Top Shelf at the Box Office: 6/22/09

My faith in the American moviegoing public hasn't been on such shaky ground since Beverly Hills Chihuahua was top dog(pun intended) last year. Apparently stale, formulaic, rom-coms featuring an aging badly before our eyes starlet are back in style. Shame as I am to say it, but Transformers 2 can't come fast enough.

1. The Proposal- $34.1M

I feel like I shouldn't even write anything about this movie. Yeah, it was Sandra Bullock's largest opening ever. And definitely Ryan Reynold's largest as a leading man. But let's face it, this won because there was precious little new competition this week. And it's reign will be about as long as Kane's run as world heavyweight champion(that's a WWE reference, kiddies). Transformers knocks this and everything else into orbit in a mere two days. Surprisingly, this is Bullock's 1st #1 in ten years. Anybody remember Forces of Nature? Yeah, me neither.

2. The Hangover- $26.9M/$153M

Sporting the 2nd lowest drop of the week, The Hangover ordered up another round to the tune of $27M in only 17 days. It's already experiencing a better hold than Wedding Crashers did 4 years ago, and at this rate will hopefully surpass that overrated film's $209M take.

3. Up- $21.3M/$224M

Up deflated about 31% this week, but it's still managed to earn enough to surpass the total from last year's Wall-E. I gotta admit I'm surprised by this, as I thought Wall-E is a far superior film. Either way, Pixar's reliability at the box office can not be overstated. They are a true juggernaut.

4. Year One- $20.2M

Probably about what could be expected from a comedy of this sort, but to me this total feels a bit flat. Featuring a bonafide star like Jack Black and a steady box office performer like Michael Cera, I guess I would've thought the studio would have higher expectations. Then again, they saw this thing as it was being made and probably knew not to expect much, and that's exactly what it delivered. Not much.

5. The Taking of Pelham 123- $11.3M/$43.3M

Mothaf*cker! Pelham crashed 52% percent from last week, one of the biggest 2nd week drops in Denzel Washington's career. The film never really got off to a bang up start, and it's well on it's way to obscurity.

6. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian- $7.3M/$156M

IMAX continues to work wonders for the Ben Stiller franchise, which holds the distinction of perhaps being the worst film with the best cast that I've ever seen. Still, the figures speak for themselves. People love watching Stiller get slapped around by monkeys and dead dictators.

7. Star Trek- $4.7M/$239M

A few weeks ago I stated that Star Trek would somehow still be in the Top 10 at the end of the summer. While that may not happen, I still feel compelled to report that Star Trek again had the lowest drop of the week at only 14%. That's crazy.

8. Land of the Lost- $3.98M/$43.7M

9. Imagine That- $3.1M/$11.4M

I just wish this thing had an astronomical budget, so that we could officially put this in those Pluto Nash areas. Y'know, those fiscally devastating studio crushing areas. Then maybe they would stop giving Eddie Murphy shit movies like this. At this stage of his career he is a 2nd tier player. He needs a career overhaul, and it looked like he was on his way to that with Dreamgirls but he didn't follow up on it.

10. Terminator Salvation- $3.07M/$120M

Chances of this film besting the total for the mediocre Terminator 3? Slim and none, and Slim just went out for cigarettes.

Also:

In it's 3rd week, Sam Mendes' road trip dramedy Away We Go continues to impress, pulling in an estimated $904,000 for a total of $1.97M. The film is only at 132 sites and boasts one of the highest per site averages of the week. While I'm a bit down on the film, I'm hoping it expands so that others can see it and decide for themselves. It does have some genuine moments.

It's shameful that a Woody Allen film isn't given wide release in this country anymore. His latest, Whatever Works starring Larry David of Seinfeld fame, had the highest per site average of the week. At only 9 sites, the film grossed a whopping $281,000. Wowsers.