DELLAMORTE'S BOX OFFICE WRAP UP 10/17/08

This just in: A movie star endorsed Obama. Yep, Colin Powell (as played by Jeffery Wright) just said that Obama is, and I’m paraphrasing, “so kick-ass awesome he makes sex with sex with Downtown Julie Brown look like a hand job from Earth Girls are Easy’s Julie Brown. Don’t fuck with me, I’ve got a doctorate in fucking your mom up.”

Max Payne is supposed to be terrible, but it has guns. So welcome to the gun show. And it opened about three million better than Shooter, which also had guns. Maybe that three million are the video game fans. Shooter got to $47, will this do as well? Maybe a little better. It’s got some time to fuck around. Or, that is to say some of its audience will go to Saw V, but none of its audience is going to High School Musical 3. Or will they?

Dear Mark Wahlberg/Saturday Night Live (re: Say hi to your mother to me), guys, SNL has always had self-reflectivity as a facet of itself, but – that said – you’ve got to do something with it. Is it a surprise that Mark Wahlberg has a sense of humor? Way too Dean Martin’s celebrity roast.

But the Fall hit has to be the Beverly Hills Chiuhauhua. It’s already at $70 Million, and nine digits are not out of the question after three weeks. The question is if High School Musical 3 will step on its tail. Yeah I went there, sorry about that. My mother asked me to make that joke. Still, HM3 has to be the priority for Disney, a film that had its birth on television, and is going theatrical with its third effort. Crazytown. But BHC proves irrefutably that $100 Million has become a less than accomplishment.

The Secret Life of Bees (what a horrid title) proved to offer more interest for consumers than W. did. Though Josh Brolin may get an Oscar nomination or some shit for the film, it’s likely that the film will flounder for the rest of its run, making a $30 Mil total likely. That’s probably what happens when the daring wears off, and you realize it’s a film about the least popular president of the last fifty years. No one’s going to rewrite his presidency to make him halfway palatable as Oliver Stone did with Nixon. Why? Because it’s Hollywood. There is the possibility that it will pick up some weekday heat, but with tepid reviews, the film needed to tap into a zeitgeist to really have any drawing power. Word of mouth should sink it. Bees will probably do just better because of the Oprah factor, and supposedly the film was cheap. Count it as a win. Count on a call from a maternal figure at some point saying she watched it and loved it. Not mine. My mom watches French movies like this, but not American. With subtitles, schmaltz is way more palatable.

Eagle Eye aced Body of Lies. Ouch. Lies is looking like a huge stinker; international might make it less smelly. but only so much. Russell isn’t much of a movie star these days (in terms of audience), so his run is probably heading toward support or companion work (Nottingham has to take this hit). Does Leonardo Di Caprio? Yeah, a little, but it’s not like this was a hugely commercial film – though if Revolutionary Road tanks as well, then he might want to do a romantic comedy – hell he might want to do one just to shake it up a bit. And hopefully whatever Ridley Scott is doing next is dick deep (4-13 inches) in pre-production. Eagle Eye crossed $80, so if it doesn’t lose too many screens it’ll be scraping near $90 next weekend, and at that point, why not limp it to $100? As James Brown would say “You’ve got to be a mother for me now.” Well he would if he wasn’t dead. But if I could call him, that’s what he might say.

Quarantine and Nick and Norah were cheap and profitable, so their runs are running out, but they go home with a two base hit. Whereas Sex Drive… sorry fellas, I liked the film a lot, but the marketing shit the bed, and a dude in a donut costume just wasn’t going to cut it. Hopefully WOM is excellent, and it finds its home. It should.

Next week brings two franchises. Great. The word for the day is mother, and the number is 68.