Box Office Weekend 4/26: Calm Before the Storm...

[AndyDursin]

Wacky how much cash the Beyonce-Ali Larter "catfight movie" OBSESSED took in.

Anyway it's all a warm up for next weekend, the unofficial start of the summer movie season!

1 N Obsessed SGem $28,500,000 - 2,514 - $11,337 $28,500,000 $20 1
2 1 17 Again WB $11,665,000 -50.8% 3,255 - $3,584 $39,970,000 - 2
3 N Fighting Rog. $11,441,000 - 2,309 - $4,955 $11,441,000 - 1
4 N The Soloist P/DW $9,715,000 - 2,024 - $4,800 $9,715,000 - 1
5 N Earth (2009) BV $8,554,000 - 1,804 - $4,742 $14,201,000 - 1
6 4 Monsters Vs. Aliens P/DW $8,524,000 -35.6% 3,358 -304 $2,538 $174,817,000 $175 5
7 2 State of Play Uni. $6,891,000 -51.0% 2,807 +4 $2,455 $25,124,000 - 2
8 3 Hannah Montana The Movie BV $6,372,000 -52.5% 3,231 +113 $1,972 $65,590,000 - 3
9 5 Fast and Furious Uni. $6,062,000 -48.5% 3,566 -108 $1,700 $145,224,000 $85 4
10 6 Crank: High Voltage LGF $2,400,000 -65.5% 2,223 - $1,080 $11,518,000 - 2
11 9 I Love You, Man P/DW $1,936,000 -41.8% 1,563 -639 $1,239 $67,793,000 - 6
12 8 Knowing Sum. $1,935,000 -45.9% 1,860 -545 $1,040 $76,772,000 - 6
13 7 Observe and Report WB $1,715,000 -58.9% 2,010 -717 $853 $22,140,000 $18 3
14 10 The Haunting in Connecticut LGF $1,500,000 -51.8% 1,675 -580 $896 $54,210,000 - 5
15 14 Sunshine Cleaning Over. $616,000 -37.2% 638 -4 $966 $9,798,000 - 7

[Monterey Jack]

Obsessed looks exactly like one of those "[Blank] From Hell" potboilers that were so ubiquitous back in the late 80's and early 90's...only with a PG-13 rating negating any chance for some gratuitous titilation. Anyways, the film probably played well to the "urban" demographic that flock to every new Tyler Perry movie and who snap up each new Beyonce CD. It'll have the usual 50% drop next weekend.

[Eric W.]

If even garbage is performing well at the box office...wow, wait until we see Star Trek and some of these other big summer movies' figures come in.

[Monterey Jack]

Some people are actually comparing the current economic crisis with the boom in ticket sales during the Great Depression as to why so much middling, proudly lowbrow material like Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Fast & Furious has been raking it in lately. Funny, but I'd think if people had less money to spend on seeing movies, they'd be less likely to waste it on crap...

Anyways, once authentially good movies start opening this summer, we'll continue to see the grosses climb.

[AndyDursin]

Some people are actually comparing the current economic crisis with the boom in ticket sales during the Great Depression as to why so much middling, proudly lowbrow material like Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Fast & Furious has been raking it in lately. Funny, but I'd think if people had less money to spend on seeing movies, they'd be less likely to waste it on crap...

It's not that hard to figure. People go to the movies to get away -- always have and always will. In spite of climbing ticket prices, it's still one of the more inexpensive forms of entertainment out there -- compare it to, say, a grade A sporting event, a concert, or even going out to dinner at most places. In an economic downturn, people still want to get out of the house and do something -- which means the multiplexes are still packed, and likewise explains the appeal of PAUL BLART (which was PG rated and got a load of business out of family audiences; and besides, it sounds like it was better than the Seth Rogen mall cop movie anyway. If you want to talk about "lowbrow," I think the Rogen movie more than qualifies on that end!).

It's a trend that ought to continue all summer, especially with so many pre-fab sequels and remakes coming out. Frankly I'm looking forward to STAR TREK, DRAG ME TO HELL, and the Johnny Depp-Michael Mann-Christian Bale movie (and maybe TERMINATOR), but beyond that, there's not a whole lot there that I find too appealing on the docket.

[Monterey Jack]

That's just it, Andy...a crap movie is a crap movie. I realize that audiences grow dumber as they grow larger, but it physically pains me to see junk like Paul Blart gross $150 million. There's "dumb fun" movies, and there's "dear God, let me outta here" movies. We used to get "spoof" movies like Airplane! and Top Secret!, and now we have to settle for Disaster Movie and Meet The Spartans. I'm sure the 14-year-old boys who saw the latter films would see no difference between the two, but brother, there is one. We used to get Die Hard, now we get The Rock. We used to get Beauty And The Beast, now we get Madagascar 2. I refuse to allow these types of films to take my modest, hard-earned dollars (at least until I can rent them for a buck at the Redbox machine at work).

It was nice to see the brilliant Coraline do a healthy $80 million, but that's an exception to the rule.

[AndyDursin]

I refuse to allow these types of films to take my modest, hard-earned dollars (at least until I can rent them for a buck at the Redbox machine at work).

I'm with you on that front. I physically go to the movies a LOT less than I once did -- during the summer my wife and I like going out, so sometimes we'll try something I ordinarily wouldn't waste our cash on, but I can count the amount of films I've seen theatrically on one hand this year so far.

The other thing that pains me is not only the regression in films but in filmmakers. Go back to 1984 or 1985 and you had original movies like GREMLINS or BACK TO THE FUTURE, from guys like Joe Dante and Robert Zemeckis.

What do you have this year? Another TERMINATOR from McG (a studio hack if there ever was one), another TRANSFORMERS from Michael Bay, and on and on.

When I interviewed John Landis a couple of years ago he noted how studios only want "studio people" helming their "product" now -- and they'd never let a guy from Landis' era have the same creative control they once did. Instead of big companies with individual moguls at their helm, you now have massive corporations controlling the filmmaking process, which results in the watered-down, indistinguishable, focus-group-oriented filmmaking "product" we see in 2009.

It's not nostalgia, it's a sad fact of life, much like how film music has died in this decade.

[The Pessimist]

I refuse to allow these types of films to take my modest, hard-earned dollars (at least until I can rent them for a buck at the Redbox machine at work).

I'm with you on that front. I physically go to the movies a LOT less than I once did -- during the summer my wife and I like going out, so sometimes we'll try something I ordinarily wouldn't waste our cash on, but I can count the amount of films I've seen theatrically on one hand this year so far.

The other thing that pains me is not only the regression in films but in filmmakers. Go back to 1984 or 1985 and you had original movies like GREMLINS or BACK TO THE FUTURE, from guys like Joe Dante and Robert Zemeckis.

What do you have this year? Another TERMINATOR from McG (a studio hack if there ever was one), another TRANSFORMERS from Michael Bay, and on and on.

When I interviewed John Landis a couple of years ago he noted how studios only want "studio people" helming their "product" now -- and they'd never let a guy from Landis' era have the same creative control they once did. Instead of big companies with individual moguls at their helm, you now have massive corporations controlling the filmmaking process, which results in the watered-down, indistinguishable, focus-group-oriented filmmaking "product" we see in 2009.

It's not nostalgia, it's a sad fact of life, much like how film music has died in this decade.

Again, the amount of controls the studios place on creative control is secondary to the consumer supporting it by buying a ticket. Until that changes the studios have no real reason to change. And it is nostalgia from the consumer. What is often of peak interest to them is the refurbished. What they seek, they get.