There Were Horses, and a Man on Fire, and I Killed a Guy with a Trident
Box-Office Round-Up / Dustin Rowles
Trade News | October 29, 2007 | Comments (36)
5. Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married — $5.7 million ($47 million total) — With his latest release, Tyler Perry eeks toward the $50 million mark in the third week of Why Did I Get Married’s release and continues to spread the positive racial message that successful black men would be a lot happier and probably even more successful if it weren’t for those touchy black women, who get so bent out of shape when their husbands fuck other women.
4. The Game Plan — $6.2 million ($77 million) — In the sleeper hit of the fall, The Game Plan pushes its total toward the $80 million mark, making the sequel, Plan B (about his illegitimate daughter’s abortion) all but inevitable. Fun Fact: Dwayne Johnson has publicly stated that The Game Plan will be the last movie he’ll do in which he will be credited as The Rock. Henceforth, he’ll only be known as Paper.
3. 30 Days of Night — $6.7 million ($27 million) — After only two weeks of release, the vampire flick 30 Days of Night has nearly recouped its entire $30 million budget, and rumor has it, in the sequel, Punxsutawney Phil emerges from his burrow on Halloween and fails to see his shadow, prompting 30 more days of night. So sad.
2. Dan in Real Life — $12 million ($12 million) - Turns out Steve Carell is even savvier than we give him credit for, as he manages to open a movie just at expectations, ensuring that he remains marketable while also staving off the backlash that accompanies huge success. Furthermore, because Dan will remain relatively little seen, 14-year-old boys dragged to see Dan with their grandmas can pass off the line, “Love is not a feeling, it’s an ability,” as their own without fear of getting busted for woo plagiarism.
Oh, and for those who were busy watching New England teams march toward world domination this weekend, there was a weird dynamic in both the Dan and Saw IV comments section regarding the nature of our little site. I’d just like to note, in our defense, that there are several writers on this site, and we don’t always agree with one another. We don’t speak in unison — there is not a great-and-mighty Pajiba voice. I hate torture porn, for instance; Phillip isn’t bothered by it. Dan and I dislike Peter Jackson and have, at least, since the first LOTR (though, I dug the hell out of The Frighteners), while that trilogy remains one of Phillip’s favorites. The TV Whore and I love Kevin Smith; John Williams loathes him. Some of us speak to feminist issues frequently, while some of us wax poetic about Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts. Some are comic book geeks; some despise the medium (I mean, really despise). Many of us on this site are politically liberal, while others — believe it or not — skew conservative or libertarian. Some are devoutly religious, while some are atheistic heathens. You get the picture. The point is: The idea here at Pajiba is not that we all share the same beliefs and opinions, but that we attempt speak to our individual opinions in an intelligent, thoughtful, vitriolic, or amusing manner. I like to think we succeed at least half as often as we don’t. But then again, I like Ben Folds, so what the hell do I know?
1. Saw IV — $32 million ($32 million) — Hey! Turns out, torture porn isn’t completely dead after all. Shhhh. Don’t tell Eli Roth. Oh, and you may as well resign yourself to the fact that there will be a new Saw installment every single Halloween until someone comes up with the clever idea to counterprogram the Halloween box-office schedule with a goddamn film decent enough to wrestle away the Jigsaw Killer’s stranglehold on the holiday. It’s not like it’d be hard — a little blood, a few guts, a dead cheerleader and maybe two or three legitimate scares. We don’t ask for a lot — just that it not be Saw every goddamn year.
And, in limited release, Darjeeling Limited rolled out to around 700 screens, and crapped out at $1.7 million, while Lars and the Real Girl pulled in less than $1 million on 300 screens, proving for the 5,000,0003rd time that good taste and mass appeal have absolutely nothing in common. However, there was one highlight among limited releases, Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (review later today), which pulled in around $75,000 in only two theaters.
Finally, on DVD this week, there’s a slew of new releases, including Captivity, both the rated and unrated versions — the latter for those who want to see an extended version of Elisha Cuthbert’s human organ smoothie scene; here, she drinks the smoothie, regurgitates it, and then drinks it again! Otherwise, there’s the not bad In the Land of Women, the disappointing Spiderman 3, the incredible No End in Sight, the mediocre Talk to Me and Day Watch rounds out this week’s offerings.
Comments
Posted by: BarbadoSlim at October 29, 2007 9:03 AM
"Steve Carell is an overrated douchebag"
Hahahaha... I KID, I KID...or am I?
Anyway, I blame YOU for, Tyler Perry's continued success.