Come With Ben Stiller If You Want To Live
That’s the lesson from the ol’ US of A’s big boffo box office Memorial Day weekend, which saw the further ascension of the Stills, as well as screenwriters/Reno: 911! costars Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, who just keep churning out the hits. Poor skull-busting Terminator, a film that seems to be in trouble.
1) Night at the Museum 2: Panic! at the Smithsonian — $US70 million
Now, that’s $US70 million over a four day period, from Thursday to Sunday. But, still. Huge numbers, biggest ever, in fact, for Stiller. And, if the funnyman and his golden boy writing team agree to it, the film’s success just near about guarantees a threequel. Une Nuit à la Louvre, perhaps? Mona Lisa comes alive and smirks enigmatically at everyone (to be played by Anne Hathaway)! While Stiller’s continued success seems increasingly smug and middlebrow, we are pleased for Lennon and Garant, who hopefully now will have the freedom to write the weirdest, profanest stuff they can dream up and still get a green light.
2) Terminator Salvation — $US53.8 million
Am I going to walk around and rip your fucking movie down, in the middle of Memorial Day weekend? Then why the fuck are you giving my boring action flick bad word of mouth? Ah da da dah, like this, all over town. What the fuck is it with you? What don’t you fucking understand? You got any fucking idea about, hey, it’s fucking disappointing having somebody walking up behind someone in the middle of the fucking movie theatre line and saying “Don’t go see Terminator, cause it sucks”? Give me a fucking answer! What don’t you get about it? Oh, so you saw Night at the Museum with your kid instead of my movie? Ohhhhh, goooood for you. And how was it? I hope it was fucking good, because it’s useless now, isn’t it?
3) Star Trek — $US29.4 million
The force is still strong in this one! Hyperdriving to a lightsaber-hot $US191 million in just a few weeks, the film is set to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs—a new record! Soaring high through the clouds of Bespin, this swashbuckling space opera is sending the competition barrel-rolling down into the murky swamps of Dagobah. Sy Snoodles will be singing this movie’s praises for eons, like a beautiful pop culture icon being slowly digested over a period of a thousand years by the mighty Sarlacc.
4) Angels & Demons — $US27.7 million
Well good for everyone here. The film dropped less than 60% in its second week at the rodeo. While international numbers are sure to remain high for a lil’ bit, this installment of the Dan Brown every-chapter-ends-with-a-cliffhanger-just-like-Fear Street religio-mystery series will not come close to its predecessor The Da Vinci Code’s big returns. But no one really expected to, and every summer one or two movies do just OK, mostly lost and forgotten in the sea of churning robots and angry wizards and troubled museum guards who—wait, why is he in DC now?
5) Dance Flick — $US13.1 million
A new generation of Wayans is welcomed into our hearts, as this a-few-years-too-late parody of films like Save the Last Stomping for When It’s Time to Step Up does solid numbers in a super-crowded holiday weekend. We’re pretty excited for the upcoming spoof Holiday-Time Family Cameo Comedy, in which Marlon Wayans Jr. plays a museum guard who must suddenly become a dad while driving a taxicab full of alien kids and then it’s all 3D animation and Seth Rogen and a bunch of SNL people (or people pretending to be them, hilariously!) show up and everyone chuckles and forgets what they saw thirty minutes after leaving the theatre.
ben stiller
christian bale
night at the museum
robert ben garant
terminator
thomas lennon
us box office report
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@AngeloMonart: Yes.
@gohomeann: Its like mindblowing to even THINK about a Star Trek movie hitting 200+ million.
Jim Topoleski
@TootieFields: A thousand Amens.
edisdead
t4 wasn't that bad, I liked it more than t3 if anyone is keeping track.
edisdead
Why is the Star Trek bit made up entirely of references to Star Wars? Is this some ultra-subtle Defamer irony, a comment on the interchangability of nerd-tastic sci-fi universes? Or did someone actually get confused?
AngeloMonart
Why are all the geniuses named Lennon? John, Thomas...
@TootieFields:
Grr, I was trying to reply to DennyCrane.
Oh how I wish MTV would release The State to DVD already. Then I could enjoy $240 worth of pudding whenever I pleased.
@magnets: Oh, the Shrek franchise, don;t get me started. The most cynical movies ever marketed to kids. With all their supposed tongue-in-cheek references to pop culture, which were really just marketing tie-ins, too self-aware and self-referential. There's a way to do a clever kids movie with a nod for the parents, but Shrek was not it. Couldn't get into to them.
@badasscat: Agreed with you on every single point. TT was brill, and I usually hate Stiller movies (Along Came Polly, Meet the Parents/Fockers, NATM to name some of the garbagier ones).
"... as well as screenwriters/Reno: 911! costars/members of The State Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant ..."
Fixed, Deadspin-style. The State rules.
@allyzay: Wasn't that just called Night?
@Goethewritesdrivel: Listen, I understand the power the woman's ass has over the majority of the human race but I stand by my statement. She does a very good impression of a Polaroid being shaken.
That is all.
@Calraigh: Jessica can do NO wrong, sir. You are expressing calumny!
Goethewritesdrivel
@The_Age_of_Plastic: Just dark, dark, dark (atmosphere and shhot-wise) and robots, kill, robots, robots, robots. It could have been any of a dozen movies. And Bale is becoming the Keanu Reaves of his generation (maybe it's the same generation?): zero affect change.
daveyjonesisdead
is this where i'm supposed to re-tell the night at the holocaust museum joke again?
@Richard Lawson: Super green!
@contradicto: But by Terminator rules, that would just fork off into a different timeline and you still would have seen the movie. What's seen can never be unseen! Muhaha.
Arceus
Had to take my nephews to Night at the Museum--was prepared to hate it, aggressively hate it, but found myself being charmed over and over. Nothing to do with Stiller--he might as well have been a hole in the screen--but Amy Adams was terrific fun, and Hank Azaria--not one of my favorites--was also fucking brilliant. When I saw Jeff Koon's big red pneumatic puppy bouncing down the halls, I was sold. Not a great movie, but a lot of talent and inventiveness on display (enjoyed it more than the much-looked-forward-to Terminator 4 bore).
Tattertotter
@restless: what exactly am i looking at here, is this like when tim and eric did those shrek 3 ads
magnets
@badasscat: Robert Downey Jr. deserved the Oscar over Heath Ledger for Tropic Thunder.
Arceus
@downlow: Eh, Colin Firth jumped the shark when he let himself go and became fat. And while I normally love period pieces, Easy Virtue is terrible.
Arceus
But the terminator did suck hard! I want so badly for a robot from to future to come back and kill McG (and whoever wrote that crap) before they even conceive this picture.
T4 was a pure action movie from start to finish. On that level, I liked it. T2 actually had a few things to say, and had very fun special effects. On that level, T4 had zilch.
I'm on the level here, believe me.
WWBD? What Would Ben Do? Come on, he's a phenomenal comic actor, funny as hell: Zoolander, Dodgeball, Tropic Thunder, need we say more. He's got a lot of charm. Haven't seen the sequel to Night at the Museum, but the 1st one was an awesome kids' movie.
@Belabras knows Jarate: Chicken good.
@Lazy Susan: Colin Firth? I'm there. Wherever, whenever, whatever.
@El Matardillo:
Multipass!
@JacquesPaysan: Which is such a shock considering the cinematic genius of McG (Full Throttle, anyone?).
Disclosure: Fan of the series and watch T4 this weekend. It sucked so much worse then I imagined it possibly could, that I do not even know where to begin.
The_Age_of_Plastic
Night At The Museum was like something from 1992. Hank Azaria doing his best Jeremy Irons caricature and Christopher Guest just...well picking up a paycheck.
Only reason to see it (other than having to look after in-law's kids and figuring it'll shut them up for a couple hours while I slip into a Jameson-induced semi-coma) is Amy Adam's Earhart. Who should really be given her own spin-off.
Star Trek rules the fucking universe, T4 is one of the worst films ever made and McG should die, now, preferably and Easy Virtue further strengthens the case that Jessica Biel shouldn't ever act. Ever.
@Smitros: Do I have another option?
I'll die, thanks.
Stiller was (and is?) overexposed for a while, given that he generally plays the exact same character in every one of his films, but can I just please take this chance to say that I thought Tropic Thunder was one of the most brilliant comedies ever made? It was funny as hell, and I feel like it was saying... something... that I still can't quite put my finger on. Not about war, and not about movies, but about comedy. And it's not easy to make a comedy that both makes fun of comedy and drama and is still funny. (Lots of movies try; almost none succeed.)
That said, I saw part of the first NATM on HBO or something and I couldn't even sit through it. Cripes. Stiller was Stiller, same as always, but I felt like I was watching Home Alone what with all the stupid music and predictable plot and characters.
My opinion on Ben Stiller boils down to this: not a great actor, but generally a funny guy, and more creative than he gets credit for. He really should be making more of his own films, and starring in fewer of other people's.
"Easy Virtue" @ $14,000+ per screen is the one that came out with all guns blazing.
I saw T4 on Sunday. I SO BADLY wanted to love it. Bale uses the Batman voice the ENTIRE TIME. I'll call it "alright".
The Terminator movie is fucking terrible. That's all, just trying to be servicey.
star trek will definately reach over 200 million faster than wolverine and t4. well any movie could outgross t4
gohomeann
I hate Ben Stiller, and I hate the premise for the stupid NATM movies, but why do I laugh at every damn one of the commercials?
DahlELama
Korben Dallas is watching the Star Trek movie right now!
@Arceus: I saw it at Tribeca. I kinda liked it, but my passes were free, so I wasn't going to complain.
@AngeloMonart: yes, yes, no.
Jim Topoleski