Monday Morning Box Office Report – Dec. 24, 2007
Nic Cage is in the hizzie! National Treasure: Book of Secrets was (not surprisingly) the biggest hit at the box office this holiday weekend, cashing in with a solid $45 million performance, which ousted Will Smith and his popular sci-fi/horror flick I Am Legend from the number one spot. Interesting to note: the first National Treasure movie was the highest grossing movie of Nicolas Cage’s career, and the opening weekend numbers for the sequel have exceeded that of the original. Cage is here to stay as a Hollywood headliner, that’s for sure! Other new releases, Charlie Wilson’s War and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, both had modest debuts with approximately $9 million a piece. The Judd Apatow-produced comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, however, didn’t fare quite as well, earning just $4 million and the #8 position for the weekend. Is it that John C. Reilly can’t bring in audiences without his pal Will Ferrell? Or did the movie just look horribly unfunny to begin with?
1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets — $45.5M
2. I Am Legend — $34.2M
3. Alvin and the Chipmunks — $29M
4. Charlie Wilson’s War — $9.62M
5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street — $9.35M
6. P.S. I Love You — $6.5M
7. Enchanted — $4.15M
8. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story — $4.1M
9. The Golden Compass — $3.98M
10. Juno — $3.4M
Comments (5)
Walk Hard plays along the lines of Anchorman and Talladega Nights and less like a parody.
but fear and distrust of parody and general unsuccess of music movies (remember, Tenacious D also bombed horribly), as well as many other new releases out there, AND an R rating, certainly didnt help.
Posted by Goon on December 24th, 2007Do the National Treasure movies really sell so well because of Nicolas Cage? My bet is hell no. Put any averagely famous middle-aged guy (Brad Pitt, Rafe Fiennes, Colin Farrell, Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, etc.) in that role and it’s still gonna sell. My father, for example, loves National Treasure and can’t wait to see Book of Secrets, but I’m not sure if he could name another movie Cage has been in. All he knows is that the films are about pseudo-realistic American history and as a middle-aged (and beyond) male, he’ll be able to understand what’s going on in the action scenes more easily than with a movie about robots from outer space beating each other up or diseased sorta-vampires in a post-apocalyptic future. Speaking of which, I may be way off with this assumption, but are only older people interested in this movie? All of my relatives over 40 can’t wait to see Book of Secrets, but neither myself, any of my twenty-something friends, or any of the few younger kids that I know are interested at all.
Posted by Rian on December 24th, 2007History is well known to spark interest in later years of life. Up untill you turn 40 all people are interested in is money and sex.
Posted by Henrik on December 24th, 2007Interesting. I still prefer money and sex over history. I guess I haven’t gotten enough money and sex over the years to be able to enjoy reminiscing about the past.
I must admit that I am surprised at the success of the National Treasure sequel. And I too doubt that Nic Cage has anything to do with its success. Hasn’t every other recent movie he’s done not do so well? Ghost Rider and Next were failures, weren’t they?
Anybody out there want to explain the appeal of National Treasure? (And I really doubt history is the answer.)
Posted by Reed Farrington on December 25th, 2007i was shocked by the failure of dewey cox, i watched the first 10 minutes of it on rotten tomatoes and it looked pretty good
Posted by Drew on December 28th, 2007Leave a Reply