A lot of the people defended their decision to go see “Couples Retreat,” and later thoughtlessly enjoyed it, because they go to the movies, in their words, “to be entertained.” Which makes it seem as if if YOU didn’t enjoy, or want to enjoy, spending $12 for Vince Vaughn and friends’ summer vacation on the studio dime because you obviously go to the movies for reasons other than enjoying yourself- ritualistic torture, we suppose. The people who say these things, it must be said, should be dragged out onto the street and shot like dogs, and their children should be forced to climb The Holy Mountain. Nonetheless, these people helped make “Couples Retreat” the number one movie in America this weekend, because if anything is a sure thing in Hollywood, it’s a sitcom premise with semi-famous stars headlined by a notoriously lazy comic actor in a beautiful location.
The bigger news this week is the relative success of “Paranormal Activity.” A week after selling out all its midnight screenings the low budget horror picture went wider to a full day schedule and smashed records, currently poised to have the highest grossing weekend for a film on less than 200 screens. That noted ignoramus Nikkie Finke quotes some dipshit rival executive crowing over Paramount’s success as if it’s some sort of big deal. The movie’s slated for a 1000 theater expansion, but will the heat carry over? The $7 mil.+ the movie takes in this weekend couldn’t even cover a shady “Couples Retreat” press junket. The question is, does word of mouth happen? With the advent of Twitter, Facebook and other useless social networking tools no one over 30 should be using, word of mouth circulates, and because it’s in one sentence bites (sometimes not even- “t4is move SUCKeED LOLOLOLZ” being a popular term), that allows negative feedback to sink films quickly, especially if they are out-of-the-box attempts, which is why it’s far more common to see films drop 65% weekend to weekend than it is for them to ever do close to the same business days later. That executive is celebrating, in essence, because he’ll laugh when Paramount hastily spends $20 million on p&a, an expenditure which could very well end profitability on this phenomenon immediately.
We hope it could teach Hollywood a lesson in frugality, especially when it comes to horror films. “Paranormal Activity” isn’t very good- clearly the director thought up a few decent scares and barely wrote anything else, allowing for two terrible improv actors to fill in the blanks with a sketch of a story- but its unusual, and its release pattern- late night shows only, possibly the very best way to see the movie- is a nice change of pace from massive day-and-date releases where you’re sick of hearing about the movie by the first Saturday. But because it is slow-paced, and because the few rewards the movie has come from repaying the patience of the viewer, and because of the ugly, low-fi aesthetic, it’s hard to say if it will catch on with the public, especially those who wise up and realize that the found footage conceit is a tired device, and they can catch their fix of this stuff on “Ghost Hunters” every week. Remember, sometimes audiences are willing to swallow shit as mind-numbingly boring as “The DaVinci Code” ($750 mil. worldwide!), but it helps when you have a Tom Hanks on your side. Also, Hollywood may have already learned this frugality thing when it comes to horror, since we’re on our sixth “Saw” installment in the same amount of years, and those movies cost a buck and a half.
Last week’s number one “Zombieland” fell off a decent amount at #2, but still held on against “Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs,” which impressively weathered the “Toy Story/Toy Story 2” onslaught, though we suspect “Where The Wild Things Are” will take a chunk of that audience next weekend. With no other new releases, the rest of the list followed from last week. Debuting in 185 screens was Chris Rock’s doc “Good Hair” with $1.1 million, an impressive showing for a documentary about hair opening in just under 200 screens. Oscar hopeful “An Education” began its run promisingly, debuting on only four screens with a smashing $40k per theater, for a $162k total, dwarfing all other indie releases this weekend. “From Mexico With Love” didn’t generate much interest in 279 screens, with only $308k, an average of $1.1k per, while “Free Style,” a kids’ flick starring Corbin Bleu, flopped horribly on 261 screens, pulling in $106k, an average of $406 per theater. Of note was “The Damned United,” Oscar winning screenwriter Peter Morgan’s footy drama that pulled in $36.8k from six screens, not enough to beat the six screen release of English language/Vietnamese “Passport To Love,”which did $47.3k. The value of an Oscar, ladies and gents.
1. Couples- Retreat!- $35.3 million
2. Zombieland- $15 million ($48 mil.)
3. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs- $12 million ($96 mil.)
4. Toy Story/Toy Story 2- $7.7 million ($23 mil.)
5. Paranormal Activity- $7.1 million ($8.3 mil.)
6. Surrogates- $4.1 million ($33 mil.)
7. The Invention of Lying- $3.4 million ($12 mil.)
8. Whip It- $2.8 million ($9 mil.)
9. Capitalism: A Love Story- $2.7 million ($9 mil.)
10. Fame- $2.6 million ($20 mil.)