Steve Carell Will Crush Your Box Office Dreams
Former television star Steve Carell will not be happy until every movie in the cineplex is his and they are all making money. He is one seriously greedy bastard. Leonardo DiCaprio better watch out.
Because if Inception keeps dreaming its box office dream in the top spot, then Steve Carell might fire a missile launcher at his head or some shit. Really, the man looks all nice and mild-mannered, but deep down inside he's an animal. Did you hear what he did to Will Farrell that one time? Amazing! Though he didn't claim the top spot, Carell did have two movies in the top five at the box office this weekend.
1. Inception—$27.5 million: Damn, yo, that's a whole lot of coin! After three weeks of everyone in the world fawning over it, Christopher Nolan's latest has raked in $193 million. Sadly, the production is still in the hole. After all, Ellen Page's neckerchief budget on the movie was $212 million, and between paying for the surgery for Leo's TMJ as a result of all that jaw-clenching and shelling out for all Tom Hardy's male hookers while on location, they need to make at least another $374 million to break even. Damn, movie financing is so crazy.
2. Dinner for Schmucks—$23.3 million: Not too shabby for an opening weekend. The first of Steve Carell's offerings made a respectable amount of money, even though the reviews were middling and word of mouth hasn't been great (I just overheard someone calling it "possibly the worst movie ever"). Know what would have improved this movie both creatively and financially? If Paul Rudd were shirtless. I'm telling you, if there was guaranteed Rudd partial nudity this thing would have done at least $10 million more. If he had showed up at some Gay Pride celebrations to flog the movie, it probably would have done $15 million more. It's shocking no one has exploited the homo love for Paul Rudd yet, but whoever does is going to be raking it in. (Psst, Paul. I finished a screenplay about a gay super agent avenging his partner's murder called Out for Revenge. You'd be great in it.)
3. Salt—19.3 million: The Angelina Jolie movie fell to the third spot this week even though it was in more theaters than either of the other two movies. That means if you really want to go to the movie and not have annoying people chewing their popcorn in your ear, go see this. Also, if you don't go, Angelina is going to show up at your house and steal your husband.
4. Despicable Me—15.5 million: This is the second Steve Carell movie that's doing well. Actually, I kind of think that it's unfair that Hollywood stars get credit when they give their voice to a cartoon character and then the movie does well. Kids don't know who Steve Carell is, they just know that he makes silly sounds for some crazy dude named Gru. You could get some no-name to do the voice and the rug rats wouldn't even know the difference. We think Mike Myers started this trend after taking credit for Shrek, because if he didn't he hasn't had a hit movie since Fat Boy Slim was popular. But anyway, thanks to the Myers Corallary, Carell now gets to bask in this flick's computer-generated glory. His agent must be thrilled.
5. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore—$12.5 million: This movie makes me sick. First of all, it's about talking feline and canine super spies, which is way stupider than a gay super spy played by Paul Rudd who is avenging his partner's death (Out for Revenge—coming next summer!). Secondly, there is a pussy joke in the title of a kids movie. Yes, yes, it says "Kitty Galore," but that joke isn't for kids, because kids don't get jokes. They get sick and they get annoying and they get "time outs" but they don't get jokes. No, that is a joke for parents who go, "Oh, they changed it from 'Pussy Galore' to 'Kitty Galore.' Damn, that is funny. I love pussy jokes. I'm gonna take the kids." I bet the entire audience was made up of divorced dads dragging their kids out to the movies on a Saturday afternoon and waiting for a pussy joke that never came. So, it made all this money. Ugh. But at least it made more than Zac Efron's My Dead Brother Named Charlie. That movie looks, really horrible.