If you need proof that America's economy isn't completely in the toilet just take a look at where we're spending our money. Following a week where the stock market had a major sell off the great people of America still scraped together nearly $18 million to actually pay to watch a movie about talking chihuahuas.
That's right, an hour and a half long Taco Bell commercial took the number one spot yet again making it two weekends in a row that the rat dogs have been on top. It was one thing when they were bumping off competition like Nick and Norah. This week they've trumped bigger names like Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe. That's a little harder to accept.
Ridley's latest action thriller, which stars Crowe as well as Leonardo DiCaprio, only made it to the number three spot with $13 million. With a $70 million budget it's going to have to rely on Crowe's popularity abroad to make payroll. Two other new movies out this weekend would have been dancing in the streets for that kind of failure.
Dennis Quaid's The Express, the latest feel good sports film on the market, fell shy of $5 million, failing to come anywhere close to having any hopes to make back its $40 million budget. City of Ember fared even more poorly, earning less than $4 million against a cost of $38 million.
The only new movie to come out this weekend that didn't suffer under the curse of the chihuahua was horror flick Quarantine. Thanks to non-multi-million dollar cast salaries and a premise the kept the location to a single run-down apartment building, it only cost $12 million to make. In the number two spot it made over $14 million. October is a good month for cheap scary movies and if the Saw series is any indication we can probably look for Quarantine 2 this time next year.
