The Projectionist: The 400 Pound Green Gorilla In The Room
You can thank us on Monday for these fearless, eerily-accurate predictions.
1. Shrek 2 — $ 71 million
Shrek 2 opened Wednesday to $11.8 million, which was the best midweek animated movie opening ever, whatever that means. But there is definitely something appealing about not actually having to see Mike Myers do that incontinence-inducing Scottish accent.
2. Troy — $29 million
Why do we stubbornly insist on believing in Troy? The characters spoke exclusively in taglines from the movie poster [actual dialogue: "We're about to enter the greatest war the world has ever seen, and we need the world's greatest warrior!"]. Brad Pitt couldn't act his way out of a wet paper skirt, though he did look awfully purty doing it. But those battle scenes make you forget what's awful for a few minutes...then Brad delivers another line that drops out of his mouth like a brick, and you knock a couple of mil off the estimate.
3. Van Helsing — $10 million
This weekend's take should just about recoup the movie's floppy hat and fake fang budget. It's going to take DVD sales to get back the money from digitally removing the look of disappointment in Hugh Jackman's eyes from each of his scenes.
4. Mean Girls — $7 million
Lindsay and the girls finally drop into the single-digit millions. We predict that yet another major-media soundbite about the State Of Lindsay's Tits will appear by Tuesday.
5. Man On Fire — $3 million
This will be Denzel's last week in the top five. We're gonna miss all of those fire-based headline puns. OK, one more, for old times' sake? Five Alarm: Denzel Still Scorches In Top Five. Sigh. That wasn't nearly as fun as we'd hoped.