Eddie Murphy Journeys to Box Office Hell

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

Well, on this fine July day the big story here at the Reject Report is Eddie Murphy. Not because his new movie, Meet Dave, was a moneymaker at the box office. No, the story is how badly the thing tanked!! There was no surprise at the top of the charts as Hellboy II: The Golden Army finished first with a haul of almost $36 million, just nosing out Hancock’s $33 million. And Journey to the Center of the Earth took in $20 million. But Meet Dave went straight to box office hell with an embarrassing $5.3 million.

How bad was it? Well, it was lower than what everyone was predicting, that’s for sure. People were predicting low teens, and the lowest projections I was seeing were for something around $8 million. Everyone was already predicting this movie to flop, anyway, but the hard numbers are even worse than that. $5.3 million is just a total disaster for Meet Dave. Keep this in mind: this was released in some 3,000 or so theaters. The average gross per theater for this flick was $1,760. That’s really dismal, folks. This movie played to empty seats all over America.

What do you expect from a movie that not even Eddie Murphy will go see? They had their big premiere for this thing early in the week, and in a sure sign of doom Eddie Murphy did not take time out of his schedule to attend. What does that say about a movie, then, if the star of the whole freaking show won’t bother to show up? If Eddie Murphy isn’t interested in seeing his own movie, fat chance will people in middle America want to see it, either.

And I just have to rant and rave one more time about Mike Myers’ dismal The Love Guru. I wasn’t going to bother mentioning this piece of junk ever again in this column, but it only made $545,000 this weekend. I noticed the average gross per theater for this flick was $599 bucks!!! Now, that is pathetic beyond words, ladies and gentlemen. Other movies that have been out for longer periods of time are doing better than The Love Guru. Expect this flick to get yanked from most theaters soon, with crummy numbers such as this.

As for Hellboy II: The Golden Army, $35 million is a good showing (better than the last Hellboy movie), but nothing spectacular. I get a laugh reading these other columns that crowed about how Hellboy II was “on fire” and soaring to the top of the box office and , yada yada. But it only beat out Hancock by a bare minimum. So really, the movie wasn’t “on fire” at all.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad to see the movie win at the box office, but when the heck are any decent box-office records going to start falling this summer? Next week, perhaps? I hope so.

Here are the estimates we have of the weekend’s box office:

Heading into the week of The Dark Knight, the overall race for the box office lead has Iron Man at $313 million and Indiana Jones 4 at $310 mil.

Also, some doubly-good news for Angelina Jolie: her movie Kung Fu Panda is now up to $202 million and Wanted is up to $112 mil. AND she’s had twins! Way to go, Angie.

Can you believe it? The biggest entertainment story in the world is Angelina Jolie’s twins; meanwhile, here I am writing a column about Eddie Murphy and his flop movie. Needless to say, I don’t expect this column to get any hits on the Internet today.

Maybe next weekend I’ll have more luck. Get ready for the caped crusader next week, folks, as The Reject Report turns its attention to The Dark Knight. Already I am hearing stories about sellouts across the country for the midnight screenings. The Dark Knight is raking in the cash and it hasn’t even rolled out yet! Life is good in Hollywood. And we shall see you here once again later this week for more weekend predictions here at the Reject Report.

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