Monday Morning Box Office: Hero Disappoints Giant Snake Fans
Throw the box office numbers on the bed and roll around in them for a little while. Go ahead, do it. It's Monday morning. You've earned it.
1. Hero — $17.8 million
Quentin Tarantino "presented" it and Miramax released it, so how could we have been so silly as to think a foreign-language martial arts epic Hero wouldn't beat a handful of fake-looking snakes? Maybe it's because Miramax is being run by a guy who seems like he's trying to figure out if red or black on the roulette table is a better bet for the mortgage.
2. Anacondas — $13.2 million
Today's warm, fuzzy thought: There will always be a market for movies with gigantic, shoddily-rendered reptiles that devour obscure, struggling actors.
3. Without A Paddle — $8.7 million
Next weekend, Without A Paddle goes into hibernation. In two months or so, it will awake to great success at Blockbuster, where the aggressively bright colors are calibrated to paralyze people's abilities to discern regular crap from incredible crap.
4. The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement — $9 million
Perhaps this isn't the appropriate forum for making clumsy overtures to emerging megastar Anne Hathaway, but...Anne, call me!
Honorary Fifth Place Finisher:
5. The Brown Bunny — N/A
We predicted a $2,500 opening for Vincent Gallo's "Song of Myself (Getting A Blowjob)." The figures aren't yet available, but we'll keep you updated on whether or not Gallo grossed enough to throw a kegger in his own honor and entice some NYU acting students into starring in an impromptu sequel.
UPDATE: TBB numbers are in! $50,601 on three screens, for a per-screen average of $16.867. We suppose that our estimate ($2,500) was hyperbollically low, but $50K is hardly even the tranny hooker budget on your typical Bruckheimer production.