Weekend Boxoffice #17/18

I didn't do one of these last week, because I was so underwhelmed with the films that were opening. This is the dumping ground the year, the time when the bad movies come out, see their shadows, and march into the multiplexes anyway.

Last week, it was THE MESSENGERS and BECAUSE I SAID SO. Both got largely dire reviews, and yet each made over $13 million their opening weekend, despite the presence of the Super Bowl.

In fact, 2007 has been typically dire all along. Rotten Tomatoes, which helpfully turns critics' thumbs up or thumbs down into a percentage of how many actually liked the film, reports these percentages for this year's wide releases:

SMOKING ACES 27%
STOMP THE YARD 26%
CATCH AND RELEASE 22%
THE HITCHER 21%
ARTHUR AND THE INVISIBLES 19%
THE MESSENGERS 14%
BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE 10%
BECAUSE I SAID SO 7%
HAPPILY N'EVER AFTER 4%
EPIC MOVIE 3%

Only FREEDOM WRITERS (67%) and ALPHA DOG (54%) bested the 27% mark for wide releases.

Granted, these movies are suffering in part because critics were spoiled by all of the end-of-the-year Oscar bait. But that doesn't excuse the fact that there isn't a single movie that has come out in the past 6 weeks that I have been tempted to see.

This week, things aren't getting much better. There are two high-profile movies opening on over 3000 screens: HANNIBAL RISING and NORBIT.

HANNIBAL RISING is apparently brutal, poorly-told and pointless, while the fact that neither HANNIBAL nor RED DRAGON were very good should cut down on the interest to see this movie; the fact that Anthony Hopkins isn't in it certainly won't help either. Still, it'll do a bit. Call it $15.2 million for the first three days.

NORBIT is already getting flak from the black community about its stereotypical portrait of a big loud black woman, while people are wondering if it'll taint Eddie's Oscar chances. The movie has also gotten really bad reviews (it is currently at 10% on Rotten Tomatoes; Hannibal Rising is at 21%. Neither has gotten a single good review from a major critic). Still, audiences want to laugh, and they want Eddie to be funny. I think they'll turn out. $23.7 million.

I'm not going to see eother of them.