If you ever needed evidence that Americans would sooner pay money to see absolute mindless crap at a theater than something actually worth the $10 ticket price, look no further than this weekend. Eddie Murphy has had two major roles in films released in the last six months. One movie, Dreamgirls, was one of the best movies of the year and earned him an Oscar nomination. The other, Norbit is a truly mindless "comedy" featuring him as an abusive elderly Asian man and a gratuitously obese abusive woman. I'll give you a minute to guess which one made more money on a weekend and reached the number one spot in the top ten.
If you guessed the second one, you guessed correctly, although it shouldn't have been hard to do. Americans have a track record of shelling out the dough to see people in fat suits careen down water slides but as soon as there's a hint of something interesting or (God forbid) intelligent they save their money for the next Scary Movie Unrated DVD release. Norbit stormed theaters this weekend bringing in an unwarranted $33 million. The number two movie, debut Hannibal Rising only made $13 million.
Night at the Museum, now in its eighth week of release, is still holding strong in fifth place with cumulative sales at $232 million. That puts it as the fourth highest grossing film released in 2006. At this rate expect it to overtake both X-Men 3 and Cars, making it the number two grossing film, right behind the untouchable Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (which reigns on high with $423 million).
Next weekend promises the first chance of the year for some decent movies, although there will be a lot of competition for your box office bucks. Valentines Day (Wednesday) will see the battle of the romantic comedies with Music and Lyrics facing off against Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls. On Friday the fight opens wide with dramatic thriller Breach, fantasy Bridge to Terabithia and comic action flick Ghost Rider joining the fray. With no new Eddie Murphy's in fat suits, there's no telling who will take number one.
