Weekend Box Office

For the second time this year an entire slew of new releases couldn't top the top three on the chart. Nine weeks ago Cinderella Man took it on the chin opening week, losing out to returning champions Star Wars, Madagascar and Longest Yard. This week movies much stronger than a period boxing flick bowed to the previous weeks top films. It's not a good week to be Michael Bay.

The Island, a movie many were banking to be a strong summer hit, made one of the most embarrassing openings this year and, in fact, this decade. Call it the worst islandic disaster since Pompei. A meager $12 million dollars is all director Michael Bay has to show for his efforts. That's not a good sign for a movie that has $122 million dollar budget to recover (not including its massive marketing campaign).

Other openers that tanked hard include Hustle and Flow and Bad News Bears. The only movie that deserved the small amount it made was Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects. I couldn't care less about the movie but critics (including our own Josh Tyler) found Rob's sophomore (not to mention sophmoric) project reasonably forgivable. Nevertheless, it may take some time before people take the director of House of 1000 Corpses seriously and he's probably lucky to have made the chart at all.

For the first time since the last Michael Moore pseudocumentary, a non-mainstream documentary has appeared on the charts. Penguins marched onto the scene finally making the chart after five weeks of slowly sneaking up. Only opening wide in less than one quarter the number of theaters than most of its competitors it's made an interesting climb to number ten. Speaking of documentarys, the Penn and Teller backed The Aristocrats debuts next week. Given it's appropriately minimal release, don't expect it anywhere near the top.

Also next week sharp chick flick Must Love Dogs and sci-fi fury Stealth step into the limelight. Maybe one of those two will be able to dethrone the candy man.