The arrival of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa seems to have hailed the beginning of the holiday hits season, bringing in the first $50+ million opening weekend since summer called it quits. From here on out expect to see an upswing in audience attention with a new major release just about every weekend from now until Christmas.
Dreakworks seems to have pretty good luck with their computer animated sequels. This weekend the follow-up to Madagascar banked $63 million, handily topping the $47 million that the first film took in on its debut. That's not quite as powerful as the Shrek films which jumped from a $42 million opening for Shrek to a whopping $108 million for Shrek 2. I blame it on the characters. For all those cute fuzzy jungle animals the Madagascar films have nothing to compare with Puss-n-Boots.
Role Models took a distant second place with $19 million. That's almost as much as Zack and Miri made in its first ten days. Sure, the comedy for both movies is tasteless and juvenile, both easily earn their R ratings, and both starred Elizabeth Banks. So what made one more financially successful than the other? Let's just say that I suspect audiences are more interested in a raunch comedy starring cute kids than one threatening full frontal Seth Rogen. Can't say as I blame them.
Bernie Mac's posthumous release Soul Men struggled in its debut weekend, making only $5 million and coming in at sixth place in the top ten. That's one of the lowest openings for a movie headlined by Mac, and a poor send off for one of the funnier stand-up-comedians-turned-actors to grace the screen. America, you ought to be ashamed.
