This Just In: The Wu-Tang Clan have been fucked with! Repeat: The Wu-Tang clan have been fucked with! More on this as reports come in.  

Oh my good lord, do the tweener set like these girls. Sold as an exclusive one week run with many shows on the Imax, and with inflated “concert” prices, HM/MC: BoBWCT was able to take the top slot on a statistically soft weekend. Make no mistake, that’s a big victory (“biggest super bowl weekend, ever”), and a good hustle from the people at Disney, but the exclusivity boost is over, and the film will likely keep some dates next weekend, and then fall the f off. Still, it’s likely in profit, and should make a mint with the DVD, but only if the girls are still popular in three to four months.

If
the hits keep coming like this, then this will likely be the best first quarter
the studios have seen in forever. What does that mean to Joe Consumer? Dick
all, though this could also prove that we are in that recession/depression that
everyone keeps talking about. Will Fool’s Gold continue this trend of big ass
openings? Perhaps.  

Otherwise,
The Eye continues to show that Jessica Alba doesn’t have much of a following.
The film did The Messengers business, which was toplined by Kristen Stewart.
Mostly people probably went out to be scared, and so the film did adequate
business… for what it is, but will likely struggle to get much past $30. But 27
Dresses is performing very strong, and very profitably. This should give Heigl
a very strong bump in her asking price, and should top out around $80, and with
a listed production budget of $30, that’s a profitable film. In its way it’s
more successful than Cloverfield. More on that in a moment.

Juno is
still going strong and this could be good for its Oscar chances, though the
Coen Brothers and No Country have won both the DGA and the PGA awards. Being
successful beyond the art-house circuit is beneficial for an Oscar picture, and
the day ain’t over yet. Ultimately, this is a three picture race between Juno,
No Country and Michael Clayton. But being a money picture may help Juno, while
the re-release of Clayton has only gotten that picture to $40, and No Country to $50. There Will Be Blood expanded to almost 1,500 screens and didn’t really add
much to its gross. Daniel Day-Lewis has that academy award in lockdown, but
that’s about it for the film (other than a possible cinematography trophy.  Whereas Juno has a pretty good shot with all of its nods excepting Jason Reitman’s sacrificial lamb nomination for best director.

Meet
the Spartans and Rambo took the 60% hit, which is no surprise for Spartans, but
I thought WoM – which has been almost uniformly positive – would help Rambo get
his M-50 back. What we have been seeing is strong weekday grosses, which
suggests that some of the audience can’t truck with no weekend teenagers and
their hula hoops and transistor radios. But those kids abandoned Rambo just as
they abandoned Spartans.

But
the senior crowd turned out for The Bucket List yet again, which is going slow
and steady and has its audience lined up. That audience has not fallen down and
can get up. Untraceable will one day be in a bargain bin, and someone will ask
“did anyone see this, it’s five bucks and there’s decent supplements. Does
Diane Lane get naked in this?” 

And
now a requiem for Cloverfield. It took another 60% plus fall this weekend,
which means it won’t be in the top ten next, and may not even double it’s
opening weekend gross. Seriously, may not hit $80. All that talk about a
sequel? My guess is that it’s mostly to appease the foreign audience who hasn’t
seen it yet. I’ll expect Cloverfield 2 around the same time I see Superman
Returns Again, though at least Cloverfield has made some money already. That’s
not to say it won’t happen, but I don’t think it will happen. And I’m smart.