Hollywood is famously in more trouble than in ages. But, according to this weekend’s box office, the recipe for success is a simple one – rip off an old film about a scary man with a telephone.
When A Stranger Calls is top of the US weekend box office chart, and it got there by tapping into the very real human fear of some bloke sneaking around your house and ringing you up now and again. Brr, creepy. Weirdly enough, When A Stranger Calls hasn’t been nominated for any Oscars – not even in the Best Rubbish And Implausible Thriller category. Yeah, we were surprised, too.
Weirdly enough, When A Stranger Calls – the top weekend box office draw of the week – is a remake of a 1979 film. We say it’s weird because if a man called us in 1979 and said "I’m in your house," in a creepy voice, we’d have realised that – what with mobile phones yet to be invented – he was probably standing at the phonepoint, and then we’d have snuck out the back door. Simple! Here’s the full US weekend box office chart…
1 – When A Stranger Calls (Maybe the success of When A
Stranger Calls is down to a few preemptive Valentines Day dates. After
all, nothing says "I love you" like movies about deranged phone-stalking
murdering loons) $22,000,000
2 – Big Momma’s House 2 (Sure, the world is full of movies about policemen going undercover as fat women, but where are the movies about fat black babysitters going undercover as hard-ass police officers? Where’s the equality, dammit?) $13,350,000
3 – Nanny McPhee (That’s a hat-trick – the top three weekend box office movies are all about babysitters. And each of the three main babysitters have
been catered for: the superficially nasty but really quite nice
babysitter, the babysitter that gets stalked by murderers and the odd
uncover policeman transvestite babysitter. Ah, the memories…) $9,904,000
4 – Brokeback Mountain (Currently riding the wave of "hey, I hear
this will do well at the Osca… oh my God, they’re GAY? What the
hell?" popularity) $5,679,000
5 – Hoodwinked (Now in its eighth week in the weekend box office chart – a lesson to never underestimate the popularity of rush-released Shrek cash-ins that look like they were programmed by drunk pensioners) $5,300,000
6 – Underworld: Evolution (Evolution? From what, exactly? From Kate Beckinsdale not taking her top of to Kate Beckinsdale taking her top off? OK, that sounds fair. Sorry.) $5,100,000
7 – Something New (A romantic comedy so utterly generic that we can’t even think of a single thing to say about it. So we won’t. Apart from this. Which doesn’t count) $5,016,000
8 – Annapolis (What’s going on? Why is Annapolis still in the top ten? How many fans of ‘bad boy turns good’ naval boxing movies can there be?) $3,467,000
9 – Walk The Line (Strange – a man puts on a deep voice and says "Hello, I’m Johnny Cash," and he gets an Oscar nomination. But man puts on a high-pitched voice and says "Hello, I’m Big Momma," and he gets nothing. Where’s the equality, dammit?) $3,425,000
10 – Glory Road (This is hopefully the last week that we’ll have to write about Glory Road. And it’s made us reflect on how everything in life eventually comes to an end. Especially the number of people who want to sit through rubbish films about basketball) $3,007,000
Read more:
Weekend box office Feb 3-5 – Box Office Mojo
[story by Stuart Heritage]