Weekend Theater Threat Alert - 5/2/08

Weekend Movie Threat Level: Blue (Guarded) - Rich Industrialist in a flying suit of armor Vs. Wealthy Playboy in a dress. Back the right horse, and you'll find yourself in the winner's circle.

Made of Honor

Tom (Patrick Dempsey, the sickeningly nicknamed “Dr. McDreamy” of Grey’s Anatomy) is a wealthy playboy living the ultimate bachelor’s life, but when his platonic best friend Hannah (the cute but forgettable Michelle Monaghan) decides to tie the knot with some guy she found in Scotland (Rome’s own Kevin McKidd), he suddenly realizes that he’s been in love with her all along. Hilarity ensues when Hannah asks Tom to be her ‘Made of Honor’.



When both your movie title and tagline (‘An Unbridled Comedy’) are puns based on the film’s one-trick pony of a screenplay, you know that you’re in for a world of hurt. Your ultimate Chick Flick Rom Com, men are uncultured slobs who eat potpourri and talk about getting laid all the time, and the really cute and wealthy bachelor fulfills the woman’s dreams by marrying her after being repeatedly humiliated. The only people buying tickets for this one will be women who have to mark their Harlequin romance novels so they can tell which ones they have read, and men too whipped to say no to their wife/girlfriend. The rest of us will be seeing…

Iron Man

On the other side of the coin, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., America’s favorite ex-junkie actor) is a wealthy playboy who designs missiles and weapons, then has a change of heart after being kidnapped and tortured by terrorists, and suddenly realizes that he’d rather build a cross between an Armani Suit and a Sherman Tank and blow things up himself. Hilarity ensues when evil mastermind Obadiah Stan (played by The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges) gets his hands on Stark’s design notes and decides to make a toy of his own.



John Favreau, whose directorial credits consist mainly of one underground cult hit and two cheesy kids films, is probably hoping that Iron Man has a Sam Raimi Effect on his career. He’s most likely also thanking the Fates that he was passed over to direct The Fantastic Four.

Weekend Box Office Estimates for 4/25-4/27

(Statistics and Links courtesy of http://www.boxofficemojo.com/)

1 Baby Mama Uni. $18,271,000
2 Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay NL $14,570,000
3 The Forbidden Kingdom LGF $11,230,000
4 Forgetting Sarah Marshall Uni. $11,014,000
5 Nim's Island Fox $4,525,000
6 Prom Night (2008) SGem $4,400,000
7 21 Sony $4,000,000
8 88 Minutes Sony $3,600,000
9 Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! Fox $2,410,000
10 Deception (2008) Fox $2,225,000

To say I'm not surprised that Baby Mama topped the weekend box office would be an understatement. When you have a comedy that's been done so many times and is stale as yesterday's diaper, you have to wonder why everyone keeps paying to see this?!? This weekend's box office numbers just encourage the studios to make more, more and Oh GOD more! This film may not get a sequel, but consider Tina Fey might be allowed to write just that much longer because of it.

Harold and Kumar came in a close second, no surprise there, either. Their first adventure was laugh-out-loud funny, so you'd expect the following, despite the film's content. Maybe it's just because enough people like White Castle and Newark.

Deception just managed to just squeak into the bottom of the top ten with a horrific opening of only $2.2 million. Being shown on only 2,000 screens doesn't help, either. Did the studio seem less than optimistic about their own film? It wouldn't be the first time.

As for the rest of the top ten? No real surprises there; three new films in, three films out. Street Kings (7th last week) , Leatherheads (9th last week) and Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (10th last week) was knocked out, which will hopefully signal the end of Ben Stein's pop culture appeal. Bueller? Bueller?

Note: The fact that Prom Night is still in the top ten and is making enough money to spawn more remake-sequels is enough to make a grown man beg for a three-razor-blade lemon-lime Martini. Why does a decent horror film such as The Ruins make no money at all, yet PG-13 fluff like this break the bank? Which of you senseless clowns out there are actually throwing great wads of cash at this crap? Don't you realize that you are only encouraging them? How the hell do you sleep at night? Bastards...