Monday Morning Box Office: 'Ice Age' Does Something Temperature Related To Box Office
You may have woken up on the bathroom floor this morning, praying for a swift death, but we know what kept you from answering your own prayer by flushing your head down the toilet: the knowledge that the box office numbers were waiting for you at work. Enjoy.
1. Ice Age: The Meltdown—$34.5 million
There's no pleasing us. We quickly became bored with Failure to Launch's four-week stay in the top five, but now that the movie fell to sixth place and out of the purview of this feature, we find ourselves pining for Matthew McConaughey. (The longer we stare at images of "The Lean," the more intense our longing becomes.) Imagine, then, the pleasure we derived from reading Box Office Mojo's reminder that the movie that ruled the box office a year ago was Sahara, still the gold standard cinematic tribute to McConaughey's bronze-skinned, shirt-doffing gifts. We are sighing audibly right now, too enraptured by a daydream about being sheltered from a sandstorm by a smirking McConaughey to try and figure out what any of this has to do with Ice Age.
2. The Benchwarmers—$20.5 million
At malls all over the country this weekend, hundreds of thousands of 15-year-olds simultaneously exhausted their supplies of magic markers and Mountain Fresh Glade, and terrified that their huffing buzzes would soon subside, sought out the narcotizing embrace of David Spade and Rob Schneider at adjoining multiplexes. To keep the good times rolling through next weekend, Sony is drawing up a plan to quietly buy up the nation's supply of Redi-Whip and drive teenage inhalant enthusiasts into theaters one more time.
3. Take the Lead—$12.8 million
We're glad we've gotten out of the projections game for now, because we would've guessed that a Dangerous Minds remake with Antonio Banderas and ballroom dancing instead of Michelle Pfeiffer and Dylan Thomas poetry would've grossed at least $50 million, and we would've felt a little silly waking up this morning to see our exuberance proven so wrong.
4. Inside Man—$9.17 million
We've spent the last couple of weeks musing about what Spike Lee might do with this mainstream success, and we just had this chilling thought: Do The Right Thing 2. Nah...
5. Lucky Number Slevin—$7.13 million
Not since Hollywood Homicide have we been so excited to see Josh Hartnett paired with a much bigger name killing time until the fourth installment of his trademark franchise finally gets off the ground.