When he found me I was unconscious, slumped over my keyboard with a trail of dried spittle running from the spacebar, across the alt key, and into my mouth. My eyes fluttered open and I suddenly realized there was someone in the room with me.

I sniffed the air. Old Spice? That can only mean one person. ”What the hell are you doing in my house Gwin?” I groused groggily. “You’ve been drunk Digging again,” he complained. “I’ve been waiting at the Olive Garden for hours now! Long enough to find the bottom of the bottomless soup and salad combo, and to figure out that you weren’t showing up.” Scott always has been a big eater. I never should have left him alone with the CB Mastercard. While I wiped drool off my chin, he began clearing out space on the couch behind me, pushing half-empty bottles of cheap single-malt and an unopened box of Vin Diesel glamour calendars onto the floor.

“What was I supposed to show up for?” I said aloud. “I wonder if I should be wearing pants,” I said to myself. “Box office,” grunted Gwin, before pulling out a clipboard and beginning to recite a string of strange numbers. Was I marooned on the island from Lost? I wondered. “Oh damn.” I mumbled as the fuzz lifted from my brain and I began to remember. Summer Box Office wrap up. I’d hoped that if I let him run around with Box Office Guru on his business cards, he might leave me alone this year. No such luck. Slouching back in my chair I braced myself for Scott’s annual facts and figures onslaught. This was going to be a tough one. I wonder if he’ll let me have some of that Scotch.

The Dark Knight

Scott: If you don’t know what movie was the biggest at the box office this summer, you’ve had your head in the sand. It doesn’t matter what news source you read, everything from MSNBC to The Wall Street Journal has had something to say about the record breaking cash cow that is The Dark Knight. Shattering all the major box-office records and knocking off Star Wars to become the second highest grossing movie in U.S. history, the only thing it couldn’t do was reach Titanic’s daunting totals ($600 million domestic and an astounding $1.2 billion foreign). Maybe it could have happened if Batman had spread his arms whilst standing atop one of Gotham’s highest buildings shouting “I’m King of the World”. When you add up all the cash Dark Knight has raked in the total hits $872 million, giving Warner Brothers a tidy return on their hefty $185 million investment in the film. And the international sales are still climbing. A $700 million profit and rising, it’s the most profitable movie of the year.

Josh: Goddamn The Dark Knight. Damn it all to hell! Why so serious? I’ll tell you. The Dark Knight ruined my life. It’s too hellishly good. Ever since I saw it, the world seems paler. Sugar doesn’t taste as sweet, rainbows don’t seem as bright, babies smell like vomit, Mozart sounds like the Pussycat Dolls. Nothing lives up to my expectations because I keep comparing it to the goddamn Dark Knight. Screw you Christopher Nolan, you’ve ruined my life and I hate you for making something so great. I shall take solace in the fact that no matter how much money shows up in your box office totals, Star Wars and Gone with the Wind have your ass kicked when it comes to the number of people who actually bought tickets to see them. Ain’t inflation a bitch?

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Scott: Until Batman hit the scene it was looking like Indiana Jones and Iron Man were going to be duking it out for the top spot this summer. In the end, Iron Man did slightly better in American theaters, but when you add international sales there’s no question which movie was Dark Knight’s true runner up. In fact Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull only made $315 million in the U.S. but has outperformed Dark Knight in the world arena making $465 million outside the states compared to Batman’s $381 million so far. Of course, this movie is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with George Lucas. Now that he’s done sucking Star Wars dry of any creative storytelling value he’s ready to defile his other legacy. And with these kinds of profits I’m sure Paramount will be all too happy to help him do it, no matter how much Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford or the rest of the sane world protest.

Josh: I’m not going to let you get away with washing Steve Spielberg and Harrison Ford of responsibility for this… thing. They could have stopped Lucas if they wanted to. They knew this movie would suck, that’s why they resisted letting him make it for as long as they did. But they let the flannelled one wear them down and now that Crystal Skull made money hand over fist it’ll be all the easier for him to wear them down again the next time he wants to ruin something good by sticking it in a fridge and surrounding it with radioactive gophers. Should Indiana Jones 5 happen I fully expect Harrison Ford to be painted pink and dressed up like a gay cabaret dancer. Indiana Jones has made fuck you money, and you’d better believe that with Star Wars waning George Lucas is going to use it.

Iron Man

Scott: Tony Stark’s arrival marked the beginning of the summer and the dawning of a new chapter for Marvel comics in movies and as beginnings go, it was one heck of a bang. A nearly $100 million opening weekend total was the start for Iron Man and a $317 million finish has earned it the place of second highest domestic grossing movie of the year (just edging out Indiana Jones). Unfortunately the wonderfully original super hero flick didn’t have the same international following as Indy meaning Iron Man was only the third biggest film of the summer when world-wide totals are included. Thanks also in part to a slightly lower $140 million budget it still turned Paramount a massive $430 million profit world-wide. The downside is that the fantastic action movie has set the bar pretty darn high for Marvel, a bar which The Incredible Hulk couldn’t clear.

Josh: I just hope that the even greater success of The Dark Knight doesn’t make Paramount do to Iron Man what Warner Brothers is threatening to do with Superman, by turning it all dark and emo. Iron Man works because Tony Stark has a stripper pole on his private jet, and that’s the way we like it. Next time though, it might be nice if Stark fought someone oh… I don’t know… interesting. Jeff Bridges belongs in a dirty bathrobe, hanging out at bowling alleys and drinking White Russians. He has no business wearing deodorant, let alone strutting around in perfectly tailored business suits and planning world domination.

Sex and the City

Scott: With a $65 million budget (more of which I suspect was spent on clothes than on actors’ salaries) the movie was expected to turn a solid profit, but I’m not sure anyone knew how huge it was going to be. $152 million domestic. $386 million foreign. Ring it all up and you’ve got a massive 729% return on the studio’s investment, the highest of the summer and, indeed, one of the highest on record for a movie with this size budget. For comparison, The Dark Knight won’t break the 500% mark in that category. I didn’t see the movie and, frankly, could care less that the movie did well, but there’s no way to not be impressed by the amount of cash thrown at it. I guess the moral here is to never underestimate the buying power of bitter middle-aged women who have sorely missed their weekly televised sappy sex/fashion fix.

Josh: There were a lot of percentages and such in what you just said and I sorta zoned out there for a second. I also did that during most of Sex and the City, and it proved fairly effective. However, I don’t have a problem with the movie and from what I remember it was fairly well put together. Just not my thing since I have what is, in the original Latin, known as a pork sword. What I don’t get is why so many men do have a problem with it. Look at all the other box office winners this summer: Iron Man, Batman, Indiana Jones. All hardcore guy movies. Is it such a big deal to have one big summer movie out there geared towards women? About damn time I’d say. Quit whining guys, and that goes double for you Gwin. What if your mother is a fan? She’ll never forgive you for calling her bitter.

Mamma Mia!

Scott: It hurts my heart to see the man who played James Bond and Remington Steele reduced to singing ABBA songs in the film version of one of Broadway’s most bizarre productions ever. But never mind my failure to understand why the concept for the movie is so popular. Mamma Mia was made on a modest budget of $52 million and it turned out over $118 million in sales in the US and over $320 million world-wide. When you look at profits in percentages, it was the second most profitable movie of the summer, second only to Sex and the City. I’m certain this will only continue to inspire studios to throw even more money at turning even more Broadway musicals into movies. But then, most of the stuff on Broadway now are musicals made out of movies. But, hey, it sort of worked for The Producers. Who’s ready for Legally Blonde: The Musical: The Movie?

Josh: Hey man I like ABBA, but even I don’t like ABBA sung by Pierce Brosnan. Here’s the really scary thing about this movie’s success: It’s not going away any time soon. Mamma Mia! sing-a-longs are being scheduled in theaters all over the country. It’s the new Rocky Horror, if Rocky Horror showings were attended only by women in sensible sundresses and men who don’t wear socks with their loafers. The good news here is that since it’s living on primarily in sing-a-longs, Pierce Bronsnan’s horrific singing will be drowned out by the voices of its audience. That’s the only context I can think of in which Mamma Mia! might be good. No scratch that, the dancing sucks too. No, scratch that too, calling it dancing is too generous. It’s more like half-hearted skipping.

The Strangers

Scott: It seems like every summer there’s some small budget movie that makes it big. Bear in mind that for this round-up we only look at movies in wide release, i.e. that see the inside of at least 1,000 theaters. That said, it’s rare to find summer flicks made for less than $10 million and those rarely make much cash. This summer The Strangers, which only cost $9 million to make, raked in over $50 million domestic. Talking in percentages, it was the most profitable movie of the summer when it comes to domestic dollars.

Josh: The Strangers was this year’s 1408, only without the good reviews. I hate stalker horror movies, but I’m willing to give this one a pass because it has Liv Tyler, who I am in love with, even though we share the same last name, which I guess makes it sort of like incest. There’s no love like forbidden love. Marry me Liv… because it’s deliciously wrong.

Hancock

Scott: Will Smith proved himself a bankable star yet again this summer. In the face of misleading marketing and a miserable pounding from critics, Hancock still got it’s audiences into going big Willie style. At $225 million in domestic ticket sales, it turned a $75 million profit, making the $332 million in foreign sales icing on the cake. Sure it’s disappointing to see sub-par big-budget movies make so much money (it only encourages the studios to green light more sub-par big-budget movies), but the blame should actually go to Smith. Almost everything he touches seems to turn to gold, even if its crap.

Josh: Was it really big-budget? I need some numerical evidence on that, because the special effects looked like they made it for about a buck twenty-five. What a total freakin disgrace this thing was as a big-budget blockbuster. I’m sure they made a mint, because they obviously didn’t spend much on making this piece of crap, except whatever they paid Will Smith and Charlize Theron to show up on set.

Kung Fu Panda

Scott: Summer is always a favorite time for the computer-animated features to roll out and there’s usually one that stands out from the rest at the box office. In the past if Pixar had a summer entry you could bank on it taking the top spot, but this year poor little Wall-E couldn’t keep up. Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda both topped the $200 million mark in the U.S. and ended in a virtual tie. But, that’s where the similarities end. Panda blew the bolts off the bot in the foreign arena. Wall-E only did $52 million of its business abroad, while Kung Fu Panda banked more than $360 million in foreign sales. Tag on the fact that Panda cost $50 million less to make and it’s very very clear: Kung Fu Panda was the animated champion.

Josh: This isn’t a popular opinion, but it is a correct one. Ready for it? Here it go: Kung Fu Panda was the better movie. Sorry, it just was. I like WALL-E, it’s a nice little film, but it’s a little film. Kung Fu Panda contains big moments of pure transcendence which WALL-E simply cannot match. There’s nothing in WALL-E for instance, that can hold a candle to Master Oogway’s goodbye speech, or the training battles between Master Shifu and Po. Kung Fu Panda is at times flat out poetic, while WALL-E is just cute little vacuum cleaner who I liked better the first time I saw him in Short Circuit. I’m glad they both made money, but I’m even gladder Kung Fu Panda made more. I tend to root for the fat guy. Hey Scott, have you seen a half-eaten sandwich anywhere around here? Check under the couch cushion will ya?

Meet Dave

Scott: Everyone’s always buzzing over which movie made the most money every summer. But what about the one that lost the most? If you’re interested in finding out which of Hollywood’s stars have become irrelevant, how much money their movies lose is usually a good indicator. This year the box office’s biggest money sucker was Meet Dave and the award for biggest box office loser goes to poor Eddie Murphy. Meet Dave wasn’t all that expensive to make, racking up a relatively meager budget of $60 million. When you add up both the domestic and international sales it earned less than $20 million. I suppose Murphy could take solace in the fact last year’s Norbit raked in close to $100 million in profit, but he would also have to accept that the only comedy where people will pay to watch him is one where he’s dressed up as a nasty, giant, fat woman.

Josh: Most of Eddie Murphy’s movies have Eddie Murphy starring opposite Eddie Murphy, and that’s bad enough. This one had Eddie Murphy starring inside Eddie Murphy, and I’m pretty sure if you sit down and do the math you’ll discover that’s the recipe for forming a black hole. Black holes don’t make money, they take it. They should have seen this coming.

Speed Racer

Scott: You may recall all the hullabaloo early this summer over whether or not Warner Brothers inflated Speed Racer’s opening weekend estimates to try and get more people to see the movie. I still don’t think they were up to anything but if they were I can’t say as I would blame them. Poorly marketed and poorly attended, the movie ran up a tab of $120 million but only brought in $44 million in the U.S. The $45 million that the foreign crowd chucked in helped some, but still left the movie more than $30 million in the hole. Not exactly the kind of track record the Wachowski’s were hoping to see from their first directorial effort since departing the world of the Matrix.

Josh: Speed Racer wasn’t very good, but neither are most kids movies. That’s who this thing should have been marketed to, but it wasn’t. Warner Bros. never quite seemed to know what to do with it. Had they put more of their marketing budget into Happy Meals, I think they could have made at least an extra $17.50. That’s a lot of Big Macs people, maybe even enough to feed John Goodman. I’d like to feel sorry for the Wachowskis, but they had it coming after the way they fucked up The Matrix. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that they made this instead of a Matrix spinoff movie following the third soldier from the left in scene 24 of Reloaded. The world will be a better place once they finally give up and go back to making low-budget bondage movies.

The Love Guru

Scott: If the average ticket price is around $8 that means there are four million of you out there in America who should be utterly ashamed of yourselves. I’m not sure what part of the marketing for The Love Guru made you think it was going to be any good. The only thing that would be a stronger indicator for your lack of intelligence would be if you actually thought the movie was any good. Mike Myers might as well join the Eddie Murphy Struggling Comedian Club after this comedic and financial disaster. With a budget of $62 million the movie didn’t have far to go to make a profit. But, with $32 million in domestic sales and only $5 million more in international sales it fell far short of clearing the red. Bad news for the movie, but good news for those of us hoping this might make Myer’s financial backers rethink a fourth Austin Powers flick.

Josh: Come on Scott baby, no need to be cruel. You know why $32 million worth of people bought tickets… Mike Myers. The guy’s name used to stand for something. He used to be funny. You can’t blame people for trusting him, and not everyone saw the trailers. That was The Love Guru’s audience. People who knew nothing about the movie. I love a good dick joke as much as the next fella, but a ten minute sequence in which Myers fondues nuts and makes testicle puns is more than anyone should have to endure. I mean, this is a movie in which the big climax involved two elephants humping. Ironic, since by the time I walked out I felt exactly like I’d just been raped by a pachyderm.

The X-Files: I Want To Believe

Scott: A movie spawned by cult followers demanding feature films is always risky business. Sure those ardent followers may have very loud blogs, but they don’t usually have the numbers or the cash to back up their loud bloggings. Witness the near-financial failure that was Serenity. And that was even a good movie. X-Files: I Want To Believe was a snooze fest with nothing to offer for anyone except the biggest “X-Files” geeks. The budget for the film was a clean $30 million, cheap by any standards. The total sales internationally are just shy of that mark, meaning the home entertainment version sales will have to be solid for this one to get out of the red. Of course the fans are already buzzing about a third movie that they can only hope will go straight to DVD. Good luck with that. If Fox studios and Chris Carter are smart they’ll put the X-Files on the bottom of a very deep drawer and move on to more interesting and more lucrative endeavors.

Josh: Here’s the really weird thing about X-Files: A month before the movie’s release the internet was alive with just the kind of wacko supporters you’re talking about Scott. By the time it was released though, even those wackjobs had given up. I wrote a piece on why nobody cares about X-Files a few days before the movie came out. If I’d written that a month earlier I’d have gotten death threats, but written then all I got was depressed X-Files fans agreeing that the good times were over. I don’t know what the hell happened, but since this was a 20th Century Fox movie I’m going to say they deserved it. All the secrecy and lying directed at their fans before the movie’s release bit them in the ass. About damn time too, Fox has been thumbing its nose at its ticket buyers for years now. They deserve a flop or ten.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Scott: Yes, the movie was just released a couple of weekends ago and yes, it will go on to make a little more money in the weeks to come. I have no doubt, however, that whatever that final total might be, it won’t be a profitable one and it definitely won’t be anywhere near any of the other Star Wars movies released since George Lucas decided turn Darth Vader into one of the whiniest, lamest characters ever to walk that galaxy far, far away. Clone Wars has earned only $26 million in its first two weeks in the US and only $8 million internationally. The animated drivel is, if possible, worse than any other feature film Lucasfilms has allowed out of its studios (yes, even worse than that creepy Ewok movie starring a hairier-than-usual Wilford Brimley). Even if the movie manages to turn a small profit, this one is still easily a loser. Star Wars has always meant box office gold, even when its total crap like The Phantom Menace. No budget has been released (a common event for movies that tank) but unless they managed to make the movie for less than $60 million it’s going to be pure digital dead weight.

Josh: No way this crummy cartoon goes on to make more money. The only thing it has going for it is that it didn’t cost anything to make… and it shows. It’s somehow appropriate that George Lucas has had such a long association with Fox, since they both seem to treat their fans like mindless sheep who eat shit and like it. It’s unfortunate that Warner Bros. had to get stuck distributing this particular stinker, it had 20th Century Fox written all over it. I suppose one good thing has come out of it: Star Wars fans are finally moving on. Forget all that fat nerd cash you’ve been enjoying Georgie boy, we’re jumping ship. Even the most crazed fans can only be kicked in the nuts so much. My god man, you painted a Hutt pink and made him gay cabaret dancer! You might as well have put him in hot pants and given him roller skates. What the hell did Lucas think would happen?

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Scott: Del Toro took his sweet time getting around to making his Hellboy sequel, spending a couple of years hemming and hawing over how he was going to fit it into his schedule. The choice to finally get it made and release it this summer may not have been the best one. Only in theaters for one week before The Dark Knight and Mamma Mia! showed up to dominate the scene, Hellboy 2 didn’t get much of a running start. Lost in a maze of far better known and more popular comic book characters, this summer just wasn’t the right time for Red to return. The $74 million it made in the U.S. was supplemented by a meager $25 million international, and it was just enough to recover the movie’s relatively humble $85 million budget. That’s a much tighter margin than the first Hellboy enjoyed, suggesting that a wise Universal Studios and Del Toro will quit the Hellboy game while they’re barely ahead.

Josh: I don’t get what made them think this was a summer movie, much less a summer movie that could compete with The Dark Knight. The first one was released in March and it barely broke even. Somehow that translated into not only releasing the second one in the dead of summer, but releasing it 6 days before the arrival of the most heavily anticipated superhero movie of… well… ever. By the time Hellboy 2 hit theaters, its target audience had room only in its head for Batman. The Dark Knight hype was completely out of control by then, and nobody was interested in anything except sitting around and thinking about the impending release of The Dark Knight. Positive reviews of Hellboy on this site and others were spammed with legions of half-crazed Dark Knight fans pissing on Guillermo del Toro’s film sight unseen, as if defacing Hellboy somehow proved their allegiance to the Batman. It’s a shame too, because this one was even better than the first. I’d have loved to see a third, Hellboy has more beer binging in him. I guess I’ll have to drink extra for him. Perhaps this explains why I don’t remember anything that happened last night.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Scott: At $200 million, Prince Caspian was the most expensive movie of the summer. Given that its predecessor The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe made nearly $300 million domestically that probably didn’t seem like much of a gamble. At least, not until Caspian opened with only $55 million and then fizzled out at $141 million. Foreign sales kicked in and helped the movie to a $380 million world-wide total, but that’s a pale sum compared to the almost $750 million that the first Chronicles of Narnia movie made across the globe. Make no mistake, Caspian turned a profit, but the dramatic drop in performance between the two films leaves the future of the franchise in a dubious place.

Josh: Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the best book in the series, so I hope they at least make it that far. I think the somewhat lackluster performance of Prince Caspian is symptomatic of a bigger problem. Hollywood is putting too much of its focus on the summer. Some of these movies belong in the fall. Narnia for instance, would work perfectly as a holiday flick. It’s a family film, something you can take grandma and the kids to after spilling cranberry sauce all over the front of your best holiday vest. Not every big movie needs to be a summer film, and in a summer that was so flat out jam packed Disney should have had the sense to move it somewhere else. It’s the same mistake Warner Bros. is making with Harry Potter. Not every big movie has to be crammed into the three months of summer. People only have so much time and money to spend, and besides, we don’t want to get stuck watching Ben Affleck movies in November, just because there aren’t any other options.

Tropic Thunder

Scott: When you’ve got several major-name actors pulling hefty salary checks it’s not too much of a surprise that Tropic Thunder has an almost $100 million budget. When the movie then, in turn, does little more than $40 million in its first week, questions start to rise over whether or not it will turn a profit. With lots of small-fry competition on the horizon as post-summer dumping begins, Thunder will probably end up breaking even, but perhaps only just. With a budget that large Paramount/Dreamworks had little choice except to send it to theaters in the summertime, but putting it at the end might not have been such a great choice. I can’t help but wonder if it might have suckered more people in with its over-the-top comedy and cross-racial Robert Downey Jr. performance if it had been released much earlier in the summer onslaught.

Josh: I’m not sure the problem here was Tropic Thunder. It’s more another case of bad timing. Thunder was released too late, after the summer had already run out of gas. Kids start school at the beginning of August now, and anything released after August 1st is pretty much left scrabbling for summer table scraps. Pineapple Express had the same problem. I think people were genuinely interested in both films, but had other things on their minds, like dressing their kids in humiliating clothes which will make them the target of every bully within a five mile radius. Bullies can actually smell Wal-Mart labels. I’ve experienced this firsthand. So what if I select my clothing from Kathy Lee Gifford’s line of sensible, plus-size, pregnancy stretch pants? Does that make me any less of a man?

The Happening

Scott: Say what you will about M. Night Shyamalan’s movies, they always turn a tidy profit. Well, at least they did right up until Lady In The Water. His bedtime story barely broke even two years ago, making his self-written/directed/produced films a questionable commodity. That was bad news for Warner Brothers who backed Lady when Buena Vista shrewdly passed after backing Shyamalan’s first four major films. Warner Brothers in turn bailed on him after Lady floundered but Fox gave him a shot with The Happening. Lucky for them that audiences seemed ready to give Shyamalan another chance too. The movie’s $60 million budget was barely recovered by the $66 million money made domestically, and the $88 million it earned in foreign theaters was one of the weakest his movies have ever seen. Sure it’s a step back out of the red, but the movie didn’t perform like Shyamalan’s movies used to. It’s enough to wonder if Fox, or anyone, will be willing to front him the cash for another M. Night Shyamalan production.

Josh: Most effective movie of the year. Shyamalan made a film about people suddenly suiciding, and after I walked out of the theater I seriously contemplated self-immolation. I’m assuming here, that was his goal. To make us all wish we were as dead as his characters. You haven’t heard the last of M. Night either. Remember, he still has that trilogy of movies based on Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s based on an animated TV series about guys with elemental powers. That should prove useful if after seeing it, I again want to light myself on fire. For his next movie M. Night won’t just give his audience the desire to kill themselves, he’ll also give them the tools to do it, by unlocking the secrets of spontaneous combustion.

Incredible Hulk

Scott: The Incredible Hulk isn’t a toss-up because it didn’t make solid cash. It’s a toss-up because it didn’t make enough cash. If you hadn’t heard, Marvel Comics is taking the reins of its super hero film franchises and creating a series of movies that interweaves the storylines of its biggest selling characters, leading up to a massive crossover series starring an entire team of them. They’re so dedicated to this endeavor that they shelled out the cash to make another Incredible Hulk origin movie just five years after the first one was made. Unfortunately it didn’t perform. This new movie had a bigger budget than the first one but made less cash. On top of that, the movie’s financial success paled in comparison to Marvel’s first summer flick Iron Man. Where Tony Stark excited audiences and raked in a massive $570 million world-wide, The Incredible Hulk got sleepy response and struggled to reach $240 million. Not a great follow-up for Marvel as they continue to bank on these movies to carry the multi-character franchise forward.

Josh: It’s a toss up because the thing shouldn’t have existed. Rebooting a franchise after only a five year gap is just flat out stupid. Somehow though, in spite of the numbers, Hollywood has convinced itself this idiotic plan was a success because Warner Bros. is now copying it with Superman. It’s amazing the way people misremember the past. They act like Ang Lee’s version was this huge critical and financial disaster, even though it made a fair amount of cash and got pretty damn good reviews. It’s the same thing with Superman Returns, but the world has decided to rewrite history and pretend everyone hated it and nobody turned up and saw it. Newsflash: Superman Returns made as much money as Batman Begins. Alternative Newsflash: Ang Lee’s Hulk wasn’t half as bad as everyone likes to pretend. Edward Norton’s Hulk on the other hand, was every bit as bland as its decreased box office suggests. Marvel’s pursuit of a simpler story with more action and less thinking was a total success. Unfortunately dropping IQ points also resulted in a movie that’s pitifully bland and ultimately braindead. Congratulations comic fans, you got what you wanted. Hulk smash and less cash.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Scott: Here’s another one that turned a profit but still can’t be called a winner. As the third movie in the “why-did-they-turn-this-into-a-franchise” Mummy series, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was the most expensive but the least successful financially. The first Mummy cost $80 million, made $155 million in the US and $415 world-wide. When the Mummy returned it cost an extra $18 million but earned $202 million domestically with $433 world-wide. This third entry’s price tag jumped to $145 million but has only $95 million in domestic sales. It will be lucky to clear $300 million in the end. Did it turn a profit? Sure. Is it a step forward for the franchise? Neither financially nor in entertainment value. Here’s hoping Universal gets the picture and pulls the plug on any further misadventures of the O’Connell clan.

Josh: This movie does not deserve my brilliant commentary. Also, I’m getting sleepy.

Frustrated by my lack of interest, Scott stood up and kicked away the dirty underwear, which had somehow become entangled with his leftmost loafer (no doubt when he climbed into the house via my now broken bedroom window). “We haven’t even scratched the surface!” he complained. “What about Adam Sandler!” But I was no longer interested in messing with Zohan, and he sensed the look of alcoholic desperation creeping into my lopsided grin. Get Smart would escape without in-depth analysis, my mind was on the baseball bat which lurked somewhere behind Scott in my closet. “After all he’s guilty of breaking and entering,” I thought. “Technically that makes him a burglar and I’m certain that at least gives me the right to smack him around a bit.”

Scott however, wasn’t going to give me the chance. He knew where this was headed and flexing a well-muscled forearm whipped his clipboard at my head, while beating a hasty retreat back through my busted window. He moves fast, but I wasn’t worried. I knew I’d have another crack at him. He’ll be back, probably next year, and I’ll be ready.

Read Summer Box Office 2007: The Critics Ultimatum here.
Read Summer Box Office 2006: Critics Last Stand here.
Read Summer Box Office 2005: Revenge of the Critics here.
Read Summer Box Office 2004: The Chronicles of Critics here.
Read Summer Box Office 2003: Critics United here.

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