The Day the Earth Crapped the Bed
The Weekly Box-Office Round-Up / Dustin Rowles
Box Office Round-Ups | December 15, 2008 | Comments (17)
It’s another dull week for the box office — no records were broken, five of the top six films were holdovers from at least 3 weeks ago, and the one new entry, The Day the Earth Stood Still, opened with fairly pedestrian numbers for a film of its ilk. So, today’s edition will be a short and fun-fact heavy. But before we get to the top five, a couple of notes: Delgo, which opened on over 2,000 screens, bombed, landing at number 16, with less than $1 million. We’ll nevertheless have our review up this afternoon, which will hopefully be good for a few laughs, at least. Also, two new releases — Doubt and Gran Torino — which opened with very limited runs, both had fairly spectacular openings on a per-theater average ($35,000 and $47,000 PTA, respectively). The Doubt review will be up later today, and Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino later this week.
5. Australia ($4.2 million; $37 million): Fun Fact: Though considered an A-list actress, excluding her voice work in Happy Feet, Nicole Kidman has only one $100 million film in her entire career: 1995’s Batman Forever, where she was 4th billed.
4. Bolt: ($7.5 million; $89 million): Fun Fact: Bolt’s visual look was inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper. Hmmm. I can actually see it a little:
3. Twilight: ($8 million; $150 million): Different times, of course, but this is nevertheless the sort of fun fact that will make you weep a little inside: Kristen Stewart’s lifetime box-office gross so far ($379 million) is nearly $200 million more than Katherine Hepburn’s entire lifetime box-office gross. It’s also $100 more than Ryan Reynold’s lifetime box-office gross to date.
2. Four Christmases ($13 million; $87 million): Fun Fact: Four Christmases is now the 6th highest grossing Christmas film of all time. The highest grossing Hanukkah film of all time? The Hebrew Hammer — about an orthodox Jewish blaxploitation hero who saves Hanukkah from the clutches of Santa Claus’s evil son — which made $82,000. It probably goes without saying, but Andy Dick played Damian Claus in that film.
1. The Day the Earth Stood Still ($31 million): Fun Fact: Despite the somewhat lackluster opening, it’s still Keanu’s third biggest opening all time, just behind the second and third Matrix films. Fun Fact #2: Screenwriter David Scarpa wrote over 40 drafts of the film’s script. 40 drafts? And this was the best they could come up with? Really? And yet, despite over 40 drafts, Scarpa still described the inside of the alien orbs as “white limbo-y thing.”
I’m not making this up.
Comments
Posted by: mightygodking at December 15, 2008 9:18 AM
Kristen Stewart's lifetime box-office gross so far ($379 million) is nearly $200 million more than Katherine Hepburn's entire lifetime box-office gross.
Which is meaningless, considering that those figures don't take inflation into account. Of course, this mostly means that most or indeed all new "box office champions" are meaningless.
As for Chanukah films, I'm pretty sure Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights grossed more than $82,000, dogshit as it might have been.