• The Wrap reports that despite grossing over $300 million to date in their world tour, U2 is only just on the brink of breaking even — just as the tour is about to shut down for the summer. The expenses of hauling around its giant spider-like prong stage are so immense that despite months of sold out shows they are only just putting their heads above the waterline. According to the piece, however the band, sees the tour as a way of continuing to pump some excitement into the franchise as they enter their twilight years. [The Wrap]

• The weekend box office has been abandoned to the monsters. Pre-Halloween fight films will dominate this weekend with Saw 4 and the continued expansion of Paranormal Activity each tracking in the $25 million range. [LA Times]

• District 9 Director Neill Blomkamp has signed up for his next picture. Media Rights Campaign has committed to financing his sophomore outing, an untitled, unexplained project which will go before cameras in mid-2010. [Variety]

• In his overview of the TV season to date, The Hollywood Reporter's James Hibberd sees the networks, or most of them, staging a bit of a comeback, with a surprising number of new shows actually connecting. Glee, Modern Family, The Vampire Diaries and NCIS: Los Angeles are cited as success stories. The one very dark spot in the network picture continues to be, of course, the black hole of NBC. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Dreamworks has ordered a script for a live action version of the Japanese animated classic Ghost in the Shell. Shutter Island screenwriter Laeta Kalogridi will take a first stab at the project. [Variety]

• Anne Hathaway and Neil Patrick Harris have signed on to do voices in Fox's upcoming Rio, by the animation team that brought you Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. [Hollywood Reporter]

• For the second year in a row, Paramount and Warner Brothers led the summer box office derby, fueled by Transformers 2 and Star Trek for Paramount and Harry Potter and The Hangover for Warners. Universal landed at the bottom of the heap with a string of disappointments including Bruno, Land of the Lost and Funny People. Variety cautions, however, "Market share and profitability don't necessarily go hand in hand, since market share doesn't account for how much a studio has spent on production and marketing." Meaning just because they took in a fortune, doesn't meed they made a dime. [Variety]

• The Hollywood Reporter credits this year's four percent uptick in receipts to the higher ticket prices Hollywood conned America into paying for 3-D movies. [Hollywood Reporter]

• A tepid last weekend of the summer box office race was again won by last weekend's winner, Final Destination 3-D which took the crown with a paltry 15.4 million. To no one's shock, this weekend's releases Gamer and All About Steve both failed to catch fire. [Box Office Mojo]

• The Telluride Festival closed with strong reviews for at least a pair of films. Last year, the festival first brought Slumdog Millionaire to the world. This year, Jason Reitman's Up In the Air and Tolstoy biopic The Last Station won strong reviews. [Variety]

Take notes, Barack Obama. You think a health care do-over is so hard? Hollywood is here to show you that you can press that reset button any old time, and just like that, it's like a bitter past of faltering ratings or uninspired remakes never happened.

Fox to reboot Fantastic Four: Sure the film series is only a decade or so old, but ten years ago Miley Cyrus wasn't even, like, born. On the heels of Disney's Marvel acquisition, Variety's Mike Fleming notes, "one thing to remember about Marvel assets is, they don't seem to wear out. We're about to see the second example where successful Marvel movie franchises are going to be reinvented." Over at Sony, bosses had already given the green light to tearing up every trace of the Sam Rami-helmed Spiderman franchise and starting anew. How much you want to bet Spidey 2.0's twitters? [Var]

Academy reinvents Best Picture voting: The Wrap's Steve Pond broke the news that even more changes are afoot in the Oscar Best Picture race. Following on the heels of expanding the list of Best Picture nominees from five to ten films, the Academy will now introduce preferential voting, in which members don't simply choose their favorite film but rank their picks one through ten. The idea is that in a ten field race, preferential voting would prevent a film winning with a mere eleven percent of the vote. As to whether this actually means that the actual best film of 2009 will have any chance of winning instead of some overwrought middle-of-the-road, message film, Oscar could not be reached for comment. [The Wrap]

Teen Wolf lives: Once you start re-booting, it's hard to know where to stop. MTV has ordered up a pilot presentation of the 80's classic. [THR]

2009 is #1!: With a week still to go, this year just became the highest grossing summer for domestic box office with 4.17 billion in receipts to date, smashing through 2007's paltry 4.16 billion. Transformers 2 led the team with 399 million. [Var]

Marvel's mogul maniac: Who is the masked man behind the Marvel/Disney deal? The Daily Beast's Kim Masters has a fascinating profile, including the tale how the man no one had ever heard of found it necessary to attend the premiere of Iron Man in a fake moustache. [TDB]

Marvel reax mania!: The web is still aflutter with reaction to yesterday's big news. Read the tea leaves with industry punditry all-stars Nikki Finke, David Poland, Patrick Goldstein, Sharon Waxman and Steven Zeitchik.

Until this weekend, Hollywood's code of honor has been revolved around an iron commandment: We do not release more than one horror film per weekend. And thus, since the days of Chaplin and Pickford, no third-tier, shamelessly exploitative attempt to ring dollars out of the pockets of gullible teenagers looking for cheap screams has had to compete on its opening weekend with any other third tier, shamelessly exploitative attempt to ring dollars out of the pockets of gullible teenagers looking for cheap screams.

And thus has Hollywood grown and flourished, its blessings divided equally for its rulers to rejoice.

The opening weekend for these films is especially important as once word gets out of what a low-rent, awful-not-in-a-good-way, tedious march through hell these movies are, their grosses typically fall off something in the range of 99.99999 percent in their second weekends.

So although Final Desitination hauled in $23.3 million for Warner Brothers this weekend and Halloween 2 brought Papas Weinstein a nothing-to-sneeze at $17.4 million, the pure tragic dilemma Hollywood is pondering is: why couldn't Halloween have moved to another weekend (say one closer to, uh, Halloween), letting Final Desitination sop up the entire horror shopping dollar of a combined 40.7 this weekend, and then gotten its own 40 millionish some other week?

The scuttlebutt around town is that Halloween had been booked for this weekend when Final Desitination nosed its way onto this precious late summer patch of sand. So, people ask, facing up to that showdown, why couldn't the Weinsteins see what was clear to the entire world and its grandmother: that Final Desitination was clearly the stronger of the two low-rent exploitation franchises (it's even, as the title suggests, in 3-D), and seeing that, why couldn't they swallow their scheduling pride and get the fuck out of the way?

As with many things Weinsteins, we can glean motives only through a glass darkly, but a few hypotheses have surfaced about why this tragedy had to happen:

• Moving the release date was prohibitively costly.
• There was a belief that FD3-D skews female and H2 skews male so there is room for both.
• This was the Weinstein's first window after the Inglorious Basterds release and thus their chance post-Basterds to get Halloween out during the summer months.
• With their flurry of deals that they are getting into and out of, they may have needed to release Halloween by a certain, because perhaps of some expiring treaty.
• They couldn't swallow their pride because they can't swallow their pride. That's why they they call them Weinsteins after all.

Whatever the true reason, one horror scenario is going to haunt the dreams of Hollywood executives until the end of their days; when studio chiefs go to sleep at night it will be the face of those lost millions looming before them, along with the eternally unknowable specter of what could have been.

Early box office counts show Funny People pulling $23.4M since opening on Friday here and in Canada. Which, let's see, had Nikki Finke — who's been having fun with the picture of Apatow scratching his head, above - noting as "lousy," and Reuters pointing out in their lede that it was Adam Sandler's worst opening in almost five years. It was also the lowest opening for a #1 movie since Jim Carrey's Yes Man, it has a Metacritic score of 60/100, and on Rotten Tomatoes, has only 65% positive reviews.

So, no. Guess America doesn't like dramedy with their dick jokes.

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — $79.5 million
Did you have to sit in the front row this weekend because all the cineplexes were packed with hooch-swillin hipsters and wonderment-enthusiasts? We did! But wasn't it grand (in spite of Snape's man bangs)

2. Ice Age: Dawn of The Dinosaurs — $17.7 million
What kind of fun-hating parent dragged their kid to see this CGI'd kind of dullness instead of Harry Potter this weekend? Shame on them! Is it because of Potter's pagan themes or sexually subversive undertones? It's a bewildering world when a project involving Dennis Leary is considered family friendly.

3. Transformers: Rise of the Fallen — $13.8 million
Bay's mediation on the illusory nature of plot still continues to resonate with movie goers. In the cacophony of noise and the visual abyss nestled between Megan Fox's chest orbs, the modern movie man can confront the terrifying absurdity of existence. I mean, it's tough now-a-days to get audiences to sit through an art flick so a drop to third place this week is still an admirable position to be in.

4. Brüno — $8.4 million
Aw, you guys remember Brüno? You know that hateful little mockumentary that shoved a mirror in Appalachia's meth ravaged face and said "Look! Look at what an ugly homophobic face you have!" And how we talked about it! As if it would be some kind of milestone in cinematic gay-straight relations. But now, just two weeks since Brüno's shoved his gadfly tushie in our bigoted faces, we realize that the culture has shifted beneath Brüno's Bavarian feet. Audiences don't seemed thrilled to witness others humiliated just to prove a political point.

5. The Hangover — $8.3 million
The man driven laffer continues to pull in the cargo-short set. And good for them! Warners hasn't made this much money with an R-rated summer comedy since Beverly Hills Cop — not to be confused with Beverly Hills Ninja which stared Chris Farley. Hm, is Zach Greekname the thinking man's Farley? Or is he like the hipsters' Eddie Murphy?

6. through 9. The Proposal Up My Sister's Public Enemies — various millions
Sandra Bullock's embargo on time travel movies has proved to be a wise decision with another $ 8.3 million for The Proposal this weekend. Public Enemies, Michael Mann's 2-hour love letter to boring made $7.6 million. What's Up is that Pixar is still being beautiful and rich at the box office with $ 3.1 million this weekend. And even though My Sister's Keeper, which made $2.8 million, looks like 90 minute paper cut we should all still think good thoughts about Abigail Breslin because she's just a walking glob of adorable talent.

1) Up — $68.2 million
One stormy night many years ago, a small car drove up to a menacing, crooked old house far in the dirty outskirts of a crumbling, decaying American city. A man emerged from the car, walked up to the door, and tentatively knocked. After a long wait—he thought about leaving, he wanted to leave, but something compelled him to stay—a strange, bent old man answered the door. "Come in out of the rain," he croaked to the weary traveler. "My master shall see you in the parlor." He led the traveler through the dimly lit, cobwebbed rooms and finally there was a roaring fire and a huge armchair. In which sat a man of indeterminate age—was he young? or old? middle-aged? The traveler couldn't quite tell. "Sit down," the ageless man purred, like three voices talking at once. And so the traveler did. "I've prepared your contract here," and suddenly appeared an old piece of parchment. "Let's see... 'Being of sound mind and body'... blah blah... 'In perpetuity forever'... yadda yadda... ahh yes, the important part. 'And the company shall reign for decades, producing the highest quality product with supernatural ease, and all will be showered with praise.' And all for the low low price of... one soul. So just sign here if you could. No, I need the full name, not just initials. Yes, that's right. John Lasseter. Right there..." And John Lasseter signed and the bargain was upheld and though Pixar reigns now, poor Lasseter will suffer a thousand eternities in hell. I mean, that's the only reasonable explanation for their mind-boggling, unbroken string of successes, right?

2) Night of the Museum: Fight for the Threequel — $25.5 million
Showing strong legs in its second time at the rodeo, Ben Stiller's comedy held up despite its strong family competition from the aforementioned devil's deal. Do you think that some poor parents had to take their kids to both of these movies this weekend? Like somewhere where it rained and there was nothing else to do? And so you shill out $40, $50 for tickets and popcorn and sugary soda and hey, actually, Up is pretty good. But then they start wailing because they're bored and what else is there to do. OK, we'll go see Drag Me to Hell you think grimly, chuckling to yourself. No, obviously it has to be that museum movie with the Zoolander guy. So, $40, $50 again and sigh... it's actually pretty silly, with all the loud jokes and funny voices and all the kids do is yell, and you suddenly think in a sad flash that back in college you would have spent a whole rainy weekend stoned, sitting on the couch watching Star Wars, or trying to make out with Mindy Kitimski from down the hall and oh well, so it goes.

3) Drag Me to Hell — $16.6 million
Strong reviews and an otherwise horror-free cinemascape helped Sam Raimi's movie to a strong third place debut. Which is good news for fans of horror/comedy everywhere, and possibly good news for the underused Alison Lohman, who shined so brightly in the underrated White Oleander and then kinda disappeared for a while. Guess all it takes to get you back on top is a creepy old gypsy lady who tries to make a demon eat you. Just ask John Lasseter.

4) Terminator Salvation — $16.1 million
Yikes. Fourth place in its second weekend is not so good for ol' Stormin' Norman Christian Bale and his McG-led army of gray people doing gray things in Gray World. Which is OK, because the movie is not so good. My big beef? Why would a collective hive mind computer system that's all run from a central place need... a keyboard? Like, why would that be there? Can't the robots just tell each other how to do things because they're all just one computer robot? And why would they design their San Francisco headquarters with like, architectural flair? Do they care about aesthetics? I thought they were just uncaring computer robots. I'm confused. So is the rest of America.

9) Ghosts of Girlfriends Past — $1.9 million
It's funny to think about who went to this movie this weekend. It's been out for five weeks. Who went? People who just got back from a long trip overseas and when their significant other picked them up and the airport and asked them "so what do you want to do?" they said... "Ohh I know, let's go see that Matthew McConaughey ghost movie." So they do and then after the movie when they're taking the long way back to the car, enjoying the night, their significant other, whose name is Mindy Katimski, squeezes his hand and says "Speaking of old relationships, did I ever tell you about my boyfriend in college? We just smoked a lot of pot and watched Star Wars all the time. It was kinda lame. Anyway, he's got a bunch of kids now. He must be so happy."

The graphic-novel-based movie saw its U.S. box office receipts fall 67 percent, while overseas the film fell 50 percent. So far, it has grossed $134 million in 10 days. It cost $200 million to make and market.

Box office normally falls in a film's second week, but Variety cites figures showing this tumble is especially bad.

Sorry, nerds: Warner Brothers might have made a hash of your beloved comic-book masterpiece, but the only lesson most studio heads will glean from its failure is that you're a finicky bunch who can't be trusted to reliably carry smash hits. All movies will be made for chuckling jocks and vapid celebutante-wannabes for the rest of the depression.

(Image via alt.nerd.obsessive)

It'll take some sorting through to figure out exactly what went wrong with Watchmen, but we suspect it was a case of a tower being built too tall and collapsing in on itself. Not that many people were Watchmen fans, but the economy-plagued country needed something big and flashy and money-making to wave around as a symbol that we can still carry on and some of us can still get rich. A few months ago that movie was Twilight, which performed as hoped. But that was a wayyy smaller movie, and the books were read by millions of people, just recently. Watchmen is 25 years old and is far more niche than chaste vampire love teen novels. To pin the coming blockbuster season's early hopes on that top-heavy of a movie was reckless optimism.

One of the film's screenwriters, David Hayter, has sent an open letter to the science fiction/superhero/furtively masturbating to a well-worn photo of Deana Troi fan community, pleading with them to come and see the movie a second (or third! or fourth! or infinity!) time, because if this movie doesn't do a strong second weekend, then no movie like it will ever be made again. It's all or nothing:

If the film made you think. Or argue with your friends. If it inspired a debate about the nature of man, or vigilante justice, or the horror of Nixon abolishing term limits. If you laughed at Bowie hanging with Adrian at Studio 54, or the Silhouette kissing that nurse.

Please go see the movie again next weekend.

You have to understand, everyone is watching to see how the film will do in its second week. If you care about movies that have a brain, or balls, (and this film's got both, literally), or true adaptations — And if you're thinking of seeing it again anyway, please go back this weekend, Friday or Saturday night. Demonstrate the power of the fans, because it'll help let the people who pay for these movies know what we'd like to see. Because if it drops off the radar after the first weekend, they will never allow a film like this to be made again.

So, oh dear, that is sad! You owe it to all of comic books and superheroes and kickass movies, everyone! Trouble is, the pervading speculation is that pretty much everyone who wanted to see the movie already has, and that its bouquet of bad reviews won't encourage the timid or uninitiated to take a chance an unknown kid.

In the end I guess the question is, do you owe the filmmakers, dear nerds? They slavishly adapted this heady, impenetrable graphic novel just for you, enraging a crazy bearded man in the process, and all you can muster for them is $92 million dollars worldwide to date? For shame. They spent some 200 clams just serving the damn thing to you on a real-life vintage platter from alternate history 1985. So, c'mon. Do these millionaires a favor. Pony up the $11 a few more times, and let these nice, innocent Hollywood people creak on with their little cottage industry for another day.

1) Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail — $16.5 million
Down a hearty 60% from last weekend, the film still held on against the 3D onslaught of crotchlight rays being shot out by the fertile, holly-scented loins of the brothers Jonas. This latest Madea iteration has stuffed a total $64.9 million into its hilariously oversized bra, becoming Perry's highest-grossing movie to date. Next week a bunch of spandex-clad superheroes with drinking problems ought to handily blue wang their way past the old lady.

2) Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience — $12.7 million
Though their marble-mouthed lady counterpart, Miley Cyrus, earned a cool $33 million outta the gate with her own 3D concert picture show, the floppy-topped young lads just couldn't deliver on the goods the same way. Perhaps dads were less willing to escort their daughters to this one? Perhaps little gay boys couldn't couch their desire to go in a "she's so hot" charade, so they decided to hole themselves up in their rooms for the weekend, furtively? The pic had the best per-screen average of any top 10 pic this weekend, but still there must be some explanation for this vague disappointment.

3) Slumdog Millionaire — $12.2 million
Buoyed by all its Oscars, the two-little-Indians-that-could movie chugs like an extremely crowded train toward the global $200 million mark. When that auspicious goal is reached, all the children will be given the opportunity to trade their new houses in for back-end deals on Boyle's next picture, Kalkotta Hope Dreamer.

4) Taken — $10 million
Liam Neeson continues to thunder-fist his way through Albanians' faces, and American cineplexes, as his actioner speeds past the $100-million mark. This is good news for similarly-brooding actor Gabriel Byrne, who can't wait for you to see his 2010 down-and-dirty thrill-ride, Aggressed Upon—about a former NSA agent who must rescue his teenage son, played by a whimpering Drake Bell, who's been kidnapped by evil Azerbaijani producers and forced to perform in a middling 3D concert.

8) Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li — $4.7 million
I really didn't think that anyone remembered Street Fighter, that glorious old videogame about brawny international dudes—Ryu! Guile! M. Bison! Blanca!—and one lady battling out in, well, the streets. But I guess they sorta do, as this film about that one lady pocketed a not-so-bad little sack of dollars over the too-short weekend. I hope this means a new trend. 'Cause I would totally go see a ToeJam & Earl or Streets of Rage movie.

The year-end tally features Fireproof — which stars Cameron as a firefighter attempting to salvage his marriage via God's precious love (spoiler: it works!) — atop an impressive pile of awards hopefuls including Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Rachel Getting Married and even The Visitor, whose renown as this year's preeminent indie sensation nevertheless was good for only $9.4 million since opening last April. Fireproof accrued more than three times as much since the end of September, never expanding beyond 905 screens.

Slumdog will surpass Fireproof as it expands next year, likely en route to $55 million as it lines up its imminent Oscar nods. But until then, spread the news among jittery insiders looking for a safe place to drop their money: Kirk Cameron is a recession-proof industry. Eat your heart out, Hayden Christensen.

• 'Fireproof,' Indeed: Kirk Cameron Tops 2008 Specialty Box Office [IW]

1. Jennifer Aniston is done with your questions about Brad Pitt. (For now.) Outperforming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by more than $12 million — and setting a Christmas-release record in the process — confirms Aniston's box-office ownage over her ex-husband and should establish some self-sustained breathing room going forward. Until Pitt and Angelina Jolie both earn Oscar nominations next month, naturally, and the cycle begins anew. Enjoy it while you can, Jen.

2. Owen Wilson may never have to promote a film again. Already softball-averse in his first interviews since attempting suicide in 2007, Wilson can simply follow the Marley Model of letting his co-stars do the heavy-lifting / disrobing / cute-puppy thing while he retires to reclusive leading-mandom.

3. David Frankel is for real. The son of a former executive editor of the NYT, director Frankel has done nothing but make money for Fox since his feature debut The Devil Wears Prada. His formula: Adapt sources efficiently, cast intelligently, and let the principals do the rest — even the kids and dogs. It's a lot harder than it looks. Next up: The baseball procedural Moneyball, adapted from another best-seller and rumored to feature Pitt in the lead.

4. Fox is the hottest studio in town. After a year-long string of embarrassing flops and underachievers — including the recent, devastating one-two punch of Australia and Day the Earth Stood Still — the studio heads into 2009 with a likely repeater at #1 and a Watchmen judgment that could net it upwards of $50 million next spring. Without doing anything. If luck is the residue of design, then Fox's engineers are entitled to a raise.

5. The dog dies. Who knew? Oh.

• 'Marley' leads holiday box office pack [Variety]

A New York Times report acknowledged over the weekend that, yes, those phenomena still glowing on the horizon in your rearview mirror are no less newsworthy than they were when they exploded months ago. The Dark Knight's $500 million-plus windfall indeed helped Warner Bros. handily earn a record box-office market share in 2008, and Twilight's $168 million take since Nov. 21 remains nothing short of a hormonally, follically fueled sensation.

But there's a terrible truth concealed beneath the money bags, and it involves the clown-shod ghost of Robin Williams (among others):

It was amazing. When all is said and done, maybe 24 million tickets will be sold to Twilight, based on current sales. That makes it almost as big as, what?

Patch Adams, the No. 10 movie of 1998. Or roughly the size of George of the Jungle, which placed No. 13 the year before. Or any number of films that are fondly remembered as midsize hits.

After adjusting for inflation, even Sex and the City fared about as well as 1989's Steel Magnolias and 1996's The First Wives Club, and The Dark Knight is only the 26th highest-grossing film of all time behind Grease and just $1.5 million ahead of Thunderball.

Still, while we can't deny some enlightenment and even surprise at the revised numbers, neither we nor you should be caught off-guard in 2009. We've helped you prepare: Have another read through our rosy Recession-Era Film Forecast, and spend these precious few remaining days of 2008 plotting your immunity to next year's hype flood and/or sizing your closets up for the stockpile of canned food and bottled water you'll accrue in the bleak months to come. Except for you, Warner Bros. — just redirect your shipment to Fox and cannibalize Harry Potter at will.

• Blockbuster Openings, Lackluster Box Office [NYT]

There's been no reports of audience hysteria but a general perception that the hype has been overdone not just by the studio but by its many media partners each running their own campaigns.

Well yeah, the whole fate of the nation, its tourism industry anyway, was hinging on the booming success of this film, so it makes sense that lots of "media partners" hopped into the gooey pouch for a walkabout. But it just didn't pan out, even though it was the widest-ever release in Australia (a cute 643 screens) and made a high-for-Australia (but not nearly high enough) $4.9 million USD in its five-day opening weekend. Reporters were supposedly gleeful with schadenfreude as they reported that cinemas across the land were only half-full. Not the lines-around-the-block barnstormer that Fox was hoping for, you can be sure.

We guess it's just not possible anymore—people, what with the internet and all, are just too cynical—to manufacture a phenomenon. It has to come much more organically than this.

No one wants to eat Vegemite anymore.

1. Four Christmases - $31.68 million
Stir-crazy holiday audiences were looking for literally any excuse to escape their parents' homes for a few hours that didn't involve tweenpires, hamster bowling, or Nicole Kidman brandishing a wombat rifle. Four Christmases therefore was the default candidate, and surprised everyone by becoming the third-highest Thanksgiving weekend earner on record (right back to the Mayflower days!). Unfortunately, Witherspoon and screen-spouse Vince Vaughn were barely able to mask what the Guardian describes as "the classic 'Hollywood romcom' face: waxy as a corpse, dead-eyed with self-loathing, and as smiley and blank as someone who has just consumed their bodyweight in Temazepam and Pernod." Apparently Paula Abdul's baseline mood is now an identified acting affliction!

2. Bolt - $26.596 million
Amazingly, 3-D animated family film Bolt saw a 1% increase in its second weekend in release. It's a rare gain Disney attributes to positive word of mouth, as audiences of all ages are responding to the story of a diminutive action-hero dog deluded into thinking he possesses special knowledge and abilities that place him above mortal dogs; he eventually learns a valuable lesson about humility after a series of severe career missteps—culminating in a starring role as a German Shepherd assassin assigned to hunt down history's most evil canine leader, Der Schnaüzer.

3. Twilight - $19.5 million
While it managed to crack $100 million, the Shoegazing, Neck-Sucking Tale of an Emo Generation saw its receipts tumble 62% since last week. As most hardcore Twilight fans have seen the movie several times already, new audiences were comprised mainly of confused Seniors thinking they were wandering into a promotional sales meeting for the apartment-style community services of Twilight Gables Assisted Living Center in Altamonte Springs, FL.

4. Quantum of Solace - $19.5 million
5. Australia - $14.815 million
Trying to focus on the marathon vs. the sprint, Fox senior VP of distribution Chris Aronson said, "Australia is a bold, unconventional film. It's haute cuisine, versus fast food." It's an apt metaphor, in that Australia offers the really expensive, overly precious 16-course tasting menu that takes four hours to get through, whereas Quantum just gives you the quick-and-dirty satisfaction of devouring a Daniel Craig corn dog in a couple of greasy bites.

10. Milk - $1.381 million
11. Slumdog Millionaire - $1.367 million
The eerily timely and heavily Oscar-buzzed underdogs were neck-and-neck, with Sean Penn's revelatory work in Milk just slightly edging out Danny Boyle's audience fave, which already lays credit to the quotable line of the 2008 awards season: "I'd like to use my phone-a-slum, Reeg."

• November 28–30, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

The Hollywood Reporter tells us what we've sort of already heard: that kids were laughing—laughing! at these precious words: "and so the lion fell in love with the lamb"! that is beautiful Britishy foggy dells and swoopy moors poetry! Lord Byron Shelley Austen! my crotch is sobbing!—while the film flickered on the screen.

So leave it to Variety's reported 45% over-25 audience to be the serious ones. They probably sat there all chaste and serious and adulty, whispering small benedictions to remind themselves that it's a good thing to have said "no" to Barry and that someone else will propose—he smelled like onions!—and that the living situation is just temporary and it's not that weird to have a litter box in your bedroom. Then the kids laughed and they got angry and fist shaky that, though it had looked touch-and-go there for a second, the irony which had plagued their lives for so many years was, in fact, not dead at all.

Nikki Finke has her own interesting read this morning, pointing to the even rarer phenomenon of a cable movie franchise so lucratively crossing over to the multiplex. Series are one thing, and rarely a lock themselves (Disney only had a Hannah Montana blockbuster at the ready because it brought cameras on tour with Miley Cyrus), but we'll buy lunch at the Grill for the first reader who can name a made-for-TV feature that spawned a theatrical No. 1. (Opposite another cash cow like Saw 5, no less.) And then s/he can buy us a life.

We'll have more fearless predictions tomorrow in our Defamer Attractions column, but in the meantime, expect Disney to have greenlighted Camp Rock 3D: Escape of the Jonases for IMAX by the the time you finish reading this sentence.

• FINAL WEEKEND TRACKING: 'HSM3' to Belt Out $35M-$38M [Fantasy Moguls]

• 'HS Musical 3' Owns Advance Box Office [DHD]

You guessed it: Fireproof is another of Cameron's religious-themed movies, and thanks to bulk purchases by church groups, it seems likely to rake in the big bucks this weekend and beyond. So what will these crowds be treated to? How about Kirk Cameron as a heroic fireman who’s having problems with his wife? But instead of taking the heathen’s way out and getting a divorce, he looks to God to teach him how to be a better husband. Sounds thrilling to be sure, but don’t go expecting another Passion of the Christ here; Jesus on the cross can outdraw Kirk on the ladder any day. But still, you godless A-listers better watch your back: Cameron is coming for you, and he’s got the Lord on his side. Amen.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• Group ticket sales could ignite 'Fireproof' [LA Times]

They sent back a busy graph that showed a confluence of lines plotting summer hours, male bulge humor, and funny Mediterranean accents. Add to that a diversion-hungry populace still shellshocked from the time Gwyneth Paltrow and her redheaded Hell's Angels boyfriend literally ate their way through the country, and you have what could be considered the perfect summer movie storm.

• 'Hellboy 2,' 'Knight' lift Europe [Variety]

To be fair, the film goes wider later this week, and Focus always has the UK release this fall and whatever slight cult audience accrues for video. So it could be worse — now imagine you're Rainn Wilson.

As we anticipated last Friday, TV viewers' Wilson goodwill isn't exactly multiplex-ready. The Rocker's marketing misfires, non-existent word-of-mouth and release-date follies yielded a $2.8 million, 12th-place opening. We're not in the short-sighted camp that thinks Fox is having the Summer From Hell — not with The Happening and What Happens in Vegas finding very respectable profits overseas — but there really is no positive way to spin this one, at least not for his toplining future. Until further notice, Wilson is Dwight Schrute and the clever bit-parter who has a way with pregnancy-test pitches and other Oscar-winning patois — maybe not in that order, but at least in that zone. Maybe a few scenes in Inglorious Bastards? Our Mondays are too fragile as it is to go through this again.

• Weeken Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]

That didn't discourage the gang at DreamWorks, however, who argued that their $90 million raunchfest has what it takes to measure up eventually: "We will play to a little older audience than Pineapple Express, so we should do better on Saturday and get to about the same box office," a "source" told Nikki Finke, apparently overlooking the lack of a pot subplot or panty-soaking James Franco to buttress Thunder's run. We're a little more skeptical and think this calls for more desperate measures: If ever the 'Works needed to reinstate its gold mine at SImpleJackMovie.com, now is the hour.

• 'TROPIC THUNDER' grabs an estimated $7.5M on Opening Day [Fantasy Moguls]
• 'Tropic Thunder's Low-Key $7M Opening [DHD]

1. All-Time Greatest Film on IMDB: Fanboys continue to make their voices heard this morning as nearly 50,000 voters pushed The Dark Knight to the top of IMDB's definitive list of international classics. Better even than The Shawshank Redemption, though? Well, these viewers have seen everything, so... congratulations, Christopher Nolan!

2. Backlash Begins (Critical Edition): Bad reviews (and the revolt that followed them) were one thing. But even DK admirers like us couldn't help but nod along as haters started poking the bubble:

FIlm critics were just as jazzed as the film's makers and its boyish fans, even proud to consider themselves part of the film's creation, in a way. "I think it's the critic's duty to tell people how awesome this movie is," said Insert-Pullquote Pete, of the Toulane Tribune. "Thank God there's finally a movie that audiences and critics can agree on, cause it makes our job so much easier."

3. Backlash Begins (Box-Office Edition): Citing figures that are in part "too clean," David Poland challenges the numbers and their historical importance. Not to be outdone, Variety this morning bumped the figure to $158 million just for the hell of it.

4. Oscar Hype Redux: Terry Gilliam be damned, Tom O'Neil is just doing his job this morning by recalculating DK's Oscar odds after its massive weekend: Only six the top 20 highest-grossing films of all time were nominated for Best Picture. "[T]hree won," writes O'Neil. "The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Titanic and Forrest Gump — and three got skunked: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, E.T. and Star Wars." For what it's worth, none were reviewed as consistently favorably as The Dark Knight. And certainly none of them are IMDB's Greatest! Film! Ever!

5. Christopher Nolan is the New Peter Jackson. A 38-year-old guy who started out making $40,000 neo-noirs over a year's worth of weekends off is now the anchor of the hottest franchise in town. Just part of the plan, notes The Hollywood Reporter, which today features a good look at how he did it (not to mention the hell of following up — The Prisoner, Chris? Really?).

6. Mamma Mia! Gets Buried: The stage adaptation's $27.6 million opening was the best ever for a musical. IMDB Top 250 spot: Not ranked. Care much? Us neither.

1. Wall-E - $62.5 million
Realizing that their last vision of a dystopian future-Earth—2006's Cars, in which automobiles ruled the planet, fueled by an endlessly replenishable supply of human livestock bred in subterranean people-farms—was perhaps a little too dark a subject matter for their intended family audiences, Pixar decided to simplify this time around. The result: A nearly silent love story featuring a binoculars-on-treads that critics are hailing as a modern classic. Disney can only be overjoyed with the results: Wall-E earned the second-highest June opening of all time, and Pixar's third-highest debut, behind Finding Nemo. The only person to come away disappointed? Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who saw in the parable a painful metaphor for his failed attempts at winning the heart of his own Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, Kathy Griffin. Upon returning home, he instantly set upon smashing any remotely Wall-E-ish thing in his garage to pieces— which included the Segway they rode on their first date, and an early Apple prototype made from parts of a Speak n' Spell and a hand-mixer.

2. Wanted - $51.118 million

But were Wall-E the only record-breaking Box Office Miracle™ this weekend, for more mature audiences (read: 14-year-olds with patchy facial hair and highly suspicious drivers licenses issued by the State of Hawaii) flocked instead to this visually arresting, swervy-ammo shoot 'em up. Among the paradigm-upending innovations conjured up by director Timur Bekmambetov (a proud Kazakh export and delicious retribution for three years of humiliating, "In my country we have a pen outside for the animals and womens!" jokes): Angelina Jolie illuminated by fluorescent drugstore lighting, James McAvoy's transformation from turtle-faced office-nerd to action hero, and Morgan "God" Freeman getting all MF-bomb-droppin' badass again.

3. Get Smart - $20 million
If you think you might enjoy Steve Carell pretending to talk like a deaf person, then being referred to as a "retard," then doing a dance routine with an obese woman who—wait for it—actually ends up being light on her feet...then Get Smart is the movie for you!

4. Kung Fu Panda - $11.746 million
Sure, you can round-kick. But tell us this, Kung Fu Panda: Can you walk on 30-foot-high tree-stilts? We didn't think so.

5. The Incredible Hulk - $9.226 million
We've taken a cue from Incredible, and started wearing a wristwatch pulse-meter ourselves, in a similarly feeble attempt at avoiding waking up naked somewhere in the British Columbian wilderness after a particularly destructive Midori Sour bender.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE June 27–29, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

Naturally Marvel boss David Maisel will be doing victory laps for rest of the season, but after the jump, join us in parsing a bizarre contrarian argument gaining traction against the studio's acknowledged re-do of Ang Lee's brooding 2003 Hulk. Hint: It's bullshit.

You can start to see it in the raw numbers put out today at Box Office Mojo, where a comparison of Hulk '03 and Hulk '08 indicates the latter film underperformed its predecessor by $7 million after five days in release. The inference — intentional or not — is that after all that Marvel did to disown the first Hulk, the second couldn't even keep up. Such hubris, right? Such a letdown! At least that's the read laid forth in a more explicit crack analysis at The Playlist:

Ed Norton's The Incredible Hulk (notice no director mentioned here), was [an] enjoyable action-packed flick, that has been a smashing success, toppling the box-office this weekend and erasing the memory of Marvel's original embarrassment, right?

Not quite. The Incredible Hulk, directed by Louis Leterrier, opened this weekend with a winning $55.4 million, but it was well off the opening of Ang Lee/ Eric Bana's 2003 version of the green monster film which opened five years ago to a substantially larger $62.1 million. Marvel is calling this new version an unqualified success, but of course you're not reading this truer story everywhere (of course its the Aussie press have to make a note of pointing this out, not in the name of fairness of course, but because Bana is Australian).

You're likely to hear more of this crap as the trades latch on in the weeks ahead, but pray along with us for a moment that the big green apples and oranges are seen for what they are. To wit, Hulk '03 opened with high expectations opposite a shitty rom-com (Alex and Emma) and the self-immolating From Justin to Kelly; the summer releases that preceded it — X-Men 2, The Matrix Reloaded, Bruce Almighty — had far less legs than Hulk '08's competition from its own studio, let alone Indiana Jones 4 and Kung-Fu Panda. Mix in The Happening, which pulled away at least $5 or $6 million, and you've got a reasonably well-performing franchise opener.

It's really pretty simple, and we wouldn't recommend relating its trajectory to that of Lee's film in polite, sentient company. Was it an "unqualified success" or the blockbuster that Marvel wanted? Of course not. But in the clogged-up context of Summer '08, it's a good showing for a decent film nobody should be ashamed of — stroppy star and, ahem, "Aussie press" be damned.

• 'Hulk' vs. 'Hulk' [Box Office Mojo]

• A Bigger, Badder 'Hulk' Tops The Box-Office? Not So Fast... [The Playlist]

1. The Incredible Hulk - $54.538 million
For first reactions to The Incredible Hulk—Universal's attempt at "rebootting" the Freakishly Betrapezoided One's franchise—we defer to non other than Hulk-fan-on-the-street Dante Reno. Approached by Variety for comment, Reno proudly gestured to the area of his brain once designated for foreign languages, which, after two punishing hours of Dolby Digital Cinema Smaaaash™ effects, had now solidified into a useless clump of scar tissue. Still, that smile, and the words, "Aw, dude it was awesome," suggests to us that it was all worth it. Hulk back. Hulk smash. Hulk good.

2. Kung Fu Panda - $34.321 million
Crossing the $100 million divide this weekend was DreamWork's literal-minded Kung Fu Panda, in which ancient Asian fighting techniques named for animals were transformed into an adorable CGI menagerie of martial arts masters. It's a clever conceit that will be used to lesser success in direct-to-DVD companion title Yoga Cow, featuring the voice talents of Larry the Cable Guy as Downward Facing Dog and Cameron Diaz as Squatting Fish-Lotus.

3. The Happening - $30.5 million
Manoj laughs last, as what was sure to be his Lady in the Water bellyflop follow-up—a woodenly paced arborcidal thriller promptly tossed by critics into the chipper— wound up bringing in a very respectable $30.5 million from horror fans looking for some Friday the 13th thrills. (They got some, plus Mark Wahlberg "placating a ficus.") Having established his bankability once more, there's virtually no limits on where director M. Night Shyamalan's imagination might take us next—perhaps a religious allegory set in rural Pennsylvania, where a film critics' convention threatens the very fate of the Shrimphrogs, an ancient race of clog-dancing extraterrestrial amphibia. (With, of course, a cameo by the director as the NASA scientist who first discovers their existence.)

4. You Don't Mess with the Zohan - $16.4 million
There really is a Zohan! His name is Nezi Arbib, and he lives in San Diego.

5. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - $13.547 million
Want even more Jones excitement? Stay tuned for the further adventures of franchise inheritor Greaser LaBeouf, in...Mutt Williams and the 'Slap Me Harder, Faggot!'. SUMMER 2012.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE June 13–15, 2008 [boxofficemojo.com]

1. Kung Fu Panda - $60 million
The proposed steel-cage bout pitting DreamWorks' deadly plushy versus the horse-hung Mossad assassin who's also handy with a crimping iron (or whatever the hell that movie is about) turned out to be unfairly matched: Panda swiftly minced his opponent into sabra-fruit marmalade. And while Jack Black scored high with audiences as the voice of the endangered hero, Seth Rogen stole enough scenes as the movie's insectoid master-of-deflection that his perpetually stoned character's spin-off movie—Tae Kwon Do Stick Bug—will be fast-tracked into production for a summer 2010 opening.

2. You Don't Mess with the Zohan - $40 million
$40 million is certainly nothing to sniff at, particularly for a movie whose premise left 99.7% of Sandler's core fan base scratching their backwards-baseball-caps. ("What's with the hairdressing stuff?" "Why's he talking with an accent?" "What's Israel?") And while they were lured in with the promise of broad Sandler-style comedy, they left with a far greater understanding of Israeli foreign policy, which was stealthily embedded into the proceedings via Rob Schneider's uncredited cameo as Golda Meir. We thought he delivered the, "Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values," speech from Munich stirringly.

3. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - $22.805 million
This brings the grand total for Indiana Jones and Uh, Did We Just Wander Into Caddyshack? to $253 million, or one dollar per phoned-in performance, chintzy-looking set-piece, and CGI eyesore.

4. Sex and the City - $21.31 million
No need to panic, ladies. You still rule Hollywood with a mighty, manicured fist. The Official Movie of the Female Gender™ may have seen a 63% drop since last week, but that was fully anticipated by Warner Bros., They insist City will "find sturdier legs over future sessions," presumably once the cast has a chance to unbuckle those 7-inch stilettos and file down their bunions.

5. The Strangers - $9.289 million
Choosy moms pick The Strangers' floppy masks over Funny Games's crisp tennis whites nearly 2-to-1 as their random-home-intruder family-torture-porn uniform of choice!

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE June 6–8, 2008 [boxofficemojo.com]

1. Sex and the City - $55.7 million
Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Take a moment to gaze up at that big, shimmering, fuscia number for a moment, and see if your heart doesn't race just a little bit. From coast to coast—from giddy Wall St. traders having the Sex quartet tattooed onto their backs, to Chicago area tollbooth workers handing out free Cosmos and relationship advice, to Las Vegas tourists running for their lives as four towering Sexbots, manned by what remains of New Line's Special Events and Promotions department, trampled cars and small businesses beneath their eight-foot-high Jimmy Choos—there really was no escaping Sex and the City this weekend.

And people managed to find the time to see the movie, too—$26.9 million's worth on Friday alone, and more than enough to make Sex the Highest Opening Ever for an R-Rated Comedy™. Its 85% female audience instantly metamorphosed into a fearsome nation of gender-inversed fanboys, queuing up for repeat screenings in highly specific costume ("I'm recently-dumped-by-Post-It Carrie!"), and arguing that the Samantha anal-sex subplot was handled to far greater effect in Season 4's "tuchus-lingus" episode. The game, as they say, has changed.

2. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - $46 million
While alien-shaped candy bowls with mystical, Russian-detonating properties have given way to massive Manhattan apartments with walk-in closets as moviegoers' supernatural MacGuffin of choice, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's prairie-dog-riffic ruination of a beloved franchise only managed to drop "a respectable 54%" in its second, regrettable weekend at the box office.

3. The Strangers - $20.707 million
A lesser triumph was Rogue Pictures' execrably reviewed The Strangers, which both succeeded in greatly exceeding box office expectations, while ushering in the next chapter of Liv Tyler's once-promising, now-slumming- with-Scott Speedman-in-B-horror-movies career.

4. Iron Man - $14 million
As Ben Stiller's nephew Carl pointed out on last night's MTV Movie Awards, for the traditional fanboy wanting top-tier entertainment, Iron Man is still the only game in town—at least until Dark Knight comes out, and which point Iron should be pooping nuts and bolts.. In the meantime, enjoy this encore of the Soldered One kicking Kung Fu Panda, who's already getting on our nerves, in the panda-nuts.

5. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - $13.016 million
An additional 43% decline to a puny third week take elicited yet another statement from Disney head Robert Iger, who blamed, "the days of Saturday and Sunday, traditionally the most overcrowded leisure time of the week—full of swimming pool, barbecuing, and sports-watching alternative options" for cutting into the sequel's receipts.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE May 30-June 1, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

[Margin of error: +/- 9.5 trillion]

And we're off! At the stroke of midnight, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull began screening on 4260 U.S. screens, and 12,000 more around the planet.

With a 4-day opening weekend poised to topple all previous box office records, we thought we'd celebrate the iconic treasure seeker's historic return with an Indy PlunderWatch gross earnings projections clock. Using a complex algorithm that carefully calibrates screen count, market research, other openings, and hyperbole divided by fanboy prattling, our calculations* suggests that the sequel has in just nine short hours of release already laid waste to current title-holder Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End's $137 million take by well over nine-and-a-half trillion dollars.

*Margin of error: +/- 9.5 trillion.

• 'Jones' eyes box office bonanza [Variety]

Among the many questions in the poll, the most revealing one asked the 420,000 respondents which May release they were "most excited" about. And surprisingly, the gals of SATC: The Movie won the majority with 32%. Sadly for Iron Man, especially considering today is the day when Robert Downey Jr. will begin charming audiences with his Third World-loving superhero, Indy 4 came in second with 31%. Sadder still, Iron Man only won over 7% of pollsters in this category. But Speed Racer actually fared worst in the poll, with only 2% saying they were most excited for the Wachowski brothers' car racing flick.

The Moviefone poll's other most revealing question asked which male and female stars they "most wanted to see" throughout the entire summer blockbuster season. Mirroring the first question's results, Sarah Jessica Parker and Harrison Ford took top honors, and once again Iron Man fell short. Following Ford was the late Heath Ledger, whose role in The Dark Knight "would likely draw curiosity seekers" to the chillingly fantastic-looking flick, according to Moviefone's Editor in Chief, Scott Robson. (Insert any variation of "Duh" here, since we'd rather not.) But there is one (yes, one!) silver lining for RDJr. this thrilling morning: 22% of pollsters said he is the "superhero they're most psyched to see." So...there's that!

• MOVIEGOERS HAVE 'SEX' ON THE BRAIN: POLL [Moviefone]

Previously, only March of the Penguins, the Jackass films and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko appeared on more than 1,000 screens at once. An Inconvenient Truth never played on more than 600 screens. ...

Distributor Rocky Mountain Pictures employed Motive Marketing, the same firm that targeted Christian audiences for The Passion of the Christ and the Narnia films, for outreach to the faith community. This likely blunted the force of the overwhelmingly negative critical reviews of the film, which may be the worst reviewed documentary of all time, a stat that some may write off to liberal bias, save that even the NY Post's Kyle Smith (who famously pans nearly every left-leaning doc) gives the film a mixed review[.]

Really, though, in the end we couldn't care less about critics, ideology and marketing, because it is to our perverse, rollicking pleasure that Ben Fucking Stein outdrew George Clooney over the weekend. This should usher in a new era of stardom for the conservative figure, whose next outing into the cultural wild, Expelled 2: Wetbacks Be Gone, will feature a border-trolling Stein quizzing illegal immigrants on all nature of trivia before sending losers back to the South in his patented new Mexipult™. Then watch Stein and company kill on 2,000 screens; everyone knows this kind of insanity sells itself.

• 'Expelled' Trounces 'Osama' [All These Wonderful Things via IFC]

1. The Forbidden Kingdom - $20.9 million
Lionsgate's action picture starring venerable martial arts masters Jackie Chan and Jet Li (and newly minted Kung Fu superstar Michael "Who?" Angarano) may not have registered too highly on your own new-release radar. But its surprise #1 finish meant there was indeed an audience looking for a fresh spin on the increasingly hackneyed plots served up by the genre, and who simply couldn't get enough of this touching story of two dads, as deadly fisted as they are in love, trying to raise their troubled teenage son the best way they know how.

2. Forgetting Sarah Marshall - $17.3 million
It outperformed the Apatow Pictures Group's previous two releases, but not even its ubiquitous Sharpie marketing campaign and an unobstructed view of Jason Segel's semi-chubby man-parts were enough to earn Sarah Marshall the kinds of Superbad and Knocked Up numbers responsible for ushering in Hollywood's Golden Age of the Paunchy, Lovelorn, Post-Adolescent Jew. Still, a respectable second-place finish hardly suggests genre-fatigue. Perhaps all that's needed to again crack the $30 mil mark is to up the male-nudity ante, finally conquering Hollywood's long-standing cyclops taboo in a close-up sequence that involves a frantic Seth Rogen bending over to fish his wedding ring out of a shower drain.

3. Prom Night - $9.1 million
Sony's re-envisioning of the 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis slasher dropped 56% and two positions in its second week, but it hopefully performed strongly enough overall to convince the studio to give another Curtis effort from that year—the David Copperfield- and trannie-packed choo-choo classic Terror Train—the remake treatment.

4. 88 Minutes - $6.8 million
We're thrilled to report that Al Pacino's latest effort has inched ahead in the Metacritic tracking from its original score of 2 to a much more respectable 17, though, not surprisingly, it has been stripped of its bronze medal in the Shitty Film-A-Lympics.

5. Nim's Island - $5.65 million
Not even a second-billed Jodie Foster could get parents interested in the goings-on on Nim's Island, where mad scientist Dr. Nim, played by the lovable Abigail Breslin, successfully fused animal and human DNA in her misguided attempts to play God.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE April 18-20, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]