One of the funniest films of the summer did battle this weekend, and successfully clung on to its position at the top of the charts. It took in more than $16 million, representing a drop of just 37% from last week. the movie performed considerably better than I thought it was going to in its second weekend out. I am happy for it as it is a very funny comedy that skewers action films and the industry alike, and is actually pretty smart too. The star studded affair should be able to make it to $100 million if it has a few more weekends like this.
This weekend's chart was expected to be topped by Death Race, but that obviously did not happen. The remake (or reimagining, or "we liked the title and bribed the original producer") came in third, not terribly far off the pace, but enough to be labeled as at least a little disappointing. It does not help that the film is nothing more than a live action video game with only the barest resemblance to the original (not that it was a great piece of art, but I would have loved to have seen the scoring system remain intact). Still, it was entertaining in a superficial way.
The biggest surprise, that shouldn't have been a surprise, is how well The House Bunny performed, easily above expectations, finishing in second. In retrospect, this should not have been too hard to see. The past few weeks have been dominated by male-centric films like The Dark Knight, Pineapple Express, and Tropic Thunder. This week brought something for the female audience and they went out to see it, perhaps not in droves, but they were there. All things equal, the film was not terrible either. Anna Faris is like the female equivalent to Leslie Nielsen.
One other film cracked the top ten this week, although just barely. Coming in tenth place this week was the sports drama The Longshots. This is actually a pretty good film that does things a little differently than your typical entry in this genre. I can understand its low box office take too, after all, even in a slightly different format how many of these do we really need? It is also notable for being the big screen directorial debut for Limp Bizkit front man Fred Durst. Yes, you read that right.
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