The week of the Oscar nominations usually sees a huge box office boost for the nominated films, and that's true this week.
Because Paul Blart: Mall Cop is still the weekend box office number one, reflecting its position as the movie with the most amount of Oscar nominations in histo… oh, hang on.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop didn't get any Oscar nominations, did it? And yet it's still way above every single nominated movie in the US weekend box office. Something tells us we're going to see a poignant three-hour opus about Brad Pitt on a Segway next year.
So Paul Blart: Mall Cop is number one at the weekend box office? So what? Michael Sheen‘s made history by getting Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans to the number two spot.
Many actors these days alternate between starring in movies that pay well and movies that will nourish their artistic soul. And that's exactly what Michael Sheen has done – not only is he the star of Frost/Nixon – one of this year?s best-reviewed, most critically-acclaimed dramas – but he's also the star of Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans, the superfluous second sequel to an already-rubbish film that's still managed to outperform the likes of Slumdog Millionaire at the weekend box office this week.
However, it's a little-known fact that Michael Sheen actually appeared in Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans because he thought he'd win a Best Actor Oscar for it, and agreed to star in Frost/Nixon because he was positive that it was going to become bigger than Star Wars and inspire countless young boys to stage their own carefully-researched probing political interviews at home using their highly collectable and wildly popular David Frost and Richard Nixon action figures. Michael Sheen is an idiot. Here?s this week?s weekend box office top five…
1 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop (By exceeding weekend box office expectations so dramatically, a sequel to Paul Blart: Mall Cop looks to be inevitable. Hopefully it'll be set in the world of human resources. Make a hilarious slapstick movie out of that, funny fat man) $21,500,000
2 – Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans (We shouldn?t joke about Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans. Our lycans rose a couple of years ago. Agony, it was. We were on antibiotics for a month, and the loss of bladder control was embarrassing to say the least) $20,700,000
3 – Gran Torino (We?ll admit that when we first heard about Gran Torino we thought it?d be a movie remake of Gran Turismo. For all we know it might be – if there's a videogame released in the next 12 months involving a haggard old racing driver who also enjoys punching Asian teenagers in the mouth, we?ll have been completely vindicated) $16,000,000
4 – Hotel For Dogs (Marley & Me topped the weekend box office, Beverly Hills Chihuahua topped the weekend box office, Hotel For Dogs could only get to number four. We hope the bottom isn’t falling out of the dog movie market, because that means our script for a movie musical entitled Doggy Stockbrockers: It’s Woofcession will never get made. Arses) $12,360,000
5 – Slumdog Millionaire (See? Slumdog Millionaire – the critcally-acclaimed cartoon about some dogs in a slum – can only just about break the weekend box office top five. Woofcession’s doomed. Doomed!) $10,550,000
Read more: