Box Office Review: The Day the Earth Was Stupid

Look at the emotion on Reeves' face! Oh wait, there isn't any. Ever. | Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Despite sucking and being overwhelmingly patronizing, The Day the Earth Stood Still battled its way to the top of the box-office this weekend by taking in a decent $31M from gullible Americans. The equally bad Four Christmases continued to hover far too high on the charts ($13.2M/$87.9M) while horny but confused teenage girls kept Twilight afloat ($8M/$150.1M). Will they stick around, though, now that the woman who started the franchise has been fired and replaced by a man? Bolt was bolstered by a new Cars short that played in front of it ($7.5M/$88.8M) while Australia is looking more and more like a big flop ($4.2M/$37.8M).

Quantum of Solace ($3.8M/$157.6M) lost a huge amount of theaters this week but still managed to top dull newcomer Nothing Like the Holidays ($3.5M). Madagascar 2 won't go away ($3.2M/$170M) while Milk surged in its first week of wide release ($2.6M/$7.6M). In a fitting example of cosmic injustice, Transporter 3 ($2.25M/$29.2M) managed to keep the transcendant Slumdog Millionaire out of the top 10 once again ($2.20M/$8M). The limited release crowd saw 5 huge performers: Gran Torino ($47,333 per theater), Doubt ($35,000), Che 1 & 2 ($30,000), The Reader ($21,250) and Wendy and Lucy ($10,700).