For Universal, it’s starting to seem like going ahead with Couples Retreat was a bad idea for more reasons than just it sucking hot monkey taint.  Apparently, in the film, Jon Favreau’s character uses a woman’s picture for spank material, and now that woman is suing for $10 million.

Irina Krupnik “only learned of defendants’ lascivious use of her photo in the film” after it was released in theaters — and was horrified to discover it was being used as a “masturbatory prop” for a character played by Jon Favreau.
Krupnik’s lawyer acknowledged that his client had signed a general release at the time the picture was taken, but said she’d never imagined it would be used in a “quasi-pornographic context.”

The movie is a comedy about four couples trying to work out their differences at a resort in Bora Bora. In one scene, Krupnik’s picture is featured in a fictitious brochure that Favreau’s “overweight, unhappily married male character” uses “to masturbate while his wife is in the washroom,” the suit says.
Krupnik was not amused to find herself being used for Favreau’s “much older, desiccated” character to “pleasure himself,” the suit says, noting that the scene “would be a crime if Mr. Favreau attempted it on a New York City subway.” [NY Post]

Look, I’m all for Universal having to pay society back for Couples Retreat, but I’m tired of these stuck-up broads acting like they get to decide who I can and can’t masturbate to on the subway.  Ooh, pardon me, your highness.  Just for that, I’m using your name as my new safe word.
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Here you can see the two versions of the Couples Retreat poster (click to enlarge), the UK version on the left, the US version on the right.  Notice anything different?  Oops, where’s my black people!  Naturally, some folks are calling racism.  The studio, meanwhile, has a perfectly logical explanation:

The studio said it regretted causing offence and has abandoned plans to use the revised poster in other countries… A Universal spokesman said the revised advert aimed ‘to simplify the poster to actors who are most recognisable in international markets’. [via DailyMail]

What, Faizon Love isn’t a bankable star? …Okay, yeah, I guess that sounds sorta plausible.  Still, no word on why they felt the need to add in all those clouds and palm trees in the background.  Oh I’m sorry, was the mountain too uppity for you?  Either way, you have to admit both posters are an improvement over the original tagline, “It may be paradise… But it’s no vacation… Because there are black people here.”

Just last week the This is It people were crowing about their movie being the third-highest advanced ticket seller of 2009, and AEG (the concert company) predicted it would make $250 million in the first five days.  Domestically, it made $21.3 million for the weekend, which is less than Funny People made and that was considered a bomb.  It was the number one movie of the weekend, but it was also the only major release, so it basically had no competition. Worldwide five-day total: $101 million.  Which if you’re doing the math at home, is a lot less than $250 million.  Less than a third if my numbers serve me… carry the one… aw crap I hate myself.

Elsewhere, Paranormal Activity continued to kick ass and may eventually get to $100 million.  Couples Retreat and Law Abiding Citizen both held well, proving that mediocrity still holds sway, I guess.  Meanwhile, Where the Wild Things Are fell another 63.8%, meaning it’ll have to try to earn back its $100 million budget on DVD.

Astro Boy and Cirque Du Freak are bombs.  Guess kids are too young for a character that looks like Bob’s Big Boy, and maybe a kids movie with a French title wasn’t the best idea.  Shocking, I know.

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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.

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Opening this week:

There are some indies and smaller flicks opening in limited release, and Paranormal Activity is now out in 44 cities, but the only movie releasing wide this week is Couples Retreat.  Does anyone even need to see this picture to know it sucks?  Just watch the trailer.  “It’s the circle of life.”  “Yeah, well they’re circling our lives!”  “You need a present? Buy her a Hello Kitty book!”  Those aren’t jokes, and yet the trailer is edited in such a way that we’re led to believe that those are jokes.  If I hadn’t put exclamation points at the end, you’d have no idea that those were supposed to be punchlines.

And what’s with nothing else opening this weekend?  Are we to believe that this triumph of no-ball-having is such a fearsome box-office power house that nothing dare open against it?  How is it The Hurt Locker, one of the more universally likable films I’ve seen, never gets a full release, and Couples Retreat, a film that will get barely a shrug from its staunchest defenders, gets thousands of screens and a weekend to itself?  I’m telling you, this country is going down. DOWN, I TELL YOU!  EVERYTHING’S GOING DOWN!  (*flies plane underneath runaway subway car*)