The Weekly Box Office Round-Up / Dustin Rowles
Box Office Round-Ups | May 5, 2008 | Comments (80)
5. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (Weekend: $6 million; Total: $25 million): Pothead moviegoers over the weekend, too stoned to turn off The Legend of Bagger Vance on cable (“that movie is such a fuckin’ trip, bro”), turned up to the mall too late to get tickets to a sold out Iron Man, so instead opted to see Harold and Kumar again, noting that the scene where H & K smoke fatties with President Bush was “sweet as a moose, man,” before proclaiming: “I’m totally not gay, man. But if I were, I’d bang Doogie.” Speaking of Doogie, whatever happened to Lisa Dean Ryan? I’ll tell you what happened: She disappeared. Can anyone find a photo more recent than 2005?
4. Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Nobody is really talking about it, but there’s a small piece of the box-office pie that can be attributed to the curiosity factor — let’s face it, there’s not a lot of places where a heterosexual man can safely catch an eyeful of wiener without having their sexuality called into question. Sarah Marshall and Jason Segel finally give us a measuring stick, disguised as a bawdy comedy. So, Bob: How’d you do?
3. Baby Mama (Weekend: $10 million; Total: $32 million): The real winner in the Iron Man leftover sweepstakes was Tina Fey and Co., as Baby Mama suffered a better than average second-week drop of only 40 percent, most likely because it was many female and date audiences’ second choice. Next up, Tina (whose real name, by the by, is Elizabeth Stamatina Fey) is writing the script for Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill, about an “eccentric punk-rocker who forms a band with a rebellious young Hasidic Jew,” to be played by Sacha Baron Cohen.
2. Made of Honor Weekend: $15.5 million): Every single person, except for one, who paid to see Made of Honor was under 13, and all of them snuck into the sold-out PG-13 Iron Man. A comical display of two per chair ensued, as many women were forced to sit on their dates’ laps, resulting in a wonderfully awkward moment when men everywhere had to attempt, in vain, to explain that it was their date causing the erection and not Iron Man’s suit. No. Really. Seriously. Likewise, many women were put in the uncomfortable position of explaining to their dates that it was their erection that caused the drenched panties, and not Robert Downey, Jr. (women with more secure boyfriends, however, readily admitted that RDJ had prompted spontaneous undie explosion).
Oh, and the one person who actually attended Made of Honor was an illiterate and rabid Cuba Gooding fan, who attended under the mistaken impression that Men of Honor was being re-released to theaters. He left halfway through.
1. Iron Man: (Weekend: $100 million; Total — including Thursday’s advanced showings: $104 million): How about that, folks? The second biggest non-sequel opening of all time; the tenth biggest opening of all time, and the only movie among the top ten openings of all time that I actually gave a shit about. It’s incredibly rare that a movie is loved this much by both audiences and critics, but I bet if we took the formula we used to rank the Worst Blockbusters of All Time (staff votes, box-office gross and Rotten Tomato percentage) that Iron Man would land in our top three of all time.
Hmmm. Well, there’s a Guide idea.
In fact, Iron Man actually outperformed the opening weekend of Batman Begins by over $50 million. Good for Robert Downey, Jr. Good for the newly formed Marvel Studios. And good for the Iron Man fanboys, whose superhero will no longer be considered middle tier. I hope they keep the team together for the inevitable sequels and, when RDJ drops out, that Iron Man doesn’t continue on without him (as the comic books portend). It just wouldn’t be the same.
And, with Iron Man 2 now inevitable, some enterprising young man has already put up a trailer for it. I wouldn’t click on it if I were you, 1) Because it’s NSFW, and 2) because you will never sleep again. That’s a promise.
I told you not to watch it. You people never fucking listen.
Comments
Posted by: Brigs at May 5, 2008 8:23 AM
It's times like these that I envy the blind.