Other Crap

Daily Box Office for Friday, September 1, 2006

• The numbers are unimpressive because the Labor Day weekend is traditionally one of the weakest frames of the year.
• Backed by glowing reviews, and appealing to young males with a crazy, high-energy concept, the thriller Crank took the #1 spot on Friday.
• Jason Statham is emerging as the king of Labor Day. Last year, another of his over-the-top thrillers, Transporter 2, topped the holiday weekend.
• Two other movies with good reviews, Little Miss Sunshine and The Illusionist, continued their climbs up the ranks to finish 4-5.
• Last week's champ, Invincible, held fairly strong at #2, despite facing down three new releases.
• Then there were the other new entries. Nicolas Cage is an actor who loves to take risks. Many of his offbeat projects, like The Lord of War and Adaptation, have turned out well despite minimal box office appeal, but The Wicker Man just proved to be a complete embarrassment in every way. The critically reviled (13% good reviews) remake took the #3 spot, and earned Cage a spate of ridicule in the process.
• The even more harshly maligned Crossover (0% good reviews) finished far down the list as predicted. Crossover did suprise some experts with a higher "per screen" average than Wicker.