'Where The Wild Things Are' Runs $32.4M 
Oscar Can't Always Get What He Wants 
NBC Bright Spot Of Lousy GE 3Q Earnings; 4Q … 
Oops! Vivendi May Delay 20% NBCU Sale? 
65 Nations Vie For Foreign Language Oscar 
Elle's Women In Hollywood Power List 
HOW BIG IS BIG? AEG Predicts Michael Jackson … 
Sane Debt-Reduction Move By Redstone; But … 
EXCLUSIVE: Comcast Wants NBCU Deal Done … 
SUNDAY: Sony's low-budget comedy The House Bunny, starring Scary Movie's Anna Faris and featuring Hugh Hefner's trio of Playboy blondes in this blatant rip-off of their TV show Girls Next Door, 
almost beat out bigger budget movies. But after winning Friday, the $25M sorority spoof hopped back to No. 2 behind last week's No. 1, DreamWorks / Paramount's Tropic Thunder, which cost considerably more. The R-rated Ben Stiller-Jack Black-Robert Downey Jr satire about moviemaking regained the top spot Sunday with a $16.1M weekend after taking in $4.8 million Friday and $6.5 million from 3,352 venues for a new cume of $65.6M. It held up well at the box office midweek and was down only 38% this weekend to wind up the third movie this summer to repeat as #1. Overall, this Memorial Day to Labor Day domestic box office is just a few percentage points down from last summer's record $4.16 billion, to Hollywood's surprise and amazement. But that's because the major studios churned out more edgy and original fare than the predictable and tired prequels, sequels and threequels of a year ago. Meanwhile, PG-13 The House Bunny found enough of the girl power audience (the script is written by Legally Blonde masterminds Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith) to earn $5.8 million Friday and $5.2 million Saturday from 2,714 theaters for a $15.1M weekend. It was produced by Adam Sandler's Happy Madison company.
Coming in a close No. 3 was Universal's Death Race starring British action star Jason Stathem which debuted to $4.6 million Friday
and $4.4 million Saturday in 2,532 dates for a disappointing $12.2M weekend despite attracting an ethnically diverse audience that was only 38% Latino and 12% African American. Warner Bros' mega-blockbuster The Dark Knight wound up No. 4 after raking in another $2.9 million Friday and $4.4 million Saturday from 3,163 plays for what was a $10.3M weekend. The pic is closing in on an amazing $500 million North American cume (now $489.1M) before the end of August -- which will set yet another record. Coming in No. 5 was LucasFilm/Warner Bros' animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars which earned a $5.5M weekend weekend from 3,542 venues for a new cume of $24.9M. And, making it three comedies in the Top 6 movies at the box office, Sony's Judd Apatow-bannered R-rated comedy Pineapple Express managed another $5.6 million weekend from 2,620 runs for a $73.9M cume. The only other newcomer was Dimension-MGM's Ice Cube football comedy The Longshots, which eked out just a $4.3M weekend from 2,089 theaters for 9th place. (No wonder there's news that MGM's investors have put the flailing studio up for sale.) And, finally, Fox Atomic's leftover The Rocker opened stillborn Wednesday and finished 12th Friday with only $2.7M for the weekend and a 5-day cume of just $3.8M. Usual powerhouse Fox has had a truly lousy summer.
The rest of the Top 10 were holdovers: #7 Fox's Mirrors posted a $4.8M weekend and new $20M cume, #8 Universal's Mamma Mia! had another $4.3M weekend and new $124.4M cume, #10 Universal's The Mummy 3: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor took in a $4M weekend and new $93.8M cume.
Loading ...
The House Bunny is surprise but it also showcases a lot of great upcoming female talent: Kat Dennings, Kat McPhee, Emma Stone. And Anna Faris will surely get a boost from a possible #1.
The House Bunny finishing #1 isn’t “demonstrating that the American public is in the mood for mindless entertainment in summer’s waning days.” If anything, it’s the opposite. House Bunny’s 5.8 million dollar take was the lowest Friday #1 since Street Kings in April. People weren’t in the mood for mindless entertainment so they didn’t go to the movies this weekend. (And what else were people going to see? Death Race? The Rocker? The Longshots? Hamlet 2?)
It’s also funny that you say this summer didn’t fare as well “because the major studios churned out more edgy and original fare than the predictable and tired prequels, sequels and threequels of a year ago.”
Original? Yes (if we stretch the definition a bit). Edgy? Not unless you count Wanted and Hancock are “edgy”.
I’m a 45 year old white mofo with a college education. I live in the biggest flyover state. Please. Someone recommend a movie for me to see this weekend.
Fox will be closing out a truly awful summer release schedule with next week’s release of “Babylon A.D.” starring Vin Diesel. This is the list of Fox’s summer slate:
What Happens in Vegas
The Happening
X-Files
Meet Dave
Space Chimps
Mirrors
The Rocker
Babylon A.D.
A summer to forget.
I guess when Dickie Roberts was number 1 a few years back it demonstrated the public’s burning desire to see a child-star satire.
If you read Wanted and the Wachowskis’ original script for the Matrix, you’d see that the guys who wrote Wanted basically plagarised the whole thing. How’s that for original! I’m surprised there hasn’t been massive uproar/lawsuits! If i were the Wachowskis’, I dig a grave for those hacks and bury them alive.
Fiftyfoot – See The Rocker. It’s funny, has a positive message, and well, it ROCKS!
And if that’s not enough of a reason….
http://mheister.com/thepodosphere/?p=106
Oh Nikki! Ouch..mindless entertainment this weekend? I would have assumed the only reason for House Bunny to be raking in more dollars cause it is better than the other 3 releases this weekend.
Cut us some slacks! Speed Racer, Narnia..Caspian, Pineapple Express was mindless and boring. Anna Farris is entertainment. She was not even trying to be funny..she is a riot!
What amazes me was that how this year summer’s crop was even close to last year’s numbers in B.O dollars. Last year was expected to be big cause of the hundreds of sequels and tri-quels, known materials that the public knew. This year, it was more like untested with IronMan success and Hancock, Mama Mia among others.
For the record, the best of 2007 is 300. Just like no one expected for DK2 to be huge, 300 was not expected to set any records.
Congrats Hollywood..you guys got some brains left afterall.
What opened on the same weekend last year? Nanny Diaries and WAR? Looks like it may not be such a big drop-off after all.
As for this summer avoiding sequels and threequels… well, sure, it wasn’t nearly as franchise-heavy as 2007, but I’d hardly call it original… the difference is that this summer laid the groundwork for future franchises, whereas last summer was the harvest season. I mean, we now have the seeds for sequels to Iron Man, Panda, Get Smart, Wanted and Hancock, and that’s forgetting the sequels we had, such as Hellboy and Batman. In a few years, we’ll have another summer similar to 2007.
Anna Faris is a hoot and I’m glad she’s #1 this weekend. But let’s be honest, the movie is a stinker. I saw it last night, and a few chuckles aside, it’s cringe-worthy. Another one where most, if not all, of the funny moments are in the trailer.
Good to see Karen and Kirsten stretching their writing muscles. I mean, going from writing LEGALLY BLONDE which is about a dumb blonde going to college to writing THE HOUSE BUNNY which is about a dumb blonde going to college. I wonder what their next project is going to be. A dumb blonde going to college perhaps?
I don’t want to start another Dark Knight actual/inflation fight, but is it fair to ask how many tickets The Dark Knight sold in IMAX, and what percentage of that film’s take comes from those more expensive tickets?
I’m sure it’s sizable, because there are still people out there who haven’t seen the movie because of their desire to see it IMAX combined with their unwillingness to buy tickets in advance.
Matrix fanatics are so strange….
Because, you know, supervillians taking over the world is JUST LIKE THE MATRIX.
And technically, Fight Club did the cubicle dweller turns badass first. It was hardly original in the Matrix — which itself draws so much from the generic superhero comic mythos that the Matrix can hardly be said to have an original story anyway.
hey greg6363… i totally agree fox has had a terrible summer. no big blockbusters but it should be noted that vegas making 200 mill worlwide is great for a comedy. and they will make money off of happening (160), x-files (at least 60) and mirrors (20 so far and should hit 30 in US… descent for a late august horror).
Comment by Wanted=poor man’s matrix — August 24, 2008 @ 12:55 am:
“If you read Wanted and the Wachowskis’ original script for the Matrix, you’d see that the guys who wrote Wanted basically plagarised the whole thing. How’s that for original! I’m surprised there hasn’t been massive uproar/lawsuits! If i were the Wachowskis’, I dig a grave for those hacks and bury them alive.”
If you read the Wachowskis’ script for the Matrix, you’d see that it’s a by-the-numbers hero’s journey (Campbell/Vogler) story. Heck, they even included a LITERAL resurrection scene in the Matrix, since they couldn’t apparently figure out how to create a more subtle figurative one. Talk about hack work.
Jesus should sue them for ripping him off.
I’m actually not a big matrix fan; just read scripts in my spare time and realised the resemblance. It’s just that they basically did a cut and paste number. Plot, characters, character arcs, dialogue. Basically everything. I challenge ANYONE to read it and not see what I saw. It’d be impossible.
I love rainn wilson…. but that movie looks terrible. I wish he had an agent who could have gotten him a better script…
Neena,
Seriously. I’m not talking about them as movies- I’m talking about them as SCREENPLAYS, as words on a page. The way they are structured, the way they are paced, plots, character…. you name it. Read them. Don’t think of them as movies. Look at the words on the page. If you have any reading comprehension skills at all, you WILL see what I see. It really is shocking the level of mimicry that people get away with.
Besides, it wasn’t ’supervillians’ in the comic sense of the word, but a league of assassins. Read them.
And it’s not the concept but the way it was executed. And if you read both scripts you’ll see that.
Dear Hollywood,
My apologies, but I disagree. Allow me to interrupt your fantasy lifestyle for a reality check.
The only reason there has been record setting box office revenue the past two years is due to the Great Recession.
Like the Great Depression, Hollywood benefits from ‘we the people’ looking for a cheap distraction from the daily grind.
It’s a helluva lot cheaper to take the kiddies to the movies than to pile the family into the gas-guzzler for a vacation.
Please don’t congratulate yourself on your ‘quality’ movies or ‘excellent’ marketing of you product.
After all, junkies will stare at flies circling shit.
I return you now to your fantasy in progress.
After all, junkies will stare at flies circling shit.
I return you now to your fantasy in progress.
Aim for Jeremiah, end up sounding like a grouchy dude on the Internet.
Wanted=Poor Man’s Matrix,
The Wachowskis won’t sue because they don’t want to attract any more attention to themselves after serving up that stinking turd, SPEED RACER.
And WANTED was infinitely better than either MATRIX sequel, by far.
Comment by Wanted=poor man’s matrix. — August 24, 2008 @ 1:53 pm:
“I’m actually not a big matrix fan; just read scripts in my spare time and realised the resemblance. It’s just that they basically did a cut and paste number. Plot, characters, character arcs, dialogue. Basically everything. I challenge ANYONE to read it and not see what I saw. It’d be impossible.”
I guess I missed where Neo kills his father in the Matrix and conducts targeted assassinations or where Morpheus gets his instructions in an illogical fashion from a piece of cloth. I missed the robots in Wanted that are powerful enough to enslave mankind, but not advanced enough to build and operate nuclear power facilities.
And…
Really.
Do you remember that movie where the main character gets into a huge mess, but eventually figures out how to get out of it or clean it up? Or the one where the main character loses something and gets it back? Or the one where the main character is wronged and gets revenge? Or the one where two people fall in love with each other, a lot of other people and/or events get in the way, but they wind up together in the end?
People have been ripping off those stories a lot.
“All the great story lines are great practical jokes that people fall for over and over again.” – Kurt Vonnegut
No one has improved significantly on Polti’s list of basic story premises. The details and execution make the difference – not the premise or form.
You might be reading scripts, but you’re not learning much from them.
Hell, I could easily argue that the Matrix was a cut and paste of the Untouchables. The Untouchables even had a red pill/blue pill scene. Don’t believe me?
Comment by Tom Segerson — August 24, 2008 @ 2:16 pm:
“The only reason there has been record setting box office revenue the past two years is due to the Great Recession. Like the Great Depression, Hollywood benefits from ‘we the people’ looking for a cheap distraction from the daily grind. It’s a helluva lot cheaper to take the kiddies to the movies than to pile the family into the gas-guzzler for a vacation.”
Thanks for the zero-basis speculation, random Internet person.
But isn’t it a helluva lot cheaper than going to the movies to just rent (or even buy) a movie or watch TV or go to the park or play a video game or borrow a friend’s movie or watch TV at a friend’s house or play a friend’s video game or…
You are missing the whole point. Clearly, these guys can’t turn in an even vaguely original script. It’s just that some of us think that, as writers, is important.
And The Matrix’s whole “living entire life in virtual reality only to get unplugged and find it was all fake” is a direct lift from John Byrne’s Next Men comic books of the early 90s. Alot of the Matrix is taken from Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles, as well.
So there, or something.
“I don’t want to start another Dark Knight actual/inflation fight, but is it fair to ask how many tickets The Dark Knight sold in IMAX, and what percentage of that film’s take comes from those more expensive tickets?”
Sure, TDK has that advantage, but it’s a lot different from a film like Journey to the Center of the Earth, where the majority of the tickets sold are premium-priced. Only a fraction of the tickets sold for TDK are IMAX-priced; I believe IMAX tickets accounted for 3% of the opening weekend gross.
Instead of spouting off why YOU think I’m wrong, why don’t you actually just read the two damn things. It’s as clear as day.