jesus fucking christ... when will "Pirates" stop....

A pretty eventful weekend (for better or worse) for box office this weekend, with four new movies debuting, but none able to dethrone “Pirates 2” in its third week. With a third week gross of $35,049,000, and a totally of $321,733,000, it's looking like this thing is going to hit $400 million... sigh. Meanwhile, “Superman Returns” is doing slightly better than people had been saying lately ($7,460,000), but still it’s unsure if it’s going to hit $200 million—it’s currently at $178,427,000.

How’d the four new flicks do? Pretty-good-to-awful. The fun-as-hell “Monster House” opened in the number two slot with $23 million which isn’t bad, no matter what opposing studios will tell you. Especially considering this is one that’s going to benefit from positive word-of-mouth, $23 million is pretty solid.



#3 was Shymalanadingdong’s “Lady in the Water” with a disappointing $18,210,000, likely on its way to about $50 million at the most. In all likelihood three things contributed to people’s waning interest: (a) the confused marketing materials—what is this movie?, (b) the bad press surrounding Night and negative reviews, and probably the most deadly, (c) how fucking much people hated “The Village.” It sucks though—I’d really been rooting for Giamatti to finally be in a blockbuster.

Kevin Smith’s climactic opus “Clerks II,” a movie which has relatively small appeal (the “II” in the title probably didn’t help matter), opened with $9,625,000, another number which is better than some might tell you. Considering (a) the flick’s budget was only $5 million, (b) the first “Clerks” topped out at $3 million, and (c) the movie will make a shitload on DVD, an opening weekend close to $10 million won’t have Smith sweating it.



Ivan Reitman’s first movie in 5 years, “My Super Ex-Girlfriend,” starring Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson, all-out flopped with $8.7 million. I don’t know if people were just turned off by the horrible trailers or just that “Clerks II” and “Lady in the Water” were targeting the same audience, but for whatever reason, this is just awful. In every crowded weekend, there’s always at least one casualty.

In the “surprise summer sleepers” category, “An Inconvenient Truth” is quickly approaching the $20 million mark, and fuckin’ good for Al Gore. Also, “The Devil Wears Prada,” which David Poland predicted would top out at $35 million, should hit the $100 million mark by the end of the week. Who woulda thunk it? Certainly not me.