TheChez.net

by ssjrem

Well, two weeks in a row now, the number one picture has exceeded expectations and by a fairly considerable margin at that. Last week, we had District 9. This week, the throne belongs to Inglourious Basterds.

Wow, I would not have called this much for Inglourious Basterds. And since I keep spelling that wrong, I’m goint to just call it IB from now on, okay? Anyway, I guess the combination of Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt was pretty potent. Audiences may have also been in the mood for some good old fashioned bloody ass whoopings. Anyway, IB makes about 37.6 million this weekend, right on par with what District 9 pulled in last weekend. These debuts are especially impressive considering the time of year, as late August is usually a pretty shitty time of year. IB has an 87% at Rotten Tomatoes and is currently rated an 8.7 at The Internet Movie Database, putting it at number 38 on the site’s Top 250. Though, a movie will almost always be at its highest rank at the end of its first weekend. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see it fall out of the top 50 with time. But still, given both of those, IB stands a pretty good chance at 100 million. Then again, I said the exact same thing about District 9 last weekend and things didn’t exactly go swimmingly for last week’s champ.

District 9

District 9 takes a bit of a hit this weekend, but it could’ve been a lot worse. I was hoping D9 could have managed really good legs and become something of a sleeper hit, but it’s rather difficult for a summer to have two sleeper hits. We’ve already the Hangover (which is now up to an astonishing 268 million) so it would be kind of tough for D9 to pull of something like that. Anyway, it fell 49% to 18.9 million. I was kind of worried that people would rush out and see this first weekend and then it would just completely fall to pieces, much like Cloverfield, which by comparison fell 68% in its second weekend. D9 has gotten its total up to 73 million and it’s got an outside shot at 100 million. This was a damn fine movie and I would love to see it hit that milestone.

G.I. Joe falls a decent 44% to 12.5 million. Admittedly, this is a movie that no one expected to have good legs. The grand total’s up to about 120 million now and it’s running a little behind Fantastic Four’s pace, so I’m going to say this will finish up around 150 or so.

In fourth, we have The Time Traveler’s Wife, which falls 46% to a little over 10 million, bringing its total to 37 million, which isn’t bad, I guess. It’s budgeted at 39 million, so I think this will be fine in the long run.

Julie and Julia holds quite well, slipping just 25% to nine million. Again, the plot of this movie seems like one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard in my entire life, but whatever works for people. With a total at 59 million currently, I’ll say this could reach about 75 to 80 million.

Debuting in sixth, we have Shorts. If I thought Julie and Julia had a stupid plot, this movie blows it out of the water. It made 6.6 million, which isn’t very good. I’m hoping that this falls off the face of the earth next weekend.

G-Force continues its decline down the top ten and hopefully soon, I won’t have to write about it anymore. A 4.2 million weekend brings the total to 107 million. How does a movie like this make over 100 million while D9 is going to struggle to hit that mark? Well, yeah, D9 is an R-rated movie with no recognizable stars and aliens that would never be described as “cute. ” So, it’s kind of a tough sell. Eh, whatever.

Another 3.5 million lifts Harry Potter up to 290 million. This is definitely going to get over 300 million. Not by much, but it will break that milestone, probably ultimately finishing with 302 or 303. If nothing else, the last three Harry Potter films have been pretty consistent, all finishing between 290 and 305 million.

Ugly Truth: 2.85 million. Total of about 83 million.

And, finally, getting completely ignored and barely opening in the top ten, we have Post Grad, starring Alexis Bledel, the girl from Gilmore Girls. You know, if you asked me, I would say that Lauren Graham, who played her mother on the show, is definitely hotter. But that’s just me. Anyway, Post Grad makes just 2.6 million and will be gone by next weekend.

So, Inglourious Basterds did way better than I thought, as I had pegged it around the mid 20s. But I’m glad because it was a really good movie. If no one else does, I might do a review in the coming days. Anyway, next weekend, we have two movies I am going to try my hardest to stay away from, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I ended up seeing one of them. The Final Destination and Halloween 2 both open next weekend and I don’t understand the studios’ decisions to release competing horror films on the same weekend. Reaction to the first Halloween was mixed and The Final Destination is in 3-D (though what isn’t these days) so I’ll say that TFD should fairly easily win the weekend. Then again, as the last few weeks have shown me, my predictions are pretty far off sometimes. It seems like the box office is going into complete shit mode for the next few months. Aside from 9, there isn’t a single film I’m terribly interested in seeing until December, which kind of sucks. I’m just going over the release schedule and it seems like a lot of garbage. Man, I really hope Avatar doesn’t disappoint.