Nov 10 2009 Weekend Box Office Results: A Christmas Carol, Absolutely Any Christmas Carol, Is Good Enough
Your weekend box office report. Share it with friends (and would-be friends as a great icebreaker!):
1. A Christmas Carol - $30 million. In these desperate times (sort of nearing Christmas), people needed a movie of hope (something with Christmas in the title).
2. Michael Jackson's This Is It - $13.2 million. It's like being at Michael Jackson's final performance, only he's still rehearsing it, and it's after months of his death coverage have made you too auto-angry at his image to enjoy any of it.
3. The Men Who Stare at Goats - $12.7 million, a modest number that reflects the insult the film dealt to our nation's many great goat herders--many of whom actually do spend a lot of time staring at goats and take offense to the idea it is in any way interesting.
4. The Fourth Kind - $12.2 million (The alien one.)
5. Paranormal Activity - $8.3 million (The one with ghosts.)
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Nov 3 2009 Successful Film Begets Sequel: 'Paranormal Activity 2'?
Surprising absolutely no one, a brief article in the Hollywood Reporter reveals that Paramount is looking at making a sequel to Paranormal Activity, the recent shaky-cam hit that, at $85 million gross and climbing, has made roughly one billion times its $15k budget back.
Have we really learned no lessons from our rich shaky-cam horror history? Must we repeat our mistakes to remind us of the terrible lessons learned by making Blair Witch 2? (Apparently, since the Blair Witch guys want to make a new Blair Witch 2 to replace the current Blair Witch 2.) Come on, Paramount. We don't need another Paranormal Activity--the current one already has more than enough recognizable scenes to easily, lazily parody in the next Scary Movie, so what's the point of making another? That is the point of these movies, right?
Nov 2 2009 Michael Jackson Posthumously Popular
Your weekend box office report:
1. This Is It - $21.3 million. It pays to video tape major celebrities rehearsing shortly before their unexpected deaths. I knew it would.
2. Paranormal Activity - $16.5 million. I expect this film will take a dive now that the Hallowe'en specters have finally left our homes.
3. Law Abiding Citizen - $7.3 million, a victory for both law and citizenship. And abiding.
4. Couples Retreat - $6.1 million. What? Still?
5. Saw VI - $5.6 million, narrowly besting Saw VII and IX, both of which materialized sometime Sunday afternoon and already made their budget back.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Oct 26 2009 Fuse 'Paranormal Activity' and 'Saw' and You Get...
Paranormal Saw, obviously. Important viewing if for no other reason than the startling revelation that the Jigsaw puppet really does look like John Lithgow in makeup.
Continue Reading " Fuse 'Paranormal Activity' and 'Saw' and You Get... "
Oct 26 2009 Weekend Box Office: No One Did Anything Good Besides 'Paranormal Activity'
1. Paranormal Activity - $22 million, bringing the low budget specter story up to over $62 million gross. And yet Ghost Dad, with the same paranormal theme plus Bill Cosby's star power, only made $24.7 domestic over its entire run. It just doesn't make any sense.
2. Saw VI - $14.8 million. Does this mean we're finally done with bizarre torture movies? Good--maybe now we can get some actual bizarre torture done.
3. Where the Wild Things Are - $14.4 million. This film has our best ogreish monster portrayals since Fraggle Rock. That is inarguable.
4. Law Abiding Citizen - $12.7 million. I just can't understand the appeal of a movie about what sounds like a standard, rule-following member of society. What's the draw?
5. Couples Retreat - $11 million. Despite dismal reviews and having been in theaters for three weeks, still able to beat Astroboy and Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, neither of which I'm betting are getting a sequel any time soon.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Oct 19 2009 'Where the Wild Thing Are' Our Most Popular Weekend Movie
Your weekend box office top five, friends:
1. Where the Wild Things Are - $32.5 million. Man, did this thing ever take me back to childhood. Particularly the parts of my childhood that involved crying and breaking things.
2. Law Abiding Citizen - $21.3 million. Is support for vigilante justice waning? God, I hope not--that's how I get everything done!
3. Paranormal Activity - $20.2 million. I still can't understand how some camcorder footage of a "ghost" shuffling flour around the floor is somehow so much more popular than the YouTube video of myself shuffling flour around the floor.
4. Couples Retreat - $17.9 million, still managing to hold on to enough of the idiots-who-want-to-see-Couples-Retreat demographic.
5. The Stepfather - $12.3 million. Stepfathers just aren't as popular as they used to be. Biological fathers are all the rage now, guys.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Oct 12 2009 Weekend Box Office: 'Couples Retreat' Better Than Not Seeing Anything New, Apparently
Your weekend top five:
1. Couples Retreat - $35.3 million. Given no other new options, audiences did what they always do and paid their $10-12 for whatever abysmal thing they were given.
2. Zombieland - $15 million. More than laughter, I was glad this movie provided me the knowledge that a meek, pathetic, white 20-something could survive in a post-apocalyptic zombie world. Phew!
3. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - $12 million, putting the film even further ahead of Meatballs, Meatballs II, and Meatballs III for the title of Highest Grossing Film with the Word 'Meatballs' in the Title.
4. Toy Story 1 & 2 - $7.7 million. I think I'll wait to see if it comes to theaters a third time before I'll see what this "Toy Story" is all about.
5. Paranormal Activity - $7 million. Pretty great considering it's only playing on 160 screens, cost next to nothing to make, and leaves all who see it permanently haunted by a Civil War-era specter.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Sep 25 2009 The Weekend in Film Releases
This weekend, know what movie you're going to see before you dash into a cinema to escape an evil gang of karate experts. Study this list:
Surrogates
Director: Jonathan Mostow
Starring: Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, Radha Mitchell
Good if you want to see: Bruce Willis vs. our new robot population of surrogate people; Bruce Willis with Craig Kilborn's hair for a while, then back to standard Bruce Willis Bald.
Fame
Director: Kevin Tancharoen
Starring: Kelsey Grammer, Bebe Neuwirth, I assume the rest of the cast of Frasier
Good if you want to see: kids singing and dancing and doing drama stuff, because Glee just isn't enough to sate your singing/dancing kid needs.
Pandorum
Director: Christian Alvart
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster, Cam Gigandet
Good if you want to see: something like Event Horizon, I think? Maybe more like a shitty Alien, or Sphere?
Sep 16 2009 'Paranormal Activity' Trailer: Chandeliers Are Mysteriously Swinging!
Ever wonder why MTV's campy, pseudo-reality, paranormal investigation show, Fear, wasn't made into a movie? Now it has been!
The latest horror film to pick up on the Blair Witch camcorder thing, Paranormal Activity has a new trailer. This may be the first time a shuffled-through trail of sugar has been used as a scare tactic:
Continue Reading " 'Paranormal Activity' Trailer: Chandeliers Are Mysteriously Swinging! "
