What say we lighten the mood and swing into a productive 2009 with some box office numbers?

1. Marley & Me - $24.1 million
In what will certainly go down as the Holocaustiest holiday movie season in history, it was the story of a disobedient Golden Lab with no known ties to the Nazi party that again managed to capture America's hearts. With an 11-day total of $107 million, Marley is well on track to becoming the Highest Grossing Live-Action Dog Movie of all Time, rocketing past previous record holders like 1972's Lassie Tangos in Paris and Richard Attenborough's 1982 masterpiece, Benjhi.

2. Bedtime Stories - $20.3 million
We finally have some clue as to what co-star Keri Russell was talking about on a recent Late Night with Conan O'Brien appearance, as this mostly family-friendly offering does feature one disturbing sequence in which the actress is spirited away from a campfire by a Benjamin Buttonesque goblin-manchild.

3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - $18.4 million
We think we know what would have made Button work better: having Brad Pitt in one outfit throughout his remarkable transformation. Think about how much more you would have been invested in the journey had the film been book-ended by baby-sized Button swaddled in the adult tuxedo and top hat he eventually grows into somewhere around the two-hour mark.

4. Valkyrie - $14 million
Valkyrie is the rare Hitler-hunting movie that rewards repeat-viewings, as director Bryan Singer has loaded his film with dozens of easter eggs just waiting to be discovered by WWII buffs. For example, in the suitcase-bomb rigging scene, if you look on the bookshelf behind Col. von Stauffenberg, you'll notice a copy of "Ein Sehr Hitler Weihnachten" ("A Very Hitler Christmas"), the Fuhrer's little-known, disastrous attempt at invading the holiday album market.

5. Yes Man - $13.9 million
We'd be happier for star Zooey Deschanel and Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard engagement had we no suspicions that the entire thing was just an elaborate promotional stunt, set to climax with the words "Yes Man, I Do" at the couple's DVD-release-themed wedding.

• January 2–4, 2009 [Box Office Mojo]

1. Yes Man - $18.16 million
It's rarer and rarer that we can call Jim Carrey the Biggest Star in the World, so let's savor this moment—granted a $10 million-lighter moment than we had predicted—and consider it a step in the right direction. Two years ago at this time, another forgettable Carrey comedy, Fun with Dick and Jane, opened to $4 million less, eventually earning $110.3 million domestically. With a little luck, this plucky little audience-pleaser could outdo even that, and before long Carrey will be rechristened Hollywood's Set-Terrorizing Jester King, urinating on child co-stars in improvised fits of actorly inspiration.

2. Seven Pounds - $16 million
As we had feared, Seven Pounds's challenging subject matter, and major newspaper reviews calling it the most "transcendently, eye-poppingly, call-your-friend-ranting-in-the-middle-of-the-night-just-to-go-over-it-one-more-time crazily awful motion pictures ever made," ultimately made it a hard sell. Still, some movies are just decades ahead of their time; something tells us that once society catches up to this rare Will Smith misfire, we'll realize just how in the dark ages Hollywood once was when it came to its big screen depictions of Jellyfish-Americans.

3. The Tale of Despereaux - $10.507 million
The CGI-shlock-making industry held its collective breath on the heels of Delgo's historic, Turds-font-popularizing box office flameout. But unlike that family film, audiences did not treat Despereaux screenings as if they were highly infectious, flesh-eating-contagion chambers, sparing this rodent fairy tale a place in the box office bed-shitting record books.

4. The Day the Earth Stood Still - $10.15 million
Plummeting 67% was this remake, largely accredited to poor word of mouth, as audiences who had hoped they'd be in store for some epic-scale sci-fi destruction instead wound up with two hours of Keanu Reeves on roller skates, sliding up to confused pedestrians and doing his best WALL-E impression.

5. Four Christmases - $7.745 million
This was it! The fourth Christmas. We pack this in the box now with the rest of those weird-smelling ornaments we made in the late '70s from that home-made dough recipe in the Zoom newsletter (are we dating ourselves?), and forget about it 'til next year.

• December 19–21, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

WHAT'S NEW: Warners, Sony and Universal are the first round of studios to drop what's left of their 2009 slates — not quite the grand finale any of them were looking for, if reviews and box-office forecasts are any indication. Yes Man and Seven Pounds will battle for the week's top spot, with Jim Carrey's comedy about a man who says "yes" to everything (including shagging Zooey Deschanal, despite himself, we're sure) favored to defeat Will Smith's suck-a-riffic Seven Pounds by less than a couple million dollars. We're calling Yes for $28.4 million versus Pounds' $26.7 million, thus ending Smith's No. 1-opening run dating back to 2002. Or maybe the sheer virtuosity of pans like A.O. Scott's or Scott Foundas's will compel more viewers than they alienate, like footage of the Hindenberg explosion or news reports coaxing spectators to the site of a uniquely spectacular train derailment.

Universal will open third with the animated mouse fable The Tale of Despereaux, which will benefit from a bit of adult/counterprogramming crossover to a take around $17.3 million. The art-house infantry is bringing up the rear, led in part by Paul Schrader and Jeff Goldblum's post-Holocaust curio Adam Resurrected, the Valerie Plame/Judy Miller dramatization Nothing But the Truth, and, all the way from France in its Oscar-qualifying run, the Cannes prize-winner The Class.

Also opening: The acclaimed, brutal Italian mob-novel adaptation Gomorrah; Bruce Campbell's misbegotten paean to himself, My Name is Bruce; John Leguizamo's working-class drama Where God Left His Shoes; the Southern-fried ensemble piece (led by William Hurt) The Yellow Handkerchief; and — ZOMG! — Uwe Boll's nasty Vietnam War venture Tunnel Rats.

THE BIG LOSER: Nothing opening this week will flop as mightily as, say, Delgo (what ever could?), but if Six Flags doesn't soon develop a Day the Earth Stood Still Hell Plunge — "the steepest drop of any film-themed thrill ride in America!" — to commemorate the film's 65% freefall in week two, we'll trademark that shit ourselves as the main attraction at Defamer Gardens.

THE UNDERDOG: Neither The Wrestler nor Mickey Rourke need our help to pull in about $260,000 in limited release this weekend, but listen: Like last week's recommendation of Gran Torino, our interest is in your total filmgoing satisfaction in the face of the Carrey/Smith threat. And The Wrestler is as good as you've heard (Kenneth Turan be damned): Rourke is a staggering screen hero in a season full of mere mortals, Marisa Tomei does some of the most dynamic clothes-optional work of her career, and Darren Aronofsky directs with purpose thought lost after the over-indulgence of The Fountain. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cringe, you'll never handle a stapler the same way again. Increasingly this fall, we don't take that kind of magic for granted, and you shouldn't either.

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD's include your aunt's fourth most-requested holiday gift Mamma Mia!; the season's gag-gift sensation The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor; the HBO miniseries Generation Kill; and the Criterion edition of Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express. Spend wisely, and make your own sage recommendations below.

He'll receive NO upfront cash and NO first-dollar gross. So Carrey won't get his standard $20M plus 20% (and in some cases $25M — but that was before he and his projects began to crash and burn). Instead, Jim has a cash-break deal in theory of at most 36.2% on the back end — which in reality may turn out to be a lot less.

That's right, CASH BREAK, which as everyone knows is just one step up from net profits and often referred to as "real net" as a result. But that 36.2% starts to drop like this month's Dow Jones average if Yes Man's cost doesn't top out at $70 million and its P&A doesn't max out at $50 mil. If more bucks than that are spent, then Carrey has to approve the overages otherwise his payday gets smaller even with pure video (explanation: a percentage of 100% of video and DVD sales). I told you this deal was weird: the actor is about to have all the headaches of a producer without the title or the guaranteed paycheck. [...]

"This is a deal you make with someone who's star has fallen," a studio source told me tonight. Which is why I've learned that Warner Bros execs were privately patting themselves on the back for coming up with it and then dancing in the hallways when Carrey's reps finally went for it.

It's certainly not too difficult to imagine those shrewd Warner Bros. suits exchanging a round of high fives and bragging that once their accountants get through with moving some money around, Carrey's going to owe the production for all the craft service he ate on the shoot. However, it's also possible that he and his reps are confident that they're smarter than everyone, and that successfully reuniting the onetime superstar with the same kind of high-concept crap will make those execs wish they had never closed negotiations by saying, "You tell that washed-up ass-yodeler that he'll take whatever we offer him, and he should feel lucky to get it."

• The Worst Talent Deal Ever? [DHD]