jackanderson (Level 26)

"Conan, what is best in life?"  "To be crushed at the box office, see the competitors driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of the studio heads." 

Once again The Inbetweeners cleaned up the box office with over £5.6 million over the weekend.   Further proof that a] We Brits love to laugh and b] We Brits love other Brits.   Case in point: One Day.   (I so deserve a pay cheque for that segway!)   Over the 5 days it was out it made £2.21 million and slotted in second.   But then you strip out the £745,000 from previews and you get a far less impressive £1.46 million, good enough only for fourth.   Proof positive that Americans playing Brits is box office poison!   And that it’s gonna take a flaming miracle for Anne Hathaway to not be crap in The Dark Knight Rises.   Please, lord!   Let this be her Heath Ledger or Natalie Portman moment!   (Anybody who’s watched The Dark Knight and/or Black Swan knows what I mean)

But if you think that that’s the big loser, you are dead wrong.   It’s not even Final Destination 5 (it opened in fifth with about £1.4 million).   No.   The real, absolute, mahooosive loser is Conan The Barbarian which came in eighth place with £622,000.   But if you think that’s bad, then, whatever you do, don’t look at the takings without previews!   Strip out the Wednesday and Thursday takings and you are left with a film that took £450,000 on 345 screens which is good enough for ninth place!   That is...   that’s f*cking tragic, is what that is!

Want even more depressing news?   The Smurfs made 2% more this weekend than last weekend.   So instead of just pissing off and dying like we all wish it would, it’s going to hang around for a while.   Out of the bottom 5 films from last week; Mr. Popper’s Penguins and Spy Kids 4 are the only ones to hang around.   And The Skin I Live In made £325,349 from 125 screens, which is good but not great.   Especially the fact that it was marketed like crazy in recent weeks.   But hey, foreign movies making any money at all is always nice, right?

Now it’s time for your weekly The Guard status report!   And... er...   I haven’t got a clue.   The UK Film Council haven’t posted their list yet, so I’m going to have to assume they’re all on holiday.   Again.   So I’m having to use The Guardian’s top 10 list.   And whilst it’s extremely technical and detailed, it doesn’t go past number 10 for non-openers and it’s not as accurate.   So, you’re going to get a lot less funny in these next couple of weeks.   Seeing as most of my humour comes from statistics, these are the brakes!   Plus, as my Month In Movies will demonstrate tomorrow, nothing interesting is coming out next month.

This is the Final Destination for our full list written One Day every week and it is truly Barbaric!   Boom!   Savour that!   That’s the best I’ve come up with for weeks.  

UK Box Office Results: 26th - 28th August 2011

	1. The Inbetweeners Movie £5,696,848 / £25,864,966  It’s now that fastest grossing comedy in UK history! Not just British comedies, but all comedies! Beating (da da da daaaa!) The Hangover: Part II! In your f*cking face, Todd Phillips! We do want quality comedies and we will make them successful if they are funny! So, suck it!
	2. Rise of the (Planet of the) Apes £1,659,572 / £15,260,770  I have got to stop thinking about the negatives of this movie and focus on the positives. It’s always good and frequently exceptional. I went into it with low expectations, came out with them having been exceeded and yet when I think back on it, I feel disappointed. Why am I so stupid? Answers on a postcard, please!
	3. The Smurfs £1,478,650 / £10,961,052  This isn’t going away any time soon, is it? Right, let’s blow my best joke early then. Ready? ... “I’m blue! Da ba de da ba di!” ... Oh, how could you not see that coming?
	4. One Day £1,468,724 / £2,208,724 / NEW  Let’s examine some other absolutely atrocious attempts at British accents by Americans, shall we? At least Anne is nowhere near as bad as Keanu Reeves!
	5. Final Destination 5 £1,450,464 / NEW  Please, please, pleeeeeease! Let this sink like a stone! They are threatening two more sequels if this does well! Fortunately, this opening is half what The Final Destination made a couple of years ago. So, this is a good thing? Are teenagers sick of seeing endless sequels to good one-off horror movies? With Paranormal Activity 3 on the horizon (and then, presumably, 4 then 5 then 6...), we shall soon see.
	6. Cowboys and Aliens £792,898 / £3,680,844  Jon Favreau’s next film is going to be about a family trapped in Disneyland (as in: The theme park Disneyland) when all the rides and attractions come to life. If it’s played tongue in cheek, that could be hilariously brilliant! My tenuous link? If the premise for Cowboys & Aliens was played for laughs, it could’ve at least been fun. But it’s not. So it isn’t. So there.
	7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II £765,191 / £70,620,857  Oh. Ma. GAWD! DidyouknowEmmaWatsonisdatingJohnnySimmonsandthatislikeSOOOOOOOOOOaweSUM!!! CossheislikeSOOOOOOOOOgreatandhe’slikeSOOOOOOOOcoooolandthey’rebothlikeSOOOOOOOOperfectforeachother!!!!  ...  ...  Kill me swiftly, please.
	8. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World £607,051 / £2,262,829  So it seems that the world just isn’t ready for Aromascope. Or maybe it’s just not ready for terrible kid’s films being disguised by terrible gimmicks that make the resulting film look even more terrible on paper. Either way, our loss.
	9. Conan the Barbarian £415,000 / £622,268 / NEW  Wow... Er... Wow... I honestly wish I had more to say than just that but I honestly don’t. It’s still setting in. I mean... wow... That really is completely f*cking tragic!
	10. Mr. Popper's Penguins £408,985 / £6,632,047  Oh, please just f*ck off already!

jackanderson makes hits, not the public.  He tells the DJ’s what to play.   Understand?