Although I didn’t nail the top spot it was an interesting weekend, perhaps a sea change where Hollywood box office concerned. Shia, a 20 year-old, was dominant over two veterans of the industry, Bruce Willis and Halle Berry. Plus, Will Ferrell stayed strong, further cementing his “most bankable comedian alive” tag. And oh yeah, Quentin was forgotten. Quentin who? Let’s break it down.
#1 movie predicted correctly: Zero Weeks In A Row
1. Disturbia
Is there a new star on the horizon? Based on the level of press Shia is receiving / has drummed up, I’d say yeah. You can no longer avoid it, and Indy 4 will slam it home.
Result: $23.0 million (My rank: #2, $10.4m off)
Well at least this was a nice prediction. It should hit $100m by next weekend, joining Norbit in the race for “comedy of the year.” I’m sure Blades of Glory is honored to be in such heady company.
Result: $14.0 million (My rank: #2, $.2m off)
I told you on Thursday that this would be a tough week, but I never thought Perfect Stranger would slip out of the top three. Even weeks after Meet the Robinsons debuted it is getting strong word of mouth and delivering. I’m not sure how it could crack $100m here in the States but it had a good run anyway. Go Bowler Hat!
Result: $12.1 million (My rank: #4, $1.8m off)
People noticed how awful the trailers were and stayed away. That’s a victory. Now this terrible little film will fade away into obscurity.
Result: $11.5 million (My rank: #3, $.9m off)
A remarkably strong weekend for Are We Done Yet which I think erases all the progress we made with Perfect Stranger. You know this movie must have cost about $30 dollars to make (seriously, does Cube pull down more than $5m here?) so it’s a success for Sony, unlike the PS3.
Result: $9.2 million (My rank: #7, $2.6m off)
6. Pathfinder
Maybe it’s because I watch sports programming live (and everything else recorded) that I saw so many Pathfinder ads. But I did see trillions of them. And they looked just terrible. Now, the flick has been murdered. A ton of justice being doled out this week.
Result: $4.8 million (My rank: #6, $2.4m off)
7. Wild Hogs
I keep thinking people will stop seeing this and they keep defying me. It’s been at $100m for many weeks, and I forgot to include it in the Norbit / Blades crowd. Sorry about that guys, welcome to the comedy triple digit lounge.
Result: $4.6 million (My rank: Not Ranked)
8. The Reaping
It sits at $19m domestically right now. The frogs alone must have cost that. So Warner takes a kick to the pants here.
Result: $4.5 million (My rank: #8, $1.0m off)
9. 300
This is Warner Bros too though. So I don’t think they are hitting the panic button just yet. $376m overall worldwide. That’s an epic financial windfall.
Result: $4.3 million (My rank: #10, DEAD ON)
10. Grindhouse
Wow, this was devastated weekend two too. A 63 percent drop-off? That means that either all the real fans went week one or that the word of mouth was savage. I’m inclined to believe the former, and there just wasn’t that much interest overall.
Result: $4.2 million (My rank: #5, $3.9m off)
