Monday Morning Box Office: Paul Walker Is The Biggest Star In The World
On this holiday morning, celebrate the birth of your favorite dead president with a somber meditation on the weekend box office numbers:
1. Eight Below–$19.85 million
No one should be surprised that Paul Walker is, at least until next weekend's box office results are announced, the Biggest Star in the World. The formula has already been tested: Take a wooden actor from The Fast and the Furious, pair him with an adorable animal sidekick, and watch your family-friendly movie rocket to a first-place finish in its opening weekend. Note to Michelle Rodriguez's people: Hold off on begging her to do Prickly Heat, the buddy flick about a rookie cop's testy relationship with her porcupine partner. The formula hasn't been proven to work for actresses yet.
Under normal circumstances, Hollywood really doesn't give a shit about entertaining you if you're over 15 years old. And now with the all-consuming run-up to the Oscars occupying the small part of the industry's attention not wholly dedicated to luring bored teenagers off the Dance Dance Revolution machine and into the mall multiplex, they're not even going to pretend they care until mid-March. Lose yourself in the Netflix queue for three more weeks and ignore the following depressing results:
2. Date Movie–$18.5 million
3. The Pink Panther–$16.5 million
4. Curious George–$11.25 million
5. Final Destination 3–$10.1 million