Scary that dreck like "Alvin and the Chipmunks" made so much! Love the reviewer's statement, "...it's like being hit over the head with a mallet every ten seconds for 90 minutes"!
-------------- Original message -------------- From: "Mike Street" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Will Smith's `I Am Legend' Opens to $77 Million in Ticket Sales By Andy Fixmer and Bradley Keoun Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- ``I Am Legend,'' the science-fiction thriller starring Will Smith, opened as the top film this weekend, garnering $76.5 million at the domestic box office for Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. studio. New releases ``Alvin and the Chipmunks'' from News Corp.'s Fox opened in second place with $45 million, box-office tracker Media By Numbers LLC said today in a statement. Time Warner's ``Golden Compass,'' the prior weekend's No. 1 movie, dropped to third with $9.03 million in sales, while Walt Disney Co.'s ``Enchanted'' fell to fourth from second with $6 million. Time Warner scored for a second-straight week with a movie debuting at No. 1 in U.S. and Canadian theaters, following the Dec. 7 release of ``The Golden Compass.'' As of Dec. 14, the world's largest media company had $1.7 billion in box office sales this year, the most among its competitors, according to researcher Box Office Mojo LLC. ``This is the perfect movie for Will Smith. It's sci-fi, yet it's an intelligent film,'' Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers, said in an interview. In ``I Am Legend,'' Smith portrays one of the last humans to survive a virus that turns people into flesh-eating monsters. Smith works on a cure during the day and hides from the demons in a barricaded New York townhouse at night, when they hunt. Exceeds Sales Estimate Ticket sales for the movie beat the $51.5 million estimate of Burbank, California-based Box Office Mojo. As of Dec. 14, ``I Am Legend'' received lukewarm response, with 65 positive reviews out of 110 tracked by RottenTomatoes.com. ``Alvin and the Chipmunks,'' based on the 1980s cartoon series, features a computer-animated version of the high-pitched singing trio. The movie received poor reviews, with New York Post's Lou Lumenick writing, ``For adults, it's like being hit over the head with a mallet every 10 seconds for 90 minutes. Two days later, I still had a headache.'' Luckily, children will drive ticket sales, Dergarabedian said. ```Alvin and the Chipmunks' will do very, very well,'' he said. ``It's irresistible to kids.'' ``The Golden Compass,'' made for about $150 million by Time Warner's New Line Cinema, missed the $35.4 million opening weekend estimate of Hollywood Stock Exchange.com, where participants bet play money on a film's performance. The film tells the story of a young girl who uses a unique ability to discern truth in a cosmic battle over free will. ``It didn't have that built-in fun factor that a `Narnia' or a `Lord of the Rings' has,'' Dergarabedian said. ``Something about that movie didn't compel audiences to go out in large numbers.'' `Enchanted' ``Enchanted'' stars Amy Adams as a princess banished from her fantasy world to modern New York. The film has taken in $92.3 million since its release Nov. 21. Susan Sarandon co-stars as the evil queen who engineers her departure. ``No Country for Old Men,'' with $3 million for Disney's Miramax studio, ranked fifth. Rounding out the top 10 were: ``The Perfect Holiday,'' which opened with $2.97 million for Yari Film Group; ``Fred Claus,'' from Time Warner's Warner Bros., with $2.31 million of sales; Sony Corp.'s ``This Christmas,'' with $2.3 million; ``Atonement,'' from NBC Universal's Focus Features, with $1.85 million, and ``August Rush,'' in its fourth weekend from Warner Bros., at $1.79 million. Among the top 10, ``Atonement,'' starring Keira Knightley, had the biggest surge, climbing from the prior weekend's 15th place after garnering seven nominations for Golden Globe awards on Dec. 13. Sales for the top 12 films rose 39 percent this weekend to $153.6 million from a year earlier, according to Encino, California-based Media By Numbers. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
