No surprises this week – Horton Hears a Who stayed at number one, raking in $25.1 million, while Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns (which didn’t screen for critics) was right behind with $20 million, averaging nearly $10,000 per screen. Once again proving that Tyler Perry’s butthole is basically an ATM machine.

Drillbit Taylor, meanwhile, landed in fourth place in its first weekend, finishing behind a half-assed horror flick starring Joshua Jackson (Shutter).  Sample Shutter review:

“The main problem is that they spelled the title wrong. The first vowel should be an I.” -Fearnet

Oh Snap! Sample Drillbit Taylor review:

“Imagine Curly Sue, but McLovin-ized.” -UGO

Double Snap!  Wait, what the fuck does that even mean?

[Based on weekend estimates]

Horton Hears a Who dominated a weak field this weekend (and scored mostly good reviews), grossing $45 million – the biggest weekend of 2008 so far. 

10,000 B.C. was down 54% from last weekend to make $16 million and take number two, and Never Back Down opened with $8.6 mil for number three.  Not bad, considering it looks like it cost five dollars to make and was written by a retarded baboon.   

Though second-weekend drops of 50%+ are now pretty standard, FilmDrunkard Robby sent me this classic article about how the studio hype machine and front-loaded box office grosses sort of came of age with the first Batman movie (it’s a long article and a great read – see also: John Peters being a douchebag).

[of Batman’s then unheard-of-for-a-blockbuster second weekend drop of 25%] Blockbusters never used to fade like this – ET had stayed at the top for 10 weeks, and increased its grosses as it went along, while Back to the Future had stayed up there for 13 weeks. But Batman came and went in the blink of an eye. Far more so than Jaws, it marked the beginning of the long, slow erosion of audience word-of-mouth.  [excerpted from Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer, by Tom Shone]

Bottom line, things just ain’t what they used to be.  What with the young girls all painted up like whores and Howard Stern, rap music, all the dang newscasters are Orientals and my bum leg’s actin up again – STAY OFF MY GODDAMNED LAWN YOU MOTHERLESS HEATHENS!  

[Source: BoxOfficeMojo (stats) and IESB (picture)] 

OPENING THIS WEEKEND:

Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who
Guaranteed to clean up on a weak weekend, and actually looks kind of good. Reuters headline: "Moviegoers can’t ignore elephant in theaters". Get it? Because it’s about an elephant?  Omg that’s so clever I want to slam my weiner in the door!

Doomsday
The only question is: Will it be bad or awesomely bad? Either way it’ll be a great Bentley commercial. 

Never Back Down
Fail. Though if you do go, be sure to bring your Fox Racing gear.

Funny Games
Watch Tim Roth and Naomi Watts get tortured by the neighbor boys.  Or not.

The Grand
Poker movie with a Brett Ratner cameo.  Thought you’d sneak it by me, didn’t you, fuckers.  Not a chance – I know what nachos smell like.

Lance Recommends:  In Bruges.  An odd little movie that keeps messing with your expectations.  Worth seeing for the dialogue alone. 

Anti-abortion activists infiltrated a Hollywood premiere Saturday, chanting slogans as the movie ended before parading around the theater with red tape (with the word "life" written on it) over their mouths.

The premiere, naturally, was for the hard-hitting, torn-from-the-headlines docu-drama, Horton Hears a Who.

The theme of the movie is based on the motto: "After all, a person is a person, no matter how small." So the pro-lifers thought it was a good idea to use this theme to their advantage — even though their complicated message was falling mostly on the ears of children.  The stars in attendance included Victoria Beckham and her three kids, Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, Steve Carell and all 12 contestants from "American Idol." [TMZ]

This reminds me of the time I happened to walk past a child’s birthday party just as the birthday girl was blowing out her seven candles.  I thought it was a useful metaphor and would’ve been a shame to waste, so I beat her to within inches of her life in front of her parents – to highlight the injustice of all those fetuses (feti?) whose light is extinguished prematurely by abortion.  "You did this!" I shouted, pointing at the assembled crowd as they dragged me away.  I think it’s pretty clear that I’m the real hero here.  Hence the tights.

[Thanks to 'RoboPanda' for the news tip]

The trailer for Horton Hears a Who, featuring voice work by Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, and Isla Fisher, is now online.  As you can see.

It’s from Fox, but appears to be a pretty competent Pixar ripoff, and dare I say it, looks pretty badass. And by that I mean it looks like an excellent movie to see after I’ve taken a bunch of drugs (not to be confused with a movie that makes me feel like I’ve taken a bunch of drugs).

Don’t pet the children, don’t pet the children, don’t pet the children… DAMMIT!  They should really keep the youngins out of these animated flicks.