Zombieland Takes Over the Box Office
Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 4, 2009
Well, it’s $25 million dollars this weekend for the hit Zombieland, proving that the zombie movie genre is alive and well. I know there were some people who had predicted even more than this, but I think that given the competition and the rest of it, it did okay.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs didn’t seem to be hurt as badly by the Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D revival as I thought, raking in $16 million to Toy Story’s $12.5 million.
As for the other movies — all I gotta say is where the hell ARE you people? Out shopping? Watching football games? (Yeah, I know, wise guy: you were at Zombieland.) There must be a reason, on a weekend full of “fresh” Rotten Tomatoes movies, why the box office isn’t better than this. Maybe the teachers at school are on a rampage and assigning a lot of homework. Maybe the college profs are assigning too many essays and other boring things to do. Maybe it’s because vacations are over for everyone, so now no one has time to go to a single, solitary movie (not even on a weekend?!?). All people have time for is maybe Zombieland, and that’s it. I guess that’s why The Invention of Lying wound up with $7.3 million, or why Drew Barrymore’s Whip It only got $4.8 million. Capitalism: A Love Story also only got $4.8 million, but I can understand that: Michael Moore is hated by a lot of people, particularly capitalists. But still, you would have thought the lefties would have shown up in greater numbers. Nikki Finke is saying this is going to be the worst showing for a Michael Moore movie since 2002.
I don’t get it. These may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they weren’t pieces of junk, folks.
Actually, the distribution for a lot of these movies wasn’t great to begin with and that was a big reason the numbers were what they were. It’s too bad, but that’s life in October for theater owners — business is usually like this. Look on the bright side, though — at least the lineups for popcorn weren’t so bad. So it truly was a great experience at the theater for the people there!
The damages:
- Zombieland – $25,000,000
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – $16,700,000
- Toy Story / Toy Story 2 (3D) – $12,500,000
- The Invention of Lying – $7,350,000
- Surrogates – $7,344,000
- (Tie) Capitalism: A Love Story – $4,850,000
- (Tie) Whip It – $4,850,000
- Fame (2009) – $4,754,000
- The Informant! – $3,800,000
- Love Happens – $2,777,000
I’d write some more, but I’m afraid I’ve got no time, either. That’s all for now. I’ll be back later this week at the Reject Report, when we all go on a Couples Retreat! See you then.
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