Monday Morning Box Office: Talking Animals Limp Into First
The box office numbers that give order to your otherwise chaotic existence:
1. Madagascar—$28.7 million
DreamWorks Animation sent out its adorable, CGI soldiers into the slumping box office battlefield and won this weekend's war of attrition. It's a skirmish without victims, unless you count the millions of children who spent Sunday night having the shrapnel of talking-animal mediocrity pulled out of their Garanimals.
2. The Longest Yard—$26.1 million
Hey, remember when that reporter guy told Burt Reynolds he'd never seen The Longest Yard, and Burt was all, "Aww, now I'm gonna have to slap a bitch!" And then: slap! Yeah, we need more of that at movie premieres.
3. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith —$26 million
This weekend is hardly the first time that we've been disappointed with George Lucas, but it may be the last. May his spectacular neck-waddle enjoy a fruitful semi-retirement trying to devise ways to sell talking Jar Jar Binks coin banks without a new movie to use as a promotional vehicle.
4. Cinderella Man—$18.6 million
Cinderella Man's disappointing opening is all part of producer Brian Grazer's master plan: open small, hang around for a while, then hope that Oscar voters make the same kind of egregious mistakes they made for A Beautiful Mind.
5. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants—$10.25 million
Perhaps we spoke too hastily when we claimed that the box office is a "skirmish without victims." In the haze of Monday morning depression, we're prone to ridiculous pronouncements; we don't mean to minimize the plight of those who suffered through this one for a chance at getting into their date's Traveling Pants, then were turned away at the doorstep with a chaste hug. They deserve their own telethon.
