Jul 15 2009 'Harry Potter' is King of Midnight (Until the New 'Twilight' Movie, Probably)
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.
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.
Oct 7 2008 A Grid Detailing How Money Has Been Flushed Down the Toilet
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.
Jan 2 2008 'National Treasure' Wins Another Weekend, Somehow
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]
Jul 23 2007 Crap Rules Box Office, Travolta Rules My Nightmares
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.
Jun 4 2007 Success! Sort of...
"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.
Mar 12 2007 300 Wins the Weekend
"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.
