What better way to celebrate Christ's Nativity than an evening at the Arclight, whose very name evokes son-of-God virgin birth? Behold, as we lift the miracle holiday weekend numbers to the starry sky, and three wise men look on approvingly (no, not Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen; Munich doesn't go into wide release until Jan. 6).
Take refuge in the box office numbers, knowing that there are a mere five days (or fewer) days between you and the sweet, sweet release of the holidays.
We're dangerouly close to intravenous margarita time, but on a big weekend like this, we couldn't sit out another round of unfailingly accurate predictions.
King Kong, the box office's presumptive simian savior, opened yesterday to just $9.8 million (soon-to-be universally known trivia: this was just the 21st best Wednesday bow on record), and if you're anything like us, you completely forgot that the movie's already been released until you read a story about the disappointing take. Confronted with the low first-day number, Universal's head of distribution displayed a breezy confidence in her studio's product:
Another Monday morning, another new (albeit temporary) Hollywood savior is born.
It's been a couple of weeks since we've hurled the crystal ball against the wall and "read" the shards by crushing them between our palms (sometimes we wish we hadn't thrown out the instruction manual), so serve the right to be even more inaccurate than usual in these amazing weekend box office predictions:
Sit tight and await the coming year-end releases of Narnia, King Kong, the Spielberg thing, and, finally, the gay cowboy movie. In the meantime, the weekend's box office numbers:
By now, we hope that most people realize that this year's box office "slump" was mostly caused by a flood of shitty movies. (We hate to keep bringin up Stealth, but hey, we didn't greenlight Short Circuit On A Plane.) Previously, the LAT has made a fun little game of making execs admit to their 2005 bombs, but today they try to pick the brains of some disaffected moviegoers, and in their effort seem to have stumbled across Hollywood's Chosen One:
Since we didn't get a chance to do the weekend projections on Friday, we're unburdened of our usual crippling feelings of failure and inadequacy on this Monday morning. Enjoy these numbers, free of the usual baggage of our expectations:
Just because this is only a three-day week doesn't mean you only get sixty percent of your usual joy in the box office results. In the spirit of the coming holiday, take your full bliss from the numbers:
Has the effort of dragging your shackles over to the office water cooler given you case of the Gloomy Friday Afternoons? Then you need to spend some time thinking about how much richer this weekend's movies are going to make your bosses:
We have no idea why, but we're feeling a little cocky about this weekend's box office predictions. Refinance your mortgage, let it all ride on these amazingly accurate numbers, and in the unlikely event that we're wrong, we'll let you crash on Nick Denton's couch until you get back on your feet.
Monday mornings are hard enough without waking up to discover that God Himself purchased almost $20 million in movie tickets, just to mess with what should have been some alarmingly accurate box office projections.
Time to dump out Hollywood's trick-or-treating pillowcase and see who greedily snapped up the most box office candy:
We're sensing a strong female presence just north of your head. We're getting a B name...I mean L...C? Yes that's what we meant, a C. Carol. Carla? Catherine! Yes of course, Catherine! She's pointing to an object, it's a ring! A bicycle? A mask! Yes, a mask and she's telling you everything will be all right...she's proud of you...and that these are the weekend grosses:
Our introductions to these Monday morning box office numbers tend to be bleak, recognizing that no one likes to think about how much of the work week stretches ahead of us like a half-mile gauntlet populated by Satan's most talented tormentors, whose infernal mission is to drag us behind a chariot of hellfire....whatever. See, kinda dark. So let's instead envision the next five days as a prolonged nap in a basket full of warm laundry, snuggled up with some Care Bears, and, perhaps, a baby unicorn, whose downy horn-nub is so good at kneading out knotted muscles. We feel better about things already. This is gonna be such a great week, gang!
Join us as we sacrifice our finest animal and run our greedy fingers through its entrails, hoping that our careful examination of the steamy guts helps us unlock the mysteries of this weekend's box office results:
Yes, it's Monday morning, and you're fighting the feeling that plunging your letter opener deep into your heart would be much less painful than the week ahead. Drown out the self-annihilating chatter with the weekend's box office numbers:
