Monday Morning Box Office: Eh, Robots
Your box office numbers from the weekend when children ruled the world:
1. Robots—$36.5 million
You hate to call a movie that finishes first a disappointment, but Vin Diesel and a duck did $30 million last weekend. On the whole, it seems that kids like a marble-mouthed action hero changing diapers as much as they like CGI robot castrati with all-star voiceover talent.
2. The Pacifier—$18.1 million
Vin Diesel was on Conan O'Brien at the end of last week and told a hilarious story about how a duck on the set—he didn't mention if it was Gary the Duck or not—was supposed to kiss him on the earlobe. This, as you might have expected, went totally awry, as the duck clamped onto Diesel's earlobe, drew blood, and was eventually removed with a great deal of force. We really, really hope this makes the DVD.
3. Be Cool—$10.3 million
We didn't think we were asking too much when we suggested that nobody see this over the weekend. By Hollywood standards, $10 million and a 56-percent drop-off is almost like nobody saw it. Almost.
4. Hostage—$9.8 million
For Bruce Willis' sake, we hope the Lindsay Lohan rumors are true.
n/a The Passion Recut—$239,850 (957 theaters)
Rather than offer another half-hearted paean to Will Smith's superhuman levels of adorableness, here's the result from the recut, less-bloody version of Mel Gibson's controversial Jesus flick. We're guessing that Gibson's digital replacement of spiked whips with feather dusters lacked the realism that made the original version such a blockbuster.