‘W.’ Feels “Payne’
Max Payne is the first video game-inspired movie in a while and it did something its predecessors failed to do, capture the number one spot in its first weekend and get reasonable reviews.
The film opened with $18 million in tickets sold, according to Box Office Mojo. It was clearly the number one film for the weekend, with Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua clawing onto second place with $11.2 million in its third week of release.
Oliver Stone’s much-talked about W., starring Josh Brolin and a well chosen cast, opened in fourth place, collecting just $10.55 million Washingtons. "For me, an Oliver Stone film about George Bush doesn’t necessarily scream big box office," Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers told the Associated Press. "A film like this is very tough to gauge, but this is exactly what I thought it would do."
In third place was the debut of the civil rights-era film, The Secret Life of Bees, taking in a respectable $11,050,000. Rounding out the top five was Eagle Eye, adding an additional $7,343,000 in its fourth week, bringing its total to $81,335,000.
The other newcomer was Sex Drive, which took in just $3,566,000. Films in their second weekend slid by about half with Body of Lies taking in $6,880,000 and Fox’s Quarantine scaring up just $6,300,000. City of Ember, which looks great, seems to be turning away audiences and took in just $1,725,000.
As fall settles across the country, clearly diversionary films are in order. Payne could have easily played over the summer but is the dose of fresh air people want as they tire of the economic nightmares and political mud slinging. Clearly, high minded efforts such W. and Bees may be Oscar bait but they may be too serious today.
Movies that have okay word of mouth and marquee names seem to be hanging on but none are doing spectacularly well or poorly. The freshest of the bunch, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, has garnered a nice buzz, is diversionary and was produced on the cheap so its haul of $26,707,000 after three weeks means its almost at the breakeven point which is good news for Sony.
The Dark Knight is just about out of gas and its worldwide total stands at $990,869,000 so breaking the billion mark will be tough as it sheds screens in favor of holiday fare.
Ang Lee’s [[[Hulk]]] film failed because he spent too much time on the Jekyll/Hyde aspects, the very ones that inspired Stan Lee. After all these years, people wanted to see the Hulk leap and smash things. When he leapt, we cheered, but there just wasn’t enough of it.
, is largely the Army hunting the Hulk as Bruce Banner searches for a cure. While that worked fine in the 12-page [[[Tales to Astonish]]] stories, it’s not nearly enough for a feature film. The biggest problem with Zak Snyder’s story is that the Super Soldier formula that is now linked to the Hulk and the Abomination is clearly able to turn people into weapons of mass destruction and all the military sees is a weapon. Not a single person in uniform saw it as anything else and frankly, we’ve seen this theme before and done better elsewhere.
Every month, 
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The 
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