Monday Morning Box Office: Our Irrational Exuberance
Hey, did you hear that Britney Spears got married? We're going to assume that people were so busy discussing the shocking! nuptials! that they completely forgot to go to the movies.
1. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow — $16.2 million
$16 million? Jude Law and Gwyneth should be able to open an instructional video about buttering toast over $20 million. We blame Paramount's marketing team, who apparently were too busy combing the Boise Penny Saver for pull-quotes proclaiming Sky Captain "Exciting!" to put together a campaign that at least hints at what the movie is like. By the way: We saw it and thought it was pretty great, but hearing our squeals of delight echoing around an empty theater was fairly disquieting.
2. Mr. 3000 — $9.2 million
If we'd realized that this hurricane situation was going to keep the entire country huddled around the DVD players in their root cellars, we would've adjusted our projections accordingly.
3. Resident Evil: Apocalypse — $9 million
Maybe Kirsten Dunst needs a good zombie/video game movie in between Spider-Man sequels.
4. Wimbledon — $7.8 million
So much for Paul Bettany finally having his "breakout" role. He may even suffer a downgrade from the "cheaper Jude Law" to the "British Benjamin Bratt."
5. Cellular — $6.87 million
Again, our thanks goes to the people at Cellular for finally dislodging Without a Paddle from the top five, goosing it ever closer to its unavoidable, mind-numbing success on DVD.