Iron Man 3 Will Be the No. 1 Movie of May 2013
Iron Man 2 did so well this weekend that we can pretty much be sure the third one will do the same. Also this weekend, Elm Street had a nightmare, Date Night is going very well, and everyone loves babies.
1) Iron Man 2 — All the Millions
Well, 133.6 of them at least. Surprising no one, the great rattling sequel hand-blasted its way to a huge opening. It also scored very well in audience polling, indicating that word-of-mouth and repeat business will go on and on and on forever until something else big comes to unseat it. What will that movie be? Will it be Robin Hood? Probably not. That movie is probably a little too old and non-special-effectsy and Russell-Crowe-is-getting-oldsy to do any serious damage to Iron Man 2's long, beautiful robolegs. Will Prince of Persia's Disneyfied gay fantasia on mystical Iranian themes beef-muscle its way in two weeks later? Well, one should never discount the strength of a good beef-muscling, but the movie should probably be called Prince of Persia: No There Aren't Pirates and Johnny Depp Isn't In It, But There's Still Magic and Sarcastic Humor!, and I'm not sure anyone wants to see a movie that could be called that. So basically Iron Man 2 will be the number one movie forever, until The Kids Are All Right comes along and America's deep abiding love for both lesbian marriage dramedies and Annette Bening hand-blasts (they are lesbians after all!!) Downey and company back to the DVD shelves.
2) A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Remakening — $9.1m
As spring rolled along and teenage boys' fancies turned from burnt-faced child molester dream murderers to magic candy flying robots, this documentary about how creepy Jackie Earle Haley is fell a big 72% from last week's opening. Accustomed to the longer reigns of his Twilight pictures, Elm Street star and known North Dakotan beef muscle Kellan Lutz probably scratched his head this morning and felt kinda bad, but then he looked in the mirror and did a light flex and said "Oh right, never mind. No reason to feel bad." I mean, that's how I would feel if I looked like him. Troubling oil goo threatening to further damage some already pretty damaged economies? But just look at these pecs. Bank account down to mere pennies after paying yet another broker's fee? Behold, abs. Slowly realizing that you are living in a fantasy world and do not, in fact, look like Kellan Lutz? Hey, about these tree trunk arms! I think the only thing that Kellan Lutz can't feel better about after looking in the mirror is the fact that his name is Kellan Lutz. That pain might be forever incurable.
4) Date Night — $5.3m
Holding on remarkably well in its fifth week, this movie dropped a small 30% and has now crossed the $80m mark. Does this spell sequel? It just might! Maybe we'll have some screwball action madcap about a vow renewal ceremony somehow gone awry? Maybe they just go on a romantic getaway to Europe and accidentally get ensnared in a Belarusian mob plot? That could turn really dark really fast! Or maybe the pair won't do a Date Night sequel, they'll just do another movie together. Personally, and sincerely, it might be nice to see Fey try to stretch herself a little in a new movie by Peter Hedges, who did nice things with Carell in Dan in Real Life (seriously!). Maybe a movie about two people who had an unplanned pregnancy in college and now, 22 years later, are traveling to their kid's college graduation and maybe trying to recapture some of the good times they ceded to child rearing? I'd watch that.
6) Furry Vengeance — $4m
Oh yikes. Brendan Fraser's second week of self-immolation didn't go any better. He still got pooped on by lots of animals and still nobody watched. It'd be fun if at some movie theater, somewhere, where the film was flickering only for one snoozing old person, Fraser just stopped, turned to the audience, and started yelling. "What do you want? Here I am covered in shit. I'm covered in allll the shit. Are you not entertained?? Huh? What?? What is it that you want me to do? Here, I'll rub some shit on Brooke Shields. Are you laughing now?? Please dear God are you laughing now???" But the old person just snored away and Brendan stood there for a moment, half sighing and half weeping, and finally just stomped off the screen and that was that. It would almost be dignified. Almost.
10) Babies — $1.57m
While that's not a terribly big number, in only 534 screens the documentary did manage to have the second highest per-screen average of the week! So good for babies. You know, it was touch and go there for babies for a little bit, but it looks like they're back on top. It's a nice victory, as everyone had sort of discounted babies for a while. There they were, toddling around their big shadow-filled mansions, wearing turbans and swilling tumblers of vodka. "I am big, it's the pictures that got small," they would slur. (Though they were wrong, they were very very small.) The babies would scream "Bring me the axe!!" and destroy rosebushes and just shuffle around sadly, mourning lost status. But now, suddenly, they are back. Babies are back and ready for their closeup. And that's a good thing.