The Wacky Weekend Box Office

So, this weekend's box office has the same two films finishing in first and second. And while I'm not surprised that Bee Movie was the number one movie this weekend, I am surprised that it took two weekend for it to become number one, because it not winning its opening weekend tends to go against the movie-going tendencies of the general population.

Whenever there's an animated movie coming out, you can almost guarantee it to win the box office. In the weeks coming up to its release, animated movies get advertised the shit out of. Everywhere you turn, there's an ad for these movies. And Bee Movie was no different. They've been advertising this thing since, well, I think Truman was still in office. There have been print and TV ads for at least six months. There was an entire episode of 30 Rock basically dedicated to the movie (or at least to Jerry Seinfeld). There's even an HP commercial that throws in a plug for Bee Movie.

And, since all kids do is watch TV, they see these ads and want to go watch the movie. Happens with every animated movie, which is why they all make a ton of money.

So, what happened on Bee Movie's opening weekend? It got beat by American Gangster.

Now, in terms of quality, this isn't surprising, as American Gangster is an excellent movie that will get nominated for every Oscar. But it is surprising that more people went to see it than Bee Movie, because people will generally go see an animated movies to appease the incessant whining of their children. Unless it's poorly made or advertised, animated movies just don't lose the box office. (Remember Happily N'Ever After? Neither does anyone else, as it got smoked its opening weekend by Freedom Writers. Fucking Freedom Writers, for the love of God! That's terrible.)

Of course, everything was righted last weekend, when Bee Movie actually did win the box office by a slim margin over American Gangster. I guess a week after parents told their kids, "Fuck you, children: We're going to a movie we wanna see," they finally caved and took their spawn to Bee Movie. Yay, Dreamworks!

In other box office news, I found it odd that P2 finished ninth last weekend, as horror movies almost always seem to make money regardless of quality. It's too bad, as it's actually a pretty entertaining movie.

I also found it amusing that After Dark's Horrorfest barely broke $500,000 its opening weekend, as that's an accumulated gross for eight movies. It probably didn't help that most of the theatres only had it on one screen with rotating showtimes for the individual movies every day. Makes seeing any one of those movies a rather dodgy proposition. (The one I managed to see, The Deaths of Ian Stone, would have been good if it wasn't so goddamned boring. I guess these movies couldn't find a distributor for a reason.)

We'll see how this weekend's box office pans out. Maybe we'll get another shocker, and Love in the Time of Cholera will be #1.

HA!