide now, and I'm not respecting that. So this week, let me give you readers in the UK box office update: you've all been taking off work to see Mamma Mia! so often that it's become the UK's highest grossing movie ever. From Yahoo (thanks to Adam):
The unflagging cheerfulness of ABBA conquered the red-hot chemistry between Leo and Kate this week as Mamma Mia! nudged aside the 11-time Oscar winner as the top-grossing film of all time at the U.K. box office.The light 'n fluffy musical, en route to earning $571.7 million worldwide, has taken in $107.7 million across the pond after 22 weeks in theaters. Titanic held the record for 10 years after bagging 69 million pounds (about $107.5 million in today's currency) in 1998.
"Mamma Mia! is pure escapism, proving a fun and inexpensive way to forget about the state of the economy for a couple of hours," Universal Pictures International president David Kosse said Tuesday, calling the film a "true phenomenon."
DVD sales also went through the roof, with the jaunty romantic comedy sellling 1.7 million copies its first day out.
Wait, does this mean it passed Titanic in box office sales weeks after it came out on DVD? Why would that be? That seems insane.
"Hon, I know we've got the DVD, and we just watched it again last night, but--"
"YES!"
Can anyone from the UK explain this phenomenon? Is it like Rocky Horror, with midnight screenings and people dressed up as Meryl Streep? The best explanation I can come up with is that maybe it's older person's the equivalent of how anything referencing the '80s is popular on the internet--like some people are just excited they recognize ABBA songs, which is a terrifying thought.
Reader Comments
1. sully - December 17, 2008 5:44 PM
I think movies in the GB come out several months after they do in the US.
Phenomenon EXPLAINED!
first!
2. Andy - December 17, 2008 6:02 PM
We're no longer cool, UK.
3. Kong1927 - December 17, 2008 6:19 PM
Yep, its EXACTLY like Rocky Horror. All the women are going to the cinemas in packs, smuggling in bottles of cheap white wine and shrieking along.
The horror.
The horror.
4. DoucheMcBaggins - December 17, 2008 6:35 PM
The movie cured my constipation. (read: it was shitty)
5. Dudley - December 17, 2008 6:35 PM
Yup it's pretty bad, I heard that somewhere near Manchester a man accidentally wandered into a showing of Mamma Mia and was torn apart by a horde of feral menopausal women pissed on Lambrini. True story.
6. R Rothchild - December 17, 2008 7:56 PM
Why would anyone ever go see this movie? Musicals are by far and away the worst genre in film. I'll never understand how people find it entertaining when characters randomly break out into choreographed song and dance. Stupid.
7. D. Cope - December 17, 2008 9:33 PM
@6 I dunno about them being the worse, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was pretty bad ass.
8. Mickeyp - December 18, 2008 2:46 AM
I work in a cinema, and basically the older ladies would come in and watch this film 5 times or more with all their friends. We ran it on screen for 17 weeks. the longest run ever. The average audience age was about 50. Some of them had not been to the cinema for years, but here they were coming in every week.
Paid my wages so can't complain.
9. Paul - December 18, 2008 6:57 AM
because UK commons (like most country commoners) worship crap. They can't understand anything great due to wanted things easy and repeating the same events as everyone in life does...
10. Mr. Jones - December 18, 2008 7:26 AM
I'm experiencing a lot of mixed feelings about this because I hate "Titanic" with the strength of a thousand suns. Cameron (a fantastic action director) never crapped out a more mawkish and contrived turd, yet this is considered his "masterpiece".
Yet what is more contrived and uninspired as "Mamma Mia"? As other people have pointed out, you can't have a "story" when its constantly interrupted by stupid singing and dancing. If a story is merely serving as a set-up for an idiotic song/dance number, especially to ABBA (for Christ's sake..) just please kill me now. Kill me.
UK - you have my deepest sympathies. But always remember you gave us the Rolling Stones (before they fossilized), the Beatles, and my all-time favorite, Pink Floyd. Nothing can be more cool than that.
11. KeeblerKahn - December 18, 2008 10:05 AM
This was a bad movie. There was only one or two people in the whole movie that could actually sing and Meryl Streep wasn't one of them and Pierce Brosnan singing was just painful. Between the two of them there was some serious human rights violations going on. The soundtrack to this movie could be used on a loop down at Guantanamo Bay to break people down.
I grew up in the 70's, I like ABBA music, I wanted to like the film but it was just bad.
12. Elmo - December 18, 2008 10:58 AM
Why? Just... why?
13. Erost - December 18, 2008 12:35 PM
The sing-along version is still playing in my local cinemas, where the price of an adult ticket starts at £7 onwards. Yet the DVD is selling for around £13-£15 in the shops. Is there any logic in this?
NO
14. Mcfeely Smackup - December 18, 2008 1:42 PM
The UK is INSANE over Abba, so it's no surprise that this movie did well. Read this blurb about the album Abba Gold (greatest hits) from this year:
"The album first hit the top spot in its year of release (1992) and returned in 1999 for three more separate stints at No.1. Today's chart confirms that Gold has again topped the UK Album chart. It is also the oldest album to reach the top spot in the UK chart. What an amazing feat!
At the time of writing, it holds the sixth 'Most Chart Weeks' of any UK album position - 365 weeks in the Top 75 and 708 weeks in the UK Top 200."
15. grace - December 19, 2008 3:20 AM
madness!! the singing was HORRIBLE in the movie!! (by any standards, even without comparing to the original music)
16. Harry Pooter - December 22, 2008 4:18 PM
Bloody tossers.