Further accelerating his apparent collapse from coveted leading man to salt-and-pepper has-been, revised opening weekend figures for George Clooney's Leatherheads put the screwball gridiron comedy at a lackluster $12.6 million — a full million below Universal's original report and only enough for a third-place finish behind 21 and Nim's Island. While we maintain our original suspicion that no film can withstand a Reel Geezers pan, we don't actually think this portends the catastrophe foretold by more dedicated skeptics. We also appreciate Steven Zeitchik's moral support on Clooney's behalf at his Risky Biz blog: "Clooney hasn't opened a movie in a decade. Apart from the Ocean's pics — which the presence of Damon and Pitt render useless as evidence — no Clooney-anchored movie in recent memory has cracked $13 million in its first weekend of wide release. The Good German? Michael Clayton? Intolerable Cruelty? ... Box office just isn't his thing." Yessir, color us reassured. [Reuters]

Our condolences go out this morning to Paramount, whose sulky, twangy, denim-and-rippling-flesh marketing push for Stop-Loss couldn't trick weekend moviegoers into checking out yet another Iraq War message movie. At Defamer HQ, the search for answers behind the disappointing $4.5 million gross — too many muscle shirts? Ryan Phillippe/Abbie Cornish babymaking rumors peaked too soon? — extended to the conservative journal Men's News Daily, where crack industry analyst Greg Strange's devastating Monday-morning hindsight is sharper than ever:

Second guess your Monday morning instinct to feed that neckware noose into the office paper shredder with the knowledge that there really is something to live for: the box office numbers:

· The 2008 box office year has been "solid rather than spectacular," failing to yet produce the kind of runaway, $200 million-earning blockbuster that 300 did for the first quarter of 2007. You want a hit? Turn South Heavy Metal Park into a feature. [Variety]
· Dennis Quaid and approximately two dozen other stars sign up for Legion: On the eve of Apocalypse, a "group of strangers...must deliver a baby they realize is Christ in his second coming." Or as it was pitched in the room, "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World meets Children of Men!" [Variety]
· Superproducer Jerry Bruckheimer has reteamed with his Pirates of the Caribbean writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio for a take on The Lone Ranger for Disney that promises to be as overbloated, over-CGId, and overly fucking confusing as their last outings. (Tonto's half-squid.) [THR]

You wake up cold and confused, naked except for the half-singed bonnet on your head, and surrounded by hundreds of empty Peeps boxes and decapitated chocolate bunnies. Damn it: You've surrendered to another Easter weekend bender. Enjoy the last pulses of glucose shooting through your veins as you peruse the box office numbers:

In an environment as volatile and prone to bullshit as the film business is, we tip our caps to the guileless souls who keep it real when things are looking down. Particularly people like MPAA president Dan Glickman, who, when asked by Time Magazine how the industry's '08 crop of retreads, sequels and adaptations might weather the sluggish economy, steadfastly refused to toe the company line:

In honor of St. Patrick's day, we invite you to revisit the Crichton Leprechaun, peruse the screensavers and wallpapers available for download at colinfarrell.org, and dive into that bowl of cornflakes before the green beer turns them soggy. And while you're at it, have some box office numbers for good luck:

As you recover from one of the more jarring daylight savings shifts in recent memory, try as hard as you can to avoid the stares of co-workers who can't help but notice you sporting your stubbornly punctual morning priapism. Perhaps the box office numbers will ease the transition:

Tend to the wounds of your ill-advised weekend bear-wrestling adventures with the box office numbers:

The New York Times recently put together a really interesting graph showing the "Ebb and Flow of Movies". It charts box office receipts from 1986 through 2007, and does it in a sexy, undulating, almost topographical way. And look at last summer! Width is longevity, color denotes how many bajillion bones each movie made. [NYT via Kottke] Click for larger.

Ease the bitterness of having to work on President's Day with the knowledge that 1) Grover Cleveland always made his first and second assistants roll calls on Washington's birthday, and 2) the names Roscoe Jenkins, Hanna Montana, and Juno appear nowhere in the weekend box office numbers:

As the fuzzy memories of drunkenly shaving MAMA into the back of your head following Kanye West's moving Grammy tributes to his mother slowly come into focus, have a look at the weekend box office numbers:

As you and your loved one attempt to pry off the beer helmet that became glued to your head by a combination of sweat and Coors Light runoff, enjoy the weekend box office numbers:

· Looking for inventive ways to develop scripted programming during the writers strike, CBS Paramount TV reaches across our northern border to partner with CTV to produce the police drama Flashpoint. which will be scripted and shot in Canada. "[The production values] will be as good as any American production," somewhat defensively notes a source, trying to alleviate fears that CBS is trying to save money by eventually airing some second-rate Mountie melodrama badly overdubbed to eliminate suspicious Canadian accents. [Variety]
· As expected, the WGA has reached an interim deal with the Grammys, saving the highly expendable awards show from suffering the same undignified fate as the Golden Globes. Reacts Recording Academy president Neil Portnow, revealing that he may never have watched a Grammys telecast: "Having our talented writers on the team further ensures the highest level of creativity and innovation, something our audience has come to expect every year." [THR]

As you try to wash off the last of the oil you liberally applied to your torso for your unselfconsciously shirtless Rambo outing, have a look at the weekend's box office numbers:

You know, Hollywood has a dream, too: Seeing summer box office numbers in the dead of January. This weekend, that dream has finally come to pass, bringing movie executives of all stripes and luxury-car-driving-categories out of their offices and into the streets, to stand together and toss bushels of warm money into the air in a stirring showing of producerly love. The numbers:

As you shake off the morning-after effects of your rollicking Golden Globes party—which consisted entirely of pounding cans of PBR and shouting obscenities at clueless NBC presenter Billy Bush every time he opened his mouth—take a look at the weekend's box office numbers:

How many producers does it take to put out a Jessica Simpson disaster that earned $1,322 in its opening weekend and has racked up a whopping $6,422 over its first 14 days? Ten, apparently, including Simpson's dad, who probably personally bought the tickets that pushed the movie past the crucial $5,000 box office milestone. [Risky Biz Blog]

As it turns out, the concerns of competing studios that Warner Bros. might have been a little too generous in its Sunday night box office estimate in an attempt to push I Am Legend into second place have been proven valid: following Monday's release of the final numbers, Juno is now officially the Second Highest Grossing Movie in America for the first weekend of January. (Given the current atmosphere of strike-induced belt-tightening, we doubt Fox Searchlight is celebrating the position-shift with a champagne toast, a confetti shower, and the festive dropping of balloons from their conference room ceiling.) Despite this disappointment, there is at least some comfort for Warners in the ultimate figures, as Legend still managed to avoid the indignity of sliding down behind Alvin and the Chipmunks after the correction of their box office exuberance. [Variety, BOM]

Hollywood's refusal to toss any new-release chum (with the exception of a single horror offering) into the waters of America's multilplexes just seemed to intensify the public's appetite for the stale Nic Cage/Will Smith/Chipmunk-flavored morsels already floating there. Your Monday morning romp through this weekend's box office results: