In these days of giant fighting space robots, it’s rare for a movie to top the weekend box office for more than a week.
But Up‘s done it. Pixar’s heartwarming tale of a little old man who becomes so insane with indescribable grief that he literally has to leave the face of the Earth has remained number one at the US weekend box office.
See Dreamworks? This is how you sell a cartoon. Now make sure that Kung Fu Panda 2 ends with the panda developing a harrowing alcohol dependency, and be quick about it. There’s money to be made!
Traditionally the summertime weekend box office is a time for one insultingly expensive tentpole studio movie after another to take the top spot. But this week that’s not the case at all. Land Of The Lost – the biggest film of Will Ferrell‘s career to date – was supposed to romp home with the top spot today, but it hasn’t. It hasn’t because it isn’t funny. Land Of The Lost is so unfunny that people would rather see Up – a film where a woman dies of old age in the first few minutes – because it’s funnier.
Remember that next time, Will Ferrell – more old ladies dying of old age in your movies, please. Here’s the US weekend box office top five…
1 - Up (Since Pixar’s stock-in-trade is now the monumentally harrowing story told in a distractingly cartoony way, we feel it’s safe to reveal that the plot of next year’s Toy Story 3 is basically the plot of Requiem For A Dream, which ends with Buzz Lightyear’s arm rotten and mangled from years of habitual heroin addiction, and Mrs Potato Head reduced to starring in live-action double-ended dildo shows for money. It’ll be fun) $44,244,000
2 - The Hangover (Much has been made of The Hangover’s similarity to 1998’s Very Bad Things. However, we’d argue that this isn’t the case at all, for the simple reason that The Hangover doesn’t feature Cameron Diaz popping up to make a noise like a cat getting its genitals caught in an electric insect-killer every four or five minutes. Thanks for that, by the way, The Hangover) $43,275,000
3 - Land Of The Lost (Compare Land Of The Lost’s weekend box office failure with Talladega Nights’ box office success and take notes – Will Ferrell running in circles in his underpants, good. Will Ferrell dousing himself in dinosaur urine, bad. Remember that) $19,524,000
4 - Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian (We haven’t seen Night At The Museum: Night At The Smithsonian yet, but on the off-chance that we do and we don’t like it, we’ve already chosen an alternative title for it – Shite At The Pooseum: Twattle Of The Pissonibum. Feel free to use it, by the way) $14,650,000
5 - Star Trek (We also haven’t seen Star Trek yet but, um, oh we dunno, Bra Trek? Anyone?) $8,400,000
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