The Weekly Box Office Round-Up / Dustin Rowles
Box Office Round-Ups | July 28, 2008 | Comments ()
5. Journey to the Center of the Earth ($9.4 million; $60 million): For a shitty family film, Journey has some decent goddamn box-office legs, while the movie that opened at number one against it on the same weekend, Hellboy II has already dropped to number eight. The lesson? Don’t let your girlfriend hang out with the quiet, unassuming types. The sweet, sweet irony here, however, is that Brendan Fraser will be knocking himself out of the top five next weekend, when a movie that no one is excited about but that everyone will see, Mummy 3, hits theaters.
4. The X-Files: I Want to Believe ($10 million): Eeek. Ouch. Damn. I guess I’m not the only X-Files fan in America who thought, “You know: I bet the 7:00 showing is sold out, I’ll just see it next weekend.” This movie may be the exact opposite of The Mummy 3: A film a lot of people want to see, but that, inexplicably, no one does. Or, maybe our review (and others), suggesting that it’s a mediocre film but a strong episode, convinced many of us that we’d treat it as such and wait for it on DVD. I can’t explain it, but I will say this: I’m totally bummed. A $10 million opening weekend will not spawn another movie or six, and though I haven’t seen I Want to Believe yet, I will. And no matter how bad it is, I’m still going to want another movie. So, yeah: This totally bums me out. I had kind of hoped that more people would go to see it just because David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson seem like such nice, pretty people. Kindness just isn’t worth $11 anymore, I suppose.
3. Mamma Mia ($17 million; $62 million): I’m sorry, but I can’t help but think that the majority of the people who are supporting Mamma Mia are the same people who take vacations in New York City and, in the one opportunity in their goddamn lives to actually see a real Broadway production, they go see Shear Madness. Such a goddamn waste. I suspect they are the same people, as well, who made My Big Fat Greek Wedding one of the biggest grossing independent films of all time, despite the fact that My Big Fat Greek Wedding was the suck. Just plain fucking awful. I blame Ohio. Fucking Buckeyes.
2. Step Brothers ($30 million): Let’s look a little more closely at Judd Apatow’s track record, OK. Since 1999, he’s had nearly 20 projects that he’s either directed, written, or produced. And of those, one thing is abundantly apparent: The more that Seth Rogen is involved, the better the project. See, “Freaks and Geeks,” “Undeclared,” “Knocked Up,” “40 Year Old Virgin,” and “Superbad,” all featuring Rogen, and then compare those to everything else: Zohan, Walk Hard, Fun with Dick and Jane, Drillbit Taylor, etc. and now Step Brothers (which featured a Rogen cameo, accounting for the occasional funny bit in the movie). So, who’s the comic genius? Judd Apatow? Or Seth Rogen?
(The exception: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, not quite as good as the Rogen projects, but nothing nearly as bad as the others.)
1. The Dark Knight ($75 million; $314 million): $314 million! In ten fucking days. It’s more than halved the biggest grossing movie of all time, Titanic, in 10 fucking days. It took Titanic something like seven or eight weeks to hit $300 million. It’s the biggest second weekend of all time. And, by the 11th day, it will overtake Iron Man for the biggest movie of 2008. Will The Dark Knight, a sequel to a film that only amassed $205 million overall (or what The Dark Knight did in its first five days), break the all-time box-office record? My bet is no, but it will overtake Star Wars ($460 million) to become the second biggest film of all time. This, folks, is insane. And it’s kind of great. I think, even, that The Dark Knight may be fairly immune from backlash, if only because its participants are so low-key (I have to do an image search to remember what Nolan even looks like). Hell, Nolan, who is 5 ½ for six (Insomnia was only OK), may just be remembered as one of the greatest directors of his generation, despite relative little name recognition.
You know what I’m thinking: Christopher Nolan plus Seth Rogen equal a $1 trgillion grossing film.
And, finally, before I go, a reader, Michael, sent this link in, which may be the coolest thing since Zombie Kickball. Online Zombie Dating:
Each Time You Like, Share, Tweet or Stumble a Pajiba Post, An Angel Does the Paul Rudd Dance
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