The DUP : November 9, 2008

Here are this weekend’s box-office estimates:

1. Madasgascar 2 $63.5 million
2. Role Models $19.3 million
3. HSM 3: Senior Year $9.3 million
4. Changeling $7.3 million
5. Zack and Miri $6.5 million

Well, the big surprise of the weekend turned out not to be Madagascar coming in at number one with $63 million, but Role Models coming in with $19 million! It’s an understatement to say that that this surpassed everyone’s expectations – even Universal expected that picture to come in somewhere between $10 and $12 million. Well done, boys! I always thought that Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott would make a great team, they’re both such specific characters actors and they both have impeccable timing. This is well deserved. It also deserves to be said that Madagascar 2 has the highest grossing opening weekend for an animated movie this year, beating out Wall•E and Kung Fu Panda. That is a surprise to me.

High School Musical Three: Senior Year is still hanging on in the top three. Kids are seeing this movie over and over again, to no one’s surprise. Changeling’s gross was down about 5% from the previous weekend even though it added five more screens. Zack and Miri hung on at number five, bringing their total gross close to $21 million.

Finally, Soul Men, which stars Samuel L. Jackson and a posthumous Bernie Mac came in at number six with $5.6 million. This “African-American Comedy” [as Daily Variety called it. How much progress have we actually made during this historic week, I ask] pulled in less than Dimension/MGM were expecting for some reason. I only started to see print ads for this picture a couple of weeks ago, and it felt like they threw this onto the marketplace.

I will leave you with one thing I will admit to loving in the Madagascar 2 trailer. The male Rhino is flirting with the female Rhinos and singing a song about it. You'll have to imagine the sparse pop influenced hip-hop beat yourself. The Lyrics:

Male Rhino: “I like ‘em BIG. I like ‘em JUNKY!”
Female Rhino: “Is that your friend, or is that your butt?”

And that’s the weekend!

[© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.]