There were a huge number of new movies released in the US this week, all fighting over cinemagoers like so many aging bridesmaids clutching for a tossed bouquet, but none of them left with hands full (Not sure where that analogy was going). 30 Days of Night, the vampire flick set in chilly Alaska, took number one with $16 million, which is not bad, but not great for a horror flick at this time of year.
It was a hell of a lot better than the rest of the pack though. Ben Affleck's very good directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, which has been delayed in the UK due to its premise of a young girl being kidnapped, managed $6 million on 1,713 screens, for an average of $3,502. The Comebacks, the latest in a hateful series of lazy spoofs – this time sports movies – took only $5,850,000, which might hopefully suggests the life is going out of the spoof that simply recreates other movies (usually comedies or other movies utterly unripe for spoofing) and throws in a few scatalogical terms for hilarious effect. Thank the lord. Sorry, rant over.
The most successful top ten release, on a viewers per screen basis, was the now annual re-release of the delightful Nightmare Before Christmas. Tim Burton and Henry Selick's creation took by far the highest screen average of the top ten ($9,122) for a total of $5,145,000. Expect that to climb sharply as we get into the festive season.
Loitering down at number 9, Reese Witherspoon's latest, Rendition, in which she plays a woman whose husband is taken away on suspicion of terrorism, had a disappointing wide release with $4,175,000. The film's performance lent credence to the idea that Americans don't want to see films that have anything to do with the country's role in Iraq or anything related. That may not be good news for the upcoming Lions For Lambs and In The Valley of Elah, both brilliant but definitely very much Iraq movies.
Rounding off what will go down as one of the year's less successful weekends was Halle Berry's Things We Lost In The Fire. Despite decent reviews, the movie could only scrape together $1,604,000.
Let's all try to forget about this weekend then and just look forward to next week, which sees the release of Saw IV, Dan In Real Life and, er, Rails and Ties. Oh dear...