Is anyone surprised by this week's top movie? No? Me neither. I guess it was easy to predict that the film with the most hype behind it will top the box office of any given week; although, there are exceptions to every rule (last year's Speed Racer comes to mind).
This weekend saw the clawed star of X-Men Origins: Wolverine slice his way to the top of the pile with an impressive $85 million open. It seemed to be right in line with most predictions (including mine), although there were some that thought it would open similar to last year's Iron Man ($98 million). I believe this is also a solid test of the effect the leak of the workprint had, which does not seem to be much. Next week may be the bigger test as word of mouth gets out (much of it not good) and it faces the hyped, and better reviewed, Star Trek.
Coming in a distant second is the counter-programming romantic comedy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It stars Matthew McConaughey as a womanizer pining over the one that got away. The error of his ways is pointed out to him in full-on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol mode with the arrival of a series of ghosts who take him on a tour to open his eyes to the truth. I chose not to see this movie this weekend, despite the positive buzz. Frankly, it looked a little on the generic side. Perhaps I will catch up with it at some point.
Coming in an even more distant third is last week's number one film, Obsessed, suffering a steep 58% drop, which had to be expected. This is another film I chose not to see. Having seen the trailer a number of times, I feel as if I have seen it already. Besides, if I want to see a story like this I suspect I would be better off staying at home and watching Fatal Attraction.
17 Again is your fourth place film. This is yet another film I have decided to pass on. It is one of those movies that looks like something I have seen a number of times before in slightly different guises; you know, movies like Big. Funny, movies like this are making it easy for me to keep my promise to cut back on the number of movies I go to during the year.
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