Nov 16 2009 Weekend Box Office Goes Just As Mayans Foretold

Your weekend box office results. Save a tree; don't print them out this week.

1. 2012 - $65 million, a huge outpouring of support for the film's once hugely popular but now aging star, Flooding and Explosions.

2. A Christmas Carol - $22.3 million, another mediocre weekend that gives hope we might not have to endure A Christmas Carol 2: Scrooge the Pooch.

3. The Men Who Stare at Goats - $6.2 million. Don't believe any of this film's B.S. staring-at-goats-could-kill-them theories. I've stared at so many animals and people wishing they would die, and it never pays off.

4. Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire - $6.1 million--and that's on only 174 screens--giving hope to all those other little indie dramas that also have the endorsements of two of America's most influential women (Oprah and Madea).

5. This Is It - $5.1 million. Weren't we promised this would be out of theaters by now, finally allowing Michael Jackson's soul to escape the limbo of consumerism?

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

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 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 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]

Oct 5 2009 Weekend Box Office: Zombies Still Popular Subject Matter

Sorry, Drew Barrymore, no Whip It this week:

1. Zombieland - $25 million. Killing zombies will always be a big crowd pleaser. At least until the zombies populations take over; then we'll probably pander more to them with brain-centric plots.

2. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - $16.7 million. As school cafeterias have proven time and time again, even a chance of meatballs is enough to pull in crowds. The chance of a flimsy Mexican pizza is pretty good, too.

3. Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D - $12.5 million. Not too shabby, considering humankind had long ago experienced the Toy Stories.

4. The Invention of Lying - $7.4 million. Lying??? Was this about BUSH/OBAMA??? [Whichever you prefer is] NOT MY PRESIDENT! Political.

5. Surrogates - $7.3 million. Why see a movie about surrogates when you can stay in and explore the world of Azeroth on your noble mount?

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Sep 28 2009 'Cloudy with Meatballs' Has Same Stay-With-You Power of Ikea Meatballs

Your weekend box office top five:

1. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - $24.6 million, only dropping 18.8%. I bet Chef Boyardee is kicking himself right now for not working out some kind of tie-in.

2. Surrogates - $15 million. And thus, Bruce Willis loses his shot at becoming a big-name action star.

3. Fame - $10 million. You know how there's that Fame song where the kids sing about how, through being famous, they could live forever? These kids are not going to live forever.

4. The Informant! - $6.9 million. Did you remember to shout the title when asking for your ticket?

5. Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself - $4.8 million. Phew, I'm glad this was in the top five again as a reminder: I was about to offer Tyler Perry bad assistance! I sure would have looked silly.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Sep 21 2009 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' Outshines Megan Fox's Physical Form

Your weekend box office report:

1. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - $30 million, a strong debut that reflects America's love of both abundant food and things falling on people's heads.

2. The Informant! - $10.5 million. The Sorderbergh/Damon collaborative team is becoming the new Scorsese/DiCaprio. Except not really as acclaimed.

3. I Can Do Bad All By Myself - $10 million. With the continued success of Tyler Perry proving the viability of play adaptations, I really hope this doesn't lead to someone ever making the popular musical Shrek into some sort of feature film.

4. Love Happens - $8.5 million. You couldn't expect it to make much with such a controversial title.

5. Jennifer's Body - $6.8 million. Diablo Cody should stay out of horror and stick to what she writes best: illegitimate child comedy spoken over hamburger phone.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Sep 14 2009 Madea More Popular Than Hot Young Sorority Girls

Movies remained a popular form of distraction last weekend. These were the five most popular:

1. I Can Do Bad All By Myself - $24 million. Tyler Perry was right: he did bad all by himself. But apparently the rest of the U.S. needed the counsel of Madea to do bad this weekend.

2. 9 - $10.9 million. See? Computer-animated films can be original and successful! They don't need to have constant pop culture jokes or a Shrek! Oh, Shrek the Third opened at $121.6 million? Never mind. Continue with Shreks.

3. Inglourious Basterds - $6.5 million. All those people who keep saying, "I know, I know--I'll see it next week," really are slowly doing it.

4. All About Steve - $5.8 million. As much as I'm glad that Sorority Row flopped, I'm not sure the universally-panned All About Steve having a decent second week is any better.

5. The Final Destination - $5.5 million. What ended up being the final destination, anyway?

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Sep 8 2009 'The Final Destination' Somehow Still Really Popular

Box office totals for Friday through Monday, our day of labor:

1. The Final Destination - $15.5 million. Good to see I'm not the only one who enjoys spending a leisurely weekend watching teenagers die strange, elaborate deaths.

2. Inglourious Basterds - $15 million. Did you realize inglorious and glorious aren't the same thing? It's not like flammable/inflammable. Just in case you haven't seen the movie yet, I don't want you to go in confused.

3. All About Steve - $13.9 million. A 5% Rotten Tomatoes rating does little to tarnish the glistening star power of Miss Congeniality.

4. Gamer - $11.2 million. Look, I know Gamer looks stupid, but does it really look this much stupider than The Final Destination? Yeah, I guess it probably does.

5. District 9 - $9 million. This film's clear allegorical message really taught me something about not letting alien fluids spray in my mouth.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Aug 31 2009 Weekend Box Office: 'THE Final Destination' Fares Better Than Holiday-Themed Film

The Sirens' call of teenagers dying overly-elaborate deaths was too loud to resist:

1. The Final Destination - $28.3 million. I can't figure out if the third one was that good or if everyone just forgot prior Final Destinations existed.

2. Inglourious Basterds - $20 million. I saw a preview for this and the ABC series Shaq Vs. within a few minutes of each other, and it gave me a good idea for a show. Let's just say it loosely involves Shaq versus Nazis.

3. Halloween II - $17.4 million. An underwhelming showing, but, sadly, still enough to easily make back the $15 million budget and continue Rob Zombie's horror career.

4. District 9 - $10.7 million. Let's hope aliens don't land here while this is still in theaters. We shouldn't reveal how we're going to force them into a bottom caste until they start getting really annoying.

5. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - $8 million. Goodbye, final blockbuster summer movie of the year! See you again as an even more poorly-reviewed sequel!

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Aug 24 2009 'Inglourious Basterds' Prove Nazi Killin' Profitable

The weekend's box office top five as determined by man:

1. Inglourious Basterds - $37.6 million, Quentin Tarentino's biggest opening weekend and his first film to feature Mike Myers in any capacity. That can't be a coincidence.

2. District 9 - $18.9 million. Between Nazis and aliens, this weekend's top moneymakers were chock-full of groups I will always consider enemy.

3. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - $12.5 million. You may think I forgot to include Cobra in the above list of groups I will always consider enemy, but that's not the case. Remember when Roadblock and Cobra Commander were helping each other out in the 1987 animated G.I. Joe movie? Cobra Commander seemed like a decent enough guy for a while there.

4. The Time Traveler's Wife - $10 million in ticket sales, with another reported $4 million for selling photos of the Time Traveler's Newborn Baby to Us Weekly.

5. Julie & Julia - $9 million, holding Robert Rodriguez's Shorts down at 6th and ensuring Kazaam remains the superior wish-granting kids' film.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Aug 17 2009 Weekend Box Office Report: Everything with the Word 'District' in the Title Did Great

Sci-fi social commentary faced off against sci-fi marriage last weekend, and it's now clear we're far more likely to see a District 10 than we are a Time Traveler Jr.'s Wife:

1. District 9 - $37 million. That already makes back the $30 million budget, so now they can just waste the rest on snacks.

2. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - $22.5 million. Down almost 60% from opening weekend to be beaten by a film with 1/6th the budget? Maybe the inevitable G.I. Joe sequel can learn a lesson from this and be twice as loud next time.

3. The Time Traveler's Wife - $19.2 million. Really should have just focused on the time traveler himself; I would argue his ability to time travel makes him more interesting than the wife, in a way.

4. Julie & Julia - $12.4 million. Probably could have made twice as much if they'd done it like Kill Bill and released Julie as one movie and Julia a few months later.

5. G-Force - $6.9 million. Shouldn't this movie be screaming for me to buy it on Disney DVD and Blu-ray by now?

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Aug 11 2009 'G.I. Joe' Still Really Popular Even When It Scarcely Resembles Its Original Form

Sorry, guys, Daddy had a doctor's appointment this morning and it took much longer than expected to get the news I'm not entirely dying. Anyway, let's get the weekend's box office numbers out of the way:

1. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - $54.7 million, thanks to Transformers paving the way for basically anything with a lot of action and an '80s toyline to make a ton of money.

2. Julie & Julia - $20 million, though if the film encouraged just one person to go home and cook a nice meal, that's worth more in a way. In a really stupid way, where a night of pork chops is worth over $20 million.

3. G-Force - $9.9 million. I liked how the guinea pigs talked.

4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - $8.9 million. Clearly our most profitable magic user.

5. Funny People - $8 million, narrowly beating Standard People.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Aug 4 2009 'Funny People' Beat the Potter

Your weekend box office results. Sorry they're a day later than usual, but the delay does mean these are the final tallies, rather than the estimates. Feel confident transcribing them in permanent ink:

1. Funny People - $22.7 million. Sad when you realize that any of Funny People's intentionally-idiotic Sandler parody films--Astro-Not and Re-Do (above), for example--would have opened to twice that. People just love babies with man-heads so much.

2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - $17.9 million, barely edging past G-Force--probably because it's based on an insanely popular book series instead of the concept of talking guinea pigs as spies.

3. G-Force - $17.5 million. It's probably not doing as well as an Alvin and Chipmunks because of the lack of high-pitched singing. Gotta put some sauce on that pizza or it's just cheese bread; know what I'm sayin'?

4. The Ugly Truth - $13.2 million. Haha! Men have penises and girls have vaginas and they typically behave differently! Haha!

5. Aliens in the Attic - $8 million. Aliens and attics: not a successful combination, it turns out. Ridley Scott is going to have to rethink some things for his Alien prequel.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Jul 27 2009 Talking Guinea Pigs Last Weekend's Most Popular Film Subject

Here's last weekend's box office top five. Rattle these numbers off at your next party to show your guests you assign some of your memory to remembering how well The Ugly Truth performed financially.

1. G-Force - $32.2 million. The CGI rodent + speech formula continues to work disgustingly well.

2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - $30 million. The star that has all its fan see it opening night burns fastest, Harry.

3. The Ugly Truth - $27 million. Now we can stop those commercials where the characters' actions are arbitrarily assigned gender points? How does Gerard Butler winking earn a point for men?

4. Orphan - $12.8 million. I didn't see this, but I heard about the ending, and it's simultaneously both more out-there and more grounded than I ever would have thought.

5. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs - $8.2 million. It seems unfair Orphan got flack for discouraging adoption but Ice Age didn't. Think about if you adopted a kid and had to take them to see Ray Ramano as a mammoth.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Jul 20 2009 Your Weekend Box Office Top Five

Use these weekend box office figures to determine if you, a studio executive, can afford that new boat:

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - The only way a Harry Potter movie wouldn't open at #1 is if people's heads started exploding when watching the Quidditch scenes. But that didn't happen, so it made $79.5 million

2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs - $17.7 million. Time to move on beyond the Ice Age and use CGI and Ray Romano to make a representation of EVERY age, so that we can finally throw away our history books and replace them all with charming family films.

3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - $13.8 million, easily besting last week's winner, Bruno, even though, if you pay attention, this film actually has far more exposed penises.

4. Bruno - $8.3 million, taking a massive, 73% drop. I guess the old Irish guy's admonition worked in scaring everyone off.

5. The Hangover - $8.3 million. I had no idea this would remain in the top 5 for so long. There's absolutely nothing else to comment about it. You win, The Hangover.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Jul 6 2009 'Transformers 2' Still America's Favorite Thing to Pay to View

So close, Ice Age. So close. The weekend box office:

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - $42.3 million. Continuing our nation's great tradition of celebrating our independence by watching explosions. And robots that turn into construction vehicles.

2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs - $41.7 million--unusually high numbers for a historical-fiction piece.

3. Public Enemies - $25.3 million. I suspect it could have done better if the advertising did a better job pointing out that, in this version of the story, Dillinger uses riddles to antagonize Purvis, who is Batman.

4. The Proposal - $12.9 million. If your girlfriend dragged you to this, don't necessarily assume she's hinting that she wants you to propose; she may just have very dull taste in movies.

5. The Hangover - $11.3 million, probably paid largely by people with actual Fourth of July hangovers.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

Jun 29 2009 'Transformatons 2' Easily Beats 'My Sister, the Reluctant Organ Donor' and Everything Else

Somehow the smashing, clanging robots sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen beat the weekend's other wide release, the sister-dying-of-cancer melodrama My Sister's Keeper. Go figure:

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - $112 million, giving the film a five-day domestic total of $201 million and a worldwide total of $387.3 million. And that's all in Bay Bucks, the new, Michael Bay-printed international currently that we're using now.

2. The Proposal - $18.5 million--pretty respectable against such explosion-filled competition. Just goes to show that faking-a-relationship-for-a-green-card comedy works better as a movie than it does as a part of the TGIF sister lineup, I Love Saturday Night.

3. The Hangover - $17.2 million. Can we give Zach Galifianakis another televised talk show yet?

4. Up - $13 million, still scoring ticket sales from all those kids whose parents thought robots smashing each other would be too violent. Come on, moms; lighten up.

5. My Sister's Keeper - $12 million. And that's the last time you'll hear of this movie until ten years from now when it's coming on TV and you watch 45 minutes waiting to see Juliette Lewis play retarded, because you're confusing it with The Other Sister.

Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]