Weekend Box Office: 300 knockoff defeats fart-laden treatise on Jewish identity
It may not be 300, but Immortals—a.k.a. “That Movie That Kinda Looks Like 300 And I guess That Will Have To Do For Now”—appealed enough to a desperate moviegoing public to take first place on its opening weekend with $32 million. The alternative was the Adam Sandler comedy Jack And Jill, which received lousier reviews than usual for Sandler, but scored a reasonably solid $26 million for second. We’re guessing this means the average American viewer understood its themes of Jewish ethnicity better than every critic not named Armond White. Fun fact about this week’s #1 and #2 movies: The Sandler joint cost slightly more than Tarsem’s special effects extravaganza, despite looking like it was shot on a camcorder by a mental patient. As one Twitterer noted, perhaps Bialystock and Bloom financed the production. Meanwhile, the Clint Eastwood prestige picture J. Edgar got off to a decent start despite mixed reviews, earning $11.57 million for fifth on well over 1,000 fewer screens than its competitors.