Monday Morning Box Office: Box Office Yard Officially Stomped
As you sit at your desk wondering whether your forced attendance on a federal holiday is somehow actionable, enjoy the weekend box office numbers:
1. Stomp the Yard—$22 million
Here's an uplifting little story of tolerance and understanding to help celebrate Stomp the Yard's box office victory: according to the AP, the CEO of a movie theater chain who initially refused to show Stomp in his Springfield, Illinois theaters because of a shooting that occurred during a local Black Christmas screening on Christmas Day (a movie which, as the AP delicately notes, "is a horror film and doesn't depict the black community," but rather was Harvey Weinstein's attempt to make the Baby Jesus cry by counter-programming His birthday party with an opportunistically themed slasher film, but we digress), ultimately allowed the movie to be shown after the wave of bad PR over his ill-conceived embargo changed his mind. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr Day, everybody!
2. Night at the Museum—$17.1 million
3. The Pursuit of Happyness—$9.1 million
Despair ye all who gaze upon the massive domestic tallies run up by America's Current Box Office Sweethearts, Ben Stiller and Will Smith: Museum is up to $185,756,000, while Happyness has pulled in $134,479,000. We fear we may never be free of their twin reign of terror.
4. Dreamgirls—$8.122 million
The Golden Globes moment we're really pulling for tonight: After Borat upsets Dreamgirls in the Best Comedy or Musical category, a visibly drunk Sacha Baron Cohen again reverts into his Kazakh character and performs a stirring rendition of "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" in lieu of a victory speech.
5. Freedom Writers—$7.117 million
Sure, she may be a high school drop-out, but Hilary Swank still thinks that "school is really, really important," at least for those who don't know in their heart of hearts that fancy book learning is an obstacle to winning two Oscars.