There will be a day where Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer release a parody-film that flops so colossally that the filmmakers – who were responsible for ‘Date Movie,’ ‘Epic Movie’ and ‘Meet the Spartans’ – will be forced to commit professional seppuku, departing the film industry with whatever shred of honor they have left.
Today is not that day.
Audiences have given Friedberg and Seltzer yet another vote of confidence, propelling the writers/directors’ vampire spoof, ‘Vampires Suck,’ to an early lead in this weekend’s box office. In this weekend’s first frame, the film has netted a reported $5 million in ticket sales, narrowly edging ‘The Expendables’ first-day receipts of $4.8 million. With newcomer ‘The Switch’ raking in $2.8 million, only $2.2 million stand between Friday’s first and eighth place finishes; it is anyone’s guess as to how the final top 8 will shape out by Sunday evening.
Four other films were widely released into theaters this weekend, yet none offered any resistance to ‘Vampires Suck’ in its ascent to the top. The film currently registers at a 3% “Fresh” rating on review-aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with only one lonely contrarian (aren’t all contrarians lonely?) publishing a favorable review out of the 35 submitted to the site. I will only say that he is likely cut from the same cloth of critics who purposefully attract attention by blemishing otherwise pristine records of reviews of Pixar films. A Coffee Talk moment: whom would a film site “Comments” section tear apart first, the critic who ruins the 0% “Fresh” rating of a Friedberg/Seltzer spoof, or the critic who ruins the 100% “Fresh” rating of a Pixar film? I’m a little verklempt, talk amongst ya’selves.
‘Vampires Suck’ owes its early success not to the film’s creative team, but to its studio’s scheduling department, if it even exists. With so many new releases and the eclectic mix of genres in this week’s top 10, ‘Vampires Suck’ is clearly counterprogramming against watchable films; for those who just aren’t in the mood to sit through a watchable film, ‘Vampires Suck’ offers escapism at its lowest.
It’s not unfathomable. A group of five friends could have trouble deciding between ‘The Expendables,’ ‘Lottery Ticket,’ and ‘Piranha 3D,’ and to avoid the unfairness of settling on a movie that only one friend wants to watch, the friends collectively decide to watch the movie that none of them wants to watch. The group of friends is King Solomon, and ‘Vampire Movie’ is the baby split-in-half. An unfunny dead baby joke finding its way into a box office recap is just further evidence that all evil leads back to Friedberg and Seltzer.
In other news, look for ‘Vampires Suck’ to lose its grip on the lead. The film has managed a relatively decent “B” average from Yahoo! users, but only a 48% “Fresh” rating from the Rotten Tomatoes user community. With lukewarm-to-poor word of mouth, ‘Vampires Suck’ will need some help to cross the finish line in first. Deadline Hollywood currently projects ‘Vampires Suck’ to conclude its opening weekend with $14.5 million. Friedberg and Seltzer made the movie for $20 million, and ‘Vampires’ will certainly earn a tidy profit. We will rue the day that Seltzer and Friedberg run out of subjects to parody, and make ‘9/11 Movie’ or ‘Holocaust Movie.’
In its sophomore frame, ‘The Expendables’ has muscled its way to an early second place position. The uber-action flick pocketed over $32 million last weekend on its way to the top spot in its debut. The film continues to track strong, and with the fans’ positive word-of-mouth and the film’s short run time of 103 minutes, Saturday may be the day that men take back (again) the box office. Or something. If the current projections keep steady, ‘The Expendables’ and ‘Vampires Suck’ will battle to a photo finish with the final numbers are released on Sunday.
‘Lottery Ticket’ has managed to get lucky with a decent start to the weekend. The Warner Bros. flick was released in only roughly 2,000 theaters – or about 40% fewer theaters than ‘Vampires Suck’ – but still cashed in $3.7 million in ticket sales. The film has performed strongly within its obvious target-demographic, incognito lottery winners. In seriousness, the film tracked rather evenly among most demographic groups.
The film’s third place open is a bit of a surprise considering that the tracking numbers only reflect mild interest in the film. Then again, ‘Lottery Ticket’ is a light comedy featuring familiar faces and a straightforward plot; what you see is what you get. So much emphasis is put on tracking numbers nowadays, forgotten is the familiar formula of the familiar formula. Expect a total of just over $10 million when the final numbers are called this weekend.
The other notable performance was the second Friday of ’Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.’ Despite ‘Pilgrim’s increase in internet “awareness” and “interest” numbers, the film has out-flopped itself in its second week. The early numbers place ‘Pilgrim’ in 10th place with only $1.5 million in ticket revenue, representing a 65% drop from the previous Friday. It appears that Universal has waved the white-flag, as the once-omnipresent advertising of ‘Pilgrim’ has been scaled back to close-to-nil. While it is only Friday, we shouldn’t expect anything more than $4.5 million in ‘Pilgrim’s second weekend, with virtually no chance of supplanting ‘Inception’, with $2.1 million on Friday, for the ninth spot.
The two other new releases, ‘Piranha 3D’ and ‘The Switch,’ opened at fourth and eighth, respectively. Check back on Monday morning for a comprehensive recap and analysis of this weekend's box office performances.
(Alan Man is a registered user of ComicBookMovie.com and the owner of the fansite, The Box Office Watchmen, a website devoted to the box office analysis of comic book films. For questions, comments, or advertising information, please send feel free to e-mail us)
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