Nothing opened wide this weekend besides Couples Retreat and your mom’s legs, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that Couples Retreat was number one at the box office, earning $35 million. It played on a measly 3,800 screens, so kudos to that plucky underdog. It still has a way to go to earn back its $70 million budget. People have been wondering how a basic rom-com could’ve cost that much, but the answer is simple when you imagine Vince Vaughn, Faizon Love, and Jon Favreau at the same buffet.
Distributor Universal Pictures’ exit polling indicated that the “humor” and “Vince Vaughn” were the top reasons people saw Couples Retreat. [BoxOfficeMojo]
Reasons three and four were “(unintelligible Chewbacca groans)” and “I thought this was the Dairy Queen”, respectively. The other big story was Paranormal Activity grossing $44,000+ per location, meaning it nearly tripled its budget on each screen it played. It also broke Platoon‘s record for highest-grossing film playing on less than 200 screens, all while getting pretty good reviews. Analysts have been quick to hail its marketing campaign as a runaway success. But don’t think for a second that this means I’m giving Steven Spielberg a pass for his “my DVD was haunted” story. Only when it’s Steven Spielberg in Hollywood could a grown man get away with saying he owned a haunted DVD without rightly getting fired, shunned, pantsed, and wedgied.
| Film | Weekend | Location average gross | Total | |
| 1 | Couples Retreat | $35,340,000 | $11,780 | $35,340,000 |
| 2 | Zombieland | $15,000,000 (-39.4%) | $4,937 | $47,801,000 |
| 3 | Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs | $12,000,000 (-24.1%) | $4,011 | $96,251,000 |
| 4 | Toy Story Double Feature | $7,674,000 (-38.6%) | $4,380 | $22,676,000 |
| 5 | Paranormal Activity | $7,066,000 (+1,227.6%) | $44,440 | $8,280,000 |
| 6 | Surrogates | $4,115,000 (-43.2%) | $1,375 | $32,573,000 |
| 7 | The Invention of Lying | $3,370,000 (-52.0%) | $1,933 | $12,327,000 |
| 8 | Whip It | $2,800,000 (-39.8%) | $1,611 | $8,766,000 |
| 9 | Capitalism: A Love Story | $2,700,000 (-39.3%) | $2,714 | $9,095,000 |
| 10 | Fame | $2,556,000 (-44.8%) | $822 | $20,042,000 |
[via CHUD, BoxOfficeMojo, Indiewire]
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/global/images/default-avatar.jpg){kind=avatar}
![[image]](http://cdn.fd.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2012/02/Jurassic-park-busey-sax-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.fd.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2012/01/Moses-tablets-Spielberg-150x150.jpg)
The only thing about this movie I want to see opening wide are Kristin Davis’ and Malin Ackerman’s legs.
And the window of opportunity is running out on Davis.
I need to spend less time on the internet when I start reading the words “Toy Story Double” and my brain fills in the next word before I read it.
[hint, it wasn't "feature"]
I bet the Ghostbusters felt like assholes when they heard that Speilberg was able to trap a ghost with nothing more than a f’ckin Hefty bag.
I thought Paranormal Activity was a Christopher Reeve documentary. Just an hour and a half of him sitting in a chair.
Retarded pig is the only one who believes Jon Favre’s character could actually bag one of those chicks.
“Crap runs unopposed, wins” is the headline I used to describe my weekend after drinking the tapwater in Tijuana.
Which one is retarded pig? The one in the striped shirt?
*Sits on log by campfire, throws powder in the flames that makes it flare up*
For the consideration of the Midnight Society, I present ‘Steven Spielberg and the Haunted DVD’
*Gets kicked in the shin by 13 year old girl and reminded that I’m not allowed within 500 yards of their campfire anymore*
I’d like to film a $20,000 horror film too. I’d call it ‘My dad at 3 am discovers somebody closed the toilet lid after a night of drinking’
Things spread by mouths:
High school girls
Rumors about high school girls
Mononucleosis
Advertising for crappy horror flicks
Things put in my mouth:
Alchohol
Pizza
Filmdrunk STD
Is that the garbage disposal from the Flintstones movie?