Top Shelf at the Box Office! 7/13/09

I can be honest with you people, right? You know I don't really care anything about this week's box office for the most part. There's only one thing that mattered to me this week and that was how much money I Love You, Beth Cooper would make. Why? Because if it doesn't break the $20M barrier, John owes me lunch at Firehouse Subs. Considering it's opening this week, I think I'm well on my way to victory. Now, the show...

1. Bruno- $30.4M

Somewhat surprisingly, Bruno takes the top spot despite a HUGE dropoff from Friday to Saturday. The follow-up to Sasha Baron Cohen's Borat dipped a whopping 39% during that period, which usually spells doom for a film's long term success. If we compare Bruno to it's predecessor, Bruno brought in roughly $4M more in it's first week, but the difference is that Borat was at nearly 1,700 fewer sites. Borat then expanded in it's second week and continued a run that made it a smash hit. The prospects for this film aren't nearly as promising. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that word of mouth spread about all the wagging weiner in this film and dudes suddenly stopped going.

2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs- $28.5M/$121M

Considering I know next to zero about Ice Age, I have precious little to say about it, other than that it's doing about as well as the other films and is kicking much arse globally, bringing in another $98M foreign for a total of $327M. This is the only way a movie with Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, and John Leguizamo as the headliners can succeed. Make them all look like fat wooly mammoths.

3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen- $24.2M/$339M

The only thing proceeding along as steadily as Transformers box office is the amount of hate being lobbied against this movie. I get it, it's not that good. But the worst thing ever? Hardly. After only 19 days it already has reached #16 on the all-time highest grossing films list. For a movie that sucks that's pretty damn impressive.

4. Public Enemies- $14.1M/$66.5M

Maybe I spoke too soon last week insisting that Public Enemies was a disappointment financially because to me this doesn't seem like such a bad total for 2 weeks. I think maybe I focused a bit too much on the wealth of star power and translated that into higher expectations, but honestly a film about 1930's gangsters can't be expected to break the bank regardless of the cast. Assuming PE manages a standard drop each week, it could conceivably hang on for a respectable run.

5. The Proposal- $10.5M/$114M

I'm sticking by my guns and not seeing this thing, but apparently I'm one of the few making that pledge. Sandra Bullock's 4th $100M film dropped only 18% from last week, proving that despite all the load of comedies out there right now people still want to invest there time to see it. Can't argue with success, especially this late in the game.

6. The Hangover- $9.93M/$222M

The same as above applies here. The Hangover dropped only 12%, the lowest of all the returning films. I think all those people who stopped going to see Bruno on Saturday probably spent their time seeing this and The Proposal for their comedy fix, because...

7. I Love You, Beth Cooper- $5M

...clearly they didn't go see this. Hayden Panettiere, as hot as she is, just isn't enough of a draw to push sex comedy past the rest of the sex comedies that came out this past year. And John now owes me lunch, because there ain't no way in hell it's breakin' $20M. Kindof a shame, really. It's not that bad of a movie. Plenty to look at, too.

8. Up- $4.66M/$274M

9. My Sister's Keeper- $4.18M/$35.8M

That's a lot of tears flowing in the aisles. Wear galoshes.

10. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian- $1.52M/$171M

Go away!!

ALSO...

The 2nd highest per site average of the week of the Top 20 films went to Kathryn Bigelow's amazing Iraq War film, The Hurt Locker. Bringing in $623,000 at only 60 sites, the critically acclaimed film has a total of $1,084,000 to date. Hopefully it will be expanding in the coming weeks.