Tuesday Morning Box Office: Stiller Is King Of The New Year
Congratulations! You've survived 2006. Now sit right back down at that desk and do the same soul-crushing things for another 365 days, beginning with your morning review of the weekend box office results. (We present the 4-day grosses, because bigger numbers are more fun than smaller ones! Especially if you're a studio distribution executive!)
1. Night at the Museum—$46.7 million (4-day weekend)
Ten years ago, Ben Stiller was Indian leg-wrestling with Tea Leoni and trying to hide an ill-timed boner from Patricia Arquette in Flirting with Disaster. A couple of years after that, he was shooting heroin while being tormented by an evil Alf in Permanent Midnight and ejaculating onto his earlobe in There's Something About Mary. Today, he's being chased around a museum by computer-animated dinosaur bones and bantering with a teensy Owen Wilson. We're not exactly sure where we're going with this, but Stiller probably lives in a much bigger house than in his Flirting days.
2. The Pursuit of Happyness—$24.7 million
Ten years ago, Will Smith was adorable and charming in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Today...still adorable and charming! We wouldn't have it any other way.
3. Dreamgirls—$18.672 million
Oscar gay-pandering gone awry! Page Six reports that Dreamgirls director "Bill Condon" (i.e., Paramount/DreamWorks publicists) sent out the wrong version of A Star is Born to Academy voters in what was supposed to be an expression of how much he loves musicals. The Sixies frame the incident as a gaffe, but we think it was a subtly savvy move intended to court both the Streisand- and Garland-worshipping voting blocs.
4. Charlotte's Web—$15.05 million
We're going to enjoy these last moments of Dakota Fanning's cinematic innocence, when she's still cavorting in the barnyard with talking animals instead of being violated to Elvis songs in hopes of earning an Oscar nomination.
5. The Good Shepherd—$14.251 million
[Spoiler ahead, sort of:] Sadly, Matt Damon's allowing himself to be urinated upon while muddy and naked doesn't seem to be generating the awards buzz he was hoping for.
