The Projectionist: George Lucas Gets Paid Or Dies Tryin'
OK, now we can safely say that summer blockbuster season is finally here, ready to knock us down, turn our pockets inside-out, and disappear into the night. All hail summer!
1. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith —$114,844,117
We are as susceptible to hype as anyone; slap your movie on the side of enough Happy Meals and we're buying in, baby. And even though the 10:45 pm ArcLight screening we went to last night didn't seem to be sold out (there's nothing sadder than second-tier nerds who lacked the motivation to rush to a midnight screening), we're still going to predict that Sith will break Spider-Man's opening weekend record by a single dollar. (We were watching The Price Is Right, so back off.) Any other outcome will surely bring about galactic cataclysm at the hands of a Dark Side dictator with lousy acting chops.
2. Monster-In-Law—$15 million
The Star Wars connection: Jennifer Lopez was considered for the part of "Big-Assed Space Lip Syncher #3" in a Mos Eisley cantina scene, but despite being perfect for the role, she was passed over for excessive contract rider demands.
3. Kicking & Screaming—$12 million
The Star Wars connection: During the filming of the movie, Will Ferrell like to don a Darth Vader mask and tell his pint-sized co-stars that he'd killed their parents while they were busy shooting their scenes.
4. Unleashed—$7 million
The Star Wars connection: Jet Li has an irrational fear of enormous neck-wattles.
5. Kingdom of Heaven—$6 million
The Star Wars connection: Orlando Bloom was under consideration for the role of Anakin Skywalker, but George Lucas decided that even the heroically mambypamby Bloom wasn't nancy enough to make the character's eventual evolution into Darth Vader sufficiently ridiculous. We think we all know how this one turned out.