Your weekend top five:
1. Limitless - $19 million. It turns out Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy could have fared better financially as a rap video imagery-based thriller with fewer references to gay dads.
2. Rango - $15.3 million, holding on to the second position for its second straight week. Way to go, Rango.
3. Battle: Los Angeles - $14.6 million, failing to attract families both due to its PG-13 rating and because of fears from older children that the "aliens invading California" premise might invite their conservative parents into another alarmingly racist conversation about immigration.
4. The Lincoln Lawyer - $13.4 million. Lionsgate is fine that not that many people wanted to see Matthew McConaughey run a law practice out of a car. But, for future reference, they would like to know what business you would pay to see Matthew McConaughey run from a car.
5. Paul - $13.2 million. This lackluster showing is why no one is bothering with targeting the nerd demographics, nerds. Wait, never mind, The Hobbit just started shooting.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Nice work, Twihards (fuck, that's a real term now): you've again topped fanboy nerds as the more-obsessive demographic, giving The Twilight Saga: Eclipse the biggest midnight opening ever. There must have been so many tired eyes in Ms. Hamlin's 7th grade class this morning. The film also opened in the widest number of locations ever--4,416--and is expected to open in more Friday, which could push it over Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince's overall record for highest location-count of 4,455. So, if you thought maybe this whole vampire/Twilight thing was puttering out, it's not.
Your weekend top five:
1. A Nightmare on Elm Street - $32.2 million. I can't understand people wanting to see something where you can be killed in your dreams. If you don't have refuge there, where can you hide from reality, other than in the warm arms of alcohol?
2. How to Train Your Dragon - $10.8 million. This thing's becoming a regular Shrek! (I describe things as "Shreks" now.)
3. Date Night - $7.6 million, continuing to win strong numbers from the "yeah, I guess I'd see that if people are going" crowd.
4. The Back-Up Plan - $7.2 million. These producers must be smacking themselves for making a film about a woman getting artificially inseminated, instead of a movie about a lady getting pregnant the old-fashioned way, next to a pool.
5. Furry Vengeance - $6.5 million. Brendan Fraser being ravaged by wild animals sounded so profitable on paper.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Struggling over-stretched mom Uma Thurman managed to pull in a respectable income of $60,000 when her opus Motherhood was released in the United States last year. U.K. audiences weren't nearly as sympathetic to the demands of trying to parent two children in New York City when Motherhood was released there this weekend prior: the movie only made $132. In fact, according to The Guardian, only a single person bought a ticket to the film on Sunday. Despite the low turnout no screening of Motherhood went unattended yesterday, as lazy theater employees didn't realize the customer had committed suicide until after closing.
(Thank, Sarah et al.)
The Uma Thurman film so bad it made £88 on opening weekend [The Guardian]
What movies did people use to feed voracious Valentine's Day/Presidents' Day film appetites? These ones:
1. Valentine's Day - $52.4 million, narrowly beating Drinking Wine Alone in a Bubble Bath for most stereotypical way a sad lady could spend the weekend.
2. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief - $31.1 million. Not everyone was as excited as I was to see Pierce Brosnan in Warrior Hobo.
3. The Wolfman - $30.6 million, firmly establishing that wolfmen, like vampires, are still at their most popular when they're teenagers.
4. Avatar - $22 million. That's almost $660 million, for those of you with Avatar stock.
5. Dear John - $15.3 million. BUT IT'S SO ROMANTIC.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Sick of hearing about how much money someone who isn't you is making? Me too! Still though, just in case it comes up on the Jeopardy! teen tournament, you should know that, in addition to having made more money worldwide than any other film, Avatar has now also made the most money domestically with a still-rising gross of over $601 million.
Treat yourself to something nice, James Cameron. My philosophy has always been, everything over $600 million (domestic) should be considered "fun money."
Welp, James Cameron finally managed to beat that boat movie he made. It's official: Avatar, which is sort of a sci-fi thing that's currently playing in theaters, has surpassed Titanic's worldwide box office, with a $1.859 billion total so far. Of course, Tooth Fairy is just gaining momentum, so...
It should also be noted that Cameron's film only holds the highest grossing title if you don't adjust for inflation; otherwise, Gone with the Wind still takes the top spot. And if you adjust for highest grossing film that most guys have gotten a date to second or third base in, sorry, Avatar, it's still the 2000 Ben Affleck/Gwyneth Paltrow film Bounce.
Today, I Watch Stuff salutes Sandra Bullock for being the first female star to break the $200 million barrier domestically with a film in which they were the only lead. Over the weekend, The Blind Side reached $208.5 million in box office, which is approximately 80% of what the same film would have made with Will Smith in the lead. Congratulations!
Cheer up, Sad Wizard: Harry Potter just broke a record! According to Variety, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opened last night to the largest midnight opening ever, earning an estimated $22.2 million, easily besting The Dark Knight's $18 million and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith's $17 million. But don't worry, Batman and Star War, your still hold the shared title for sweatiest, heaviest-breathing male patrons. No one is taking that one any time soon.
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.
I was just looking at Box Office Mojo, seeing if Get Smart really made enough to warrant a sequel (sadly, it did), and I noticed a link to the above chart on the front page. Is this depressing to anyone else? Just that Disney alone has made enough talking dog movies to warrant a comparison grid is bad, but seeing exactly how much people have paid into this detestable genre is vomit in my face holes. I mean, just the idea that talking dogs in a movie is not a bizarre anomaly but an entire genre, that's awful. But dogs playing human sports is a separate genre from that! Those are two individual things that, as a society, we've decided we want to see repeatedly. Forget drama, comedy, romance--we don't need them. Let's just find more things for dogs to do unexpectedly. Dogs doing construction? Driving bulldozers, mixing concrete? Have we done that yet? Let's do that then. Then let's make a grid detailing exactly which dog construction movies made the most money, and let's stop making any more entertainment.
1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets - Like Indiana Jones, but with a more ludicrous MacGuffin than even the Holy Grail; $35.6 million.
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks - "How about that chipmunk one, where the chipmunks are all really creepy and obnoxious? Let's see that one." Enough people said this that it accumulated $29.1 million over the weekend.
3. I Am Legend - Made $27.3 million despite recent rumors that Will Smith is Hitler.
4. Charlie Wilson's War - If I understand correctly, Charlie Wilson is to war as Merv Griffin is to Crosswords, though I don't know what that actually means; $12 million.
5. Juno - The most talked-about teen pregnancy film since the bizarre one you had to watch in 8th grade sex ed. made $10.6 million.
Weekend Box Office [Box Office Mojo]
Despite a heavy-handed marketing effort, Hairspray couldn't compete with worse-reviewed Chuck & Larry or Harry Potter.
If people are looking for a reason why, they need look no further than the picture of John Travolta in drag above. I don't care how good you tell me this movie is, that is the scariest thing I've ever seen. I had a nightmare that I was buried alive inside a coffin with the re-animated corpse of Tammie Faye and it was less scary than that (too soon?).
I would rather see Knüt the polar bear get electrocuted to death by Michael Vick than see two hours of John Travolta in drag. I would rather fall asleep with Shia LaBeouf gently nibbling my earlobe than see this movie. Okay, maybe that last one's not such a good example, but still man, like, creepy.
Source
"Take that, racist!"
Due, I'm sure, to the bump from iwatchstuff.com readers, Knocked Up made $29.3 million at the box office (hee hee, box office, I'd work there) this weekend, nearly earning back the $30 million it cost to make. I saw the movie on Sunday, and can safely say that I'm not sorry for recommending it. Though I am sorry for puking on that pigeon Saturday night. He didn't do anything to deserve it, poor lil' sky rat.
The comedy beat out Shrek the Third and came a close second to the movie that shall remain unmentioned, which dropped 62.4% in ticket sales.
Source
"My opening is even bigger than your mom's, sucka."
This weekend, 300 took the top spot in the box office, bringing in an estimated $70 million and destroying its closest competitor, four past-their-prime actors playing four past-their-prime suburbanites in Wild Hogs. The massive earnings gives the epic the achievement of highest March opening ever, stealing the title from Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, which was apparently very popular, as well as becoming the third-highest opening for an R-rated film, just under The Matrix Reloaded and The Passion of the Christ. It also gained the honor, bestowed by the man behind me at the theater, of being "the most f***ed up crazy ass shit" he'd ever seen. This award was given about fifteen times during the course of the movie.
Source
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