Bringing Down The Who

by Odie Henderson March 31, 2008 12:23 PM

Neither spoofed superheroes nor a nosy elephant could keep 21 from beating the box office house and emerging as the top movie for the weekend of March 28-30. According to Box Office Mojo, the Sony picture directed by the man responsible for J.Lo vs. J.Fo and Legally Blonde took in $28.7 million. For the gamblers in the house, that's 57,400 purple chips. Unmarred by bad reviews, 21 eked out a victory by drawing off viewers from other PG-13 rated fare like Superhero Movie, which placed third with $9.5 million, way below expectations for Sony's sister studio MGM. Superhero Movie follows Date Movie, Epic Movie, Scary Movie I-IV (which Superhero's director had a part in), Not Another Teen Movie, and Meet the Spartans...movie. I'm holding out for Porn Movie.

Last week's box office topper, Horton Hears A Who, placed second with $17.4 million in grosses, pushing it over the treasured $100 million mark and guaranteeing us a sequel in which Jim Carrey's Horton and Steve Carrell's Who go to a concert featuring Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend. Horton Hears The Who will be this generation's Yellow Submarine.

If you thought that was a bad joke, at least it wasn't told by Madea. Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns dropped from second to fourth place, taking in $7.8 million. Despite the 61% drop in ticket sales, Perry's latest still managed to do better than the other movies that opened this week. Stop-Loss, the Iraq war movie produced by MTV Films and heavily promoted on that network, couldn't stop its losses. It opened in eighth place with a $4.5 million take, which is still better than most of the Iraq-themed movies that have come out in the past 12 months. This week's other big release, Run, Fatboy, Run, didn't take its titular advice, collapsing three places below the top 10 with a measly $2.4 million. Score: Box Office: 1, Pudgy Naked Englishmen With Jungle Fever: 0.

Shutter, the latest remake of an Asian horror film (this time Thailand got plagiarized), dropped to sixth place behind the Owen Wilson-Judd Apatow teen comedy Drillbit Taylor. 10,000 BC continued its flop-a-licious descent to seventh place, pulling in $4.9 million. The movie's title wants to invoke memories of One Million B.C. and the furry Raquel Welch contained therein, but its $84 million take is way below its $105 million price tag. And rounding out the top ten are College Road Trip in ninth place and The Bank Job in tenth.

The tally:
1. 21, $23.7 million
2. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!, $17.4 million
3. Superhero Movie, $9.5 million
4. Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns, $7.8 million
5. Drillbit Taylor, $5.8 million
6. Shutter, $5.3 million
7. 10,000 B.C., $4.9 million
8. Stop-Loss, $4.5 million
9. College Road Trip, $3.5 million
10. The Bank Job, $2.8 million

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