Amazingly low box office greets the Fall movies

By Keith Williams

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 9/7/08 — Despite opening at a breath-takingly low $7.8 million on 2650 rickshaws, Bangkok Dangerous pushed Tropic Thunder into second position to seize the crown of the number one film in America this weekend, a hollow victory if ever there was one.

Now that most of the summer action blockbusters are in hibernation awaiting their imminent DVD release, the past three weeks have been hell for popcorn sellers with a stream of new, dreary-looking action pix all underperforming alarmingly.  The latest, after the blush-making returns for Death Race and Babylon AD, shocked by taking even less than they did. 

For Bangkok’s star Nicholas Cage, it’s not exactly his worst opening – The Weather Man claims that dubious honor – but it’s light years away from the $45 million debut of Ghost Rider. 

A remake by its original directors, The Pang Brothers, of their 1999 Asian thriller, Bangkok Dangerous failed to catch the imagination, and ticket money, of action fans in America for a variety of reasons, each as damning as the other.  In the original, the “hero”/hitman was deaf and dumb, giving the thriller a gimmick that would attract audiences curious to see how this would work. 

In the remake, guess what?  No way on God’s earth is Nicholas Cage going to be silent for 99 minutes, thus robbing the film of its novelty factor and making it look like any straight-to-video mash/fest. 

Then there was Lions Gate’s enthusiasm for the film which paled considerably with them lowering the marketing budget for the movie’s release, never an encouraging sign.  And if that wasn’t enough, what about that poster where Cage appears to have liked Tom Hanks’s hairstyle in The Da Vinci Code so much, he either borrowed it or had it cloned.  Yet again the Pang Brothers, some would say vastly overrated Asian directors, have failed to crack the American market by compromising what was arguably distinctive of theirs in the first place.  They couldn’t hack it with The Messengers either, taking a total of $35 million with that horror effort.  Still, it did nudge Tropic Thunder from its top slot, beating it by a mere $0.3 million to allow the Ben Stiller laff-fest to take an estimated $7.5 million in its 4th week.

Into third position hopped The House Bunny with $5.9 million, a drop of only 29%, elbowing The Dark Knight into 4th with $5.7 million to bring the Caped Crusader’s haul to an unprecedented $511 million in America alone.  Last week’s new entry, Babylon AD, tumbled to six, taking $4 million, a drop of 58%, proving neither fast nor furious, while Traitor took $4.6  million, declining by 41%.  Disaster Movie continued to live up to its name with $3.3 million on a drop of 43%, Death Race crashed at $3.6 million, stalling by 43%, Mamma Mia! persisted with $2.7 million on a 36% reduction in volume, Pineapple Express sucked up $2.4 million, a drop of 32% allowing it to just about cling to the bottom of the top ten.

The highest per-screen-average of the weekend honor however goes to Woody Allen’s Vicki Cristina Barcelona which took $2.2 million to come in at no.11, bringing its total after 4 weeks to $16 million.

Weekend Estimates – boxofficemojo.com