The Rock Takes His Position As America's Biggest Family-Comedy Star
We'd wish you a happy Monday, but we know you'd just see through that transparent attempt at merry-making on the bleak beginning of a seemingly unending work week. So: have a look at the weekend box office numbers, doing your best to ignore the five days of pain that await you:
1. The Game Plan - $22.675 million
Not since Vin Diesel so movingly revealed his softer, stroller-pushing side in The Pacifier has an action star so seamlessly transitioned into the family-comedy genre. This weekend, Dwayne "The Rock, But The Cuddly Kind" Johnson captured America's hearts by successfully dramatizing the parenting challenges faced by any self-absorbed NFL superstar unexpectedly saddled with a bastard offspring, winning untold millions of new fans.
We're confident that The Rock is a little better equipped to handle his success than Diesel was; Johnson doesn't seem the type to fall into the trap like the one his marble-mouthed peer's ego set for him, leading him to squander his newfound clout on impossible, eleventy-billion dollar elephant-riding dreams.
2. The Kingdom - $17.694 million
Unfortunately for Universal, producer Michael Mann's oversight of The Kingdom (which involved the legendarily demanding filmmaker patrolling the set with a megaphone, shouting, "Stop being such a pussy!" each time director/protege Peter Berg failed to make one of his actors cry after a take) didn't result in even a Miami Vice-level opening weekend.
3. Resident Evil: Extinction - $8 million
Even if the world eventually succumbs to an apocalyptic, zombie-producing plague, Sony will still find a way to produce Resident Evil sequels.
4. Good Luck Chuck - $6.3 million
A quick scan of Jessica Alba's IMDb profile shows precious few opportunities to finally abandon the modesty clause in her contract that's been holding back her career. Maybe she'll take some inspiration from formerly never-nude contemporary Natalie Portman and hook up with a quirky indie director who'll help her tastefully break the tension with some artfully lit sideboob shots.
5. 3:10 to Yuma - $4.160 million
You know who could probably use one of those image-softening family flicks? Russell Crowe. We're seeing him in The Manny, the story of a former Secret Service agent who grudgingly accepts the most challenging assignment of his life: protecting the children of a highly public failed marriage from the well-meaning, but hilariously incompetent, parenting efforts of their pop star mother.