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Killers_m.jpg

America Hates Movies!

By Dustin Rowles | Box Office Round-Ups | June 7, 2010 |

By Dustin Rowles | Box Office Round-Ups | June 7, 2010 |


Despite the fact that there were four new wide releases this week, Shrek Forever After managed to hold on to its weak number one position, totaling another $25 million to bring its overall total to $183 million, which is $60 million less than Shrek the Third had made after three weeks.

But the bigger news here is that this weekend represented a 13-year-low at the box office for the first week of June, and it’s off 28 percent from the same weekend last June, when The Hangover dominated. Obviously, there’s only one conclusion we can draw from this: America hates movies. Why else would Americans not turn out in huge numbers to see Get Him to the Greek, a spin-off, sequel hybrid to the moderately performing Forgetting Sarah Marshall starring an unproven box-office star (Russell Brand) and an overexposed Jonah Hill whose chin is now officially bigger than his face? Only $17 million? It’s because America hates movies! I mean, that’s the only explanation for why only $16 million worth of moviegoers saw Killers, which stars two of the least liked movie stars on the planet, in Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl. That movie boasted a whopping 14 percent on the Tomatometer, how could America not love it (for the record, the 14 percent who gave Killers a positive review were all receiving oral sex during the screening; the “top critics,” who were not privy to that oral sex, gave it a 0 percent )?

And what of Marmaduke? Clearly the only reason a live-action talking dog movie based on a newspaper comic stirp could only muster $11 million (good for sixth place) is because America hates movies (and newspaper comic strips, for that matter!). And Splice? Only $7.4 million. And that one had a creature with hands for feet! America, why do you hate movies? (Reviews for Marmaduke and Splice will be up tomorrow).

Sex and the City 2 had another 60 percent drop and likely won’t recoup its budget domestically. Meanwhile, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time probably won’t break $100 million (it added $13 million this weekend), and that’s on a $200 million budget. Elsewhere, MacGruber dropped 94 percent in its third week; it didn’t even make $100,000.

What’s up with America? It’s like the masses have suddenly developed a modicum of taste. Have they suddenly become discriminating? Do you mean that studios have to do more than bang some shit together or cast some well-known faces or adapt a well-known property and simply release the movie during blockbuster season to actually merit blockbuster box-office numbers? That’s crazy talk! A real movie lover takes the good with the bad! If you don’t watch Sex and the City 2, people, how can you ever expect to get a Sex and the City trilogy? You know how great those trilogy box sets look on my bookshelves?! Man up, people. Suffer a little. It takes sacrifice. Do it for America! If you don’t, then quality entertainment might win the day. And we can’t have that, assholes.