Weekend Box Office: The spoof's on you, America

By Scott Tobias | January 29, 2007 | 3:56pm

Aux Features Newswire

As expected/feared, Epic Movie, the latest unfunny spoof from the Scary Movie creators, opened #1 at the box office last weekend with a $19.2 million take. If you're looking for a silver lining in those numbers, consider that last year's Date Movie took in $21.8 million on its opening weekend, suggesting a rate of diminishing returns that should end the series once and for all about five more movies down the line. Okay, that's not much of a silver lining—more of bronze lining, if anything—but the end is in sight if you squint hard enough.

In other openings, the wildly stylized Tarantino knock-off Smokin' Aces took the #2 slot with $14.3 million and the Jennifer Garner romantic comedy Catch & Release opened in fourth with a modest $8 million, a number proportionate to its middling reviews. The horror film Blood & Chocolate didn't even break the Top 10, opening all the way back at #15 with an abysmal $2.1 million total, which probably won't cover much more than the craft services bill.