Based on Sunday’s estimates, courtesy of boxofficemojo.com:
1) Invincible: $17 million (first week)
Mark Wahlberg tending bar at night to make ends meet. Now that is a believable role.
2) Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby: $8 million ($127.6 million, fourth week)
Gary Cole for President.
3) Little Miss Sunshine: $7.5 million ($23 million, fifth week)
Already profitable in ways that “Snakes on a Plane” will never know.
4) Beerfest: $6.5 million (first week)
We’re puzzled by the performance of this one, since it had ‘Every guy’s new favorite movie’ written all over it.
5) Accepted: $6.4 million ($21.1 million, second week)
Hey, at least it held its position from last week. There’s something to be said for minimal expectations.
8) Idlewild: $5.8 million (first week)
Tragic that OutKast is going to go out not with a bang but a whimper.
9) Snakes on a Plane: $5.8 million ($26 million, second week)
The bones of another New Line executive are being scattered across Los Angeles as you read this.
Well, unfortunately Beerfest didn’t make it to the drive-in like I thought it would. However, I did finally get to see Talladega Nights, which had me howling. Haven’t laughed that hard in quite a while. Unfortunately, it was coupled with the lame and boring Accepted, which showed first. Please, it’s time for every generation to stop having their own Animal House knockoff. The last good one of those was my own generation’s PCU, and that was a damned sight funnier, if only for Jeremy Piven.
PCU is tragically underrated.
Not a fan of Old School, eh Roy?
Beerfest should have done better, and I’m still stunned that snakes got killed.
Yeah, Old School’s OK. Definitely better than Accepted, but still rather tired despite a couple laugh out loud moments.
Still having not seen Snakes, I’m not surprised, and that’s not because I didn’t have a whole lot of interest in it. I think it has a bit to do with it really being an Internet-hyped thing. A lot of those folks were looking forward to it, but I think it was lost to the rest. My wife hadn’t even heard about it until she saw the trailer and quipped, “That’s gotta be the dumbest looking thing I’ve seen. Who’d want to see that?” Perhaps this was how it was for folks who weren’t caught up in the Internet hype machine for the past year.
Also, I think when comparing it to something like The Blair Witch Project (which is one of my least fave flicks of all-time), so many people got sucked into that one thinking it was real. Having read all about it a month or so prior in Rolling Stone at the time, I was all hyped to see it, but about went to sleep when it finally debuted. I recall the whole audience booing the screen when the credits ran on that one.
So sometimes hype works, and sometimes it only works for certain people. Having read the majority of the reviews for Snakes from professionals and hearing first hand accounts as well that it’s not a great movie by any standards, and that the audience is a big factor more or less, I can understand why it didn’t fare better in this regard as well. Sure, folks will fork over zillions to see films I’m sure are far worse (Titanic, anyone?), but perhaps this one was too campy, and maybe Sam Jackson just isn’t a big enough draw for those kinds of crowds. I dunno. At this point I’m even debating whether to bother with the whole thing when it does arrive on DVD.