Box Office: Prom Night kills the competition

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 13, 2008

Welcome to another weekend of blown predictions at The Reject Report. No, we didn’t completely get it wrong. We did correctly predict that the teen horror remake Prom Night would win at the box office, and, well, we were right. But when it came to the gross, we were a little off.

Prom Night made $22 million for the folks at Screen Gems this weekend, a little higher than the $18 million I had predicted. Well, gosh, darnet. Why can’t I get any of these freaking predictions right? I knew on Friday night when standing in line at the movie theater for tickets that Prom Night was going to win easily. There was a huge crowd of teenagers at the cinema. Well, that’s obviously why I get these predictions wrong, I don’t hang out with enough teenagers.

Unfortunately, there was nothing at the cinemas to attract grown adults either, as Street Kings got $12 million and Smart People only got $4.2 million. Well, what do you expect for a couple of flicks that are clearly throwbacks to an era when Dennis Quaid and Keanu Reeves used to pack ‘em in at cinemas? Welcome to the 21st century guys, and buy a razor while you’re at it, Dennis.

Is it just me, but wasn’t the coarse language through the roof in Street Kings?! Really, we don’t see these kinds of flicks too much anymore — these cop movies where people say the “F” and “S” words all the F-ing time throughout the entire F-ing movie. That basically summed up the dialogue for the entire film. “The F is this S?! F this!” You get the idea. Needless to say, it will be very interesting to see if this flick gets any airplay on conventional broadcast television. They’ll have to bleep out the entire freaking movie!!

After seeing Street Kings I have come to the conclusion that people are sick of Keanu Reeves and all the junk he stars in, and people are sick of seeing movies where the entire cast needs to wash their mouths out with the most powerful, highest-grade Listerine on the market. This type of movie, the gritty cop movie where there is a lot of swearing and entire casts of people getting shot and killed, is a throwback to the Eighties and out of step with where Hollywood is going. I am truly sorry to have to say it, because these are my kind of movies, too. But I think we are destined to see even less of them than we are getting now. Just as we are destined to see fewer “rom-com” chick flicks because so many chicks are fed up with them.

Instead, I see more superheroes and adventure stuff, and more of this Judd Apatow-type raunchy comedy. That’s what packs them in these days, not this Keanu Reeves garbage. Lay off the vodka, fella. You are not Charles Bronson.

Anyway, here are the damages courtesy of Box Office Mojo.

And that’s the Reject Report box office update for this weekend — F this S! See you later this week for more predictions here at The Reject Report, as things really start to heat up at the box office.

Read more articles by John Cairns