Box Office: Bee Movie stings Fred Claus, Tom Cruise

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 11, 2007

Well, Christmas didn’t come early after all at the Reject Report. Guess what Santa left under the tree this weekend for Tom Cruise and for Fred Claus? That’s right– nothing. Instead, Bee Movie was the upset winner this weekend, knocking American Gangster to second place in a big upset. Why should Santa show up anyway, it’s not even Christmas!

It’s very rare for a movie to finish second at the box office and finish first the next week. I believe Wedding Crashers was able to move up to Number One in its second or third week, but it sure doesn’t happen very often. Bee Movie made a grand total of $26,000,000 this weekend, only a 31% drop. But it was enough to finish in first place. American Gangster dropped to $24 mil for a 44% drop. So clearly Jerry Seinfeld has the last laugh, as the kids who waited a week to see Bee Movie showed up in droves.

Meanwhile, Tom Cruise and Vince Vaughn aren’t laughing at all.

For the new releases, the numbers are all miserable. Fred Claus finished third at $19 mil, a big disappointment. That depressing war-on-terror flick Lions for Lambs only brought in $6.7 mil. So now everyone is trashing Tom Cruise again and critiquing his ability to carry a movie. This movie got killed by the critics, so no wonder no one showed up. Rotten Tomatoes gave it 27%! That’s just plain terrible.

The overall totals courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

So that’s this weekend and what can I say? I really didn’t see this coming, and neither did a lot of us so-called prognosticators. I think everyone is surprised because Bee Movie really underperformed last week. NOBODY saw this movie doing much better, but it did. So much for looking into the crystal ball. I gotta say once again: DON’T BET ON THE MOVIES.

See you later this week for another Reject Report.

Read more articles by John Cairns