Monday Morning Box Office: Fantastic Four, Slumpbusters
It's Monday, you've just sat down at your desk, and you're still a good four or five hours from sighing meaningfully and accepting that there's a whole week between you and the freedom of the weekend. Enjoy the box office numbers:
1. Fantastic Four—$56 million
Sometimes, the studios like to remind the world that they can buy their way to a big opening weekend with happy meals, commercials running every ten seconds on television and the radio, and, if there's a couple hundred thousand bucks left in the promotion budget, skywriting and fireworks. And we have no idea how some sly Fox marketer broke into our apartment and replaced our Charmin, but we found ourselves wiping with Mr. Fantastic all weekend; being reached in this highly vulnerable state almost made us stand up and penguin-walk to the multiplex to see what all the fuss was about. If the rest of America has the same dietary habits as us, they'll get down to the cardboard tube in the next day or so, ignore the Thing giving them an approving thumbs up, and forget all about the movie by the time Friday comes around.
Fox also spent its way to another feather in its cap, as the Four's surprisingly huge debut helped snap The Slump—this weekend's take surpassed the corresponding one from 2004 by 2.25 percent. Take heart, Slump-boosters, for all is not lost—2005 is still running 7 percent behind last year, providing ample opportunity for hand-wringing trend pieces trying to explain the erosion at the box office.
2. War of the Worlds—$31.3 million
WOTW dropped over 50 percent in its second weekend. Yes, now you can go ahead and blame Tom Cruise for driving people to the Human Torch.
3. Batman Begins—$10.2 million
We hate to say it, but maybe Warner Bros. should've done some skywriting. A big bat floating in the sky would've looked pretty cool.
4.Dark Water—$10.1 million
Don't worry, Jennifer, we'll pick you up on DVD. Then we can be together without the other fifteen people in the theater, who shush us rudely each time we hop up on the seat and declare our undying love.
5. Mr. and Mrs. Smith—$7.85 million
Was Angelina Jolie's adoption of another cute orphan not worth an $8 million weekend?