Monday Morning Box Office: The Devil's Surprise
Like a bucket full of ice water cruelly ending the last moments of your weekend slumber, here come the box office numbers:
1. The Exorcism of Emily Rose—$30.2 million
We think that it's safe to say that nobody really saw this one coming. Sure, it seemed likely that Emily Rose, with no real competition, had a clear shot at the top spot. But $30 million? Even the studio sounds shocked, as the president of distribution for Sony told the AP: "The movie cost us less than $20 million to make. We would have been very happy had the picture opened to $15 million." This is a much more favorable budget-to-opening-weekend-performance ratio than Sony's Stealth, which cost over $100 million and took in about $17 million less than Emily Rose. To their credit, they saw that one coming.
2. The 40 Year-Old Virgin—$7.9 million
We know that it's just a work of fiction, but this movie's made us really excited about how great our first time is going to be. Only nine more years to go before we finally get to do "it"!
3. The Transporter 2—$7.2 million
We can't even feign enough interest to bother "analyzing" this box office result.
4. The Constant Gardener—$4.8 million
We keep hearing how good TCG is, but still haven't talked to a single person who's seen it. We probably need more friends, or at least friends with better taste.
5. Red Eye—$4.6 million
Finishing in sixth place with a miniscule $4 million opening was The Man. Have they gotten around to screening it for the hurricane victims in the Astrodome yet? Surely they can get credit for this act of charity and count all those people as ticket buyers, boosting that sad first weekend performance.