I wish I could write about another movie. Really. It’s not that I have anything against Edward or Bella or their freakishly old child or Jacob’s perpetually bare chest or Oregon or young-adult literature or the horrible way that vampires have become undead James Dean clones in glitter.
But it sure would be nice to write about another movie. My stock of vampire-related puns is dwindling.
You think it’s easy? You think I enjoy subjecting you to lines like, “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 bit into the box office for an estimated $17.4 million this week”? Or how “Edward, Bella et al left the competition bloody with a third straight victory”? I know you don’t want to hear that Breaking Dawn – Part 2 has now sucked down more than $254.6 million worth of North American box office receipts this year (it’s now the fifth highest-grossing movie of 2012), or how, despite its success, it pales so far in comparison to the franchise’s other installments (it’s ranked fourth out of five movies, albeit early in its run; The Twilight Saga: Eclipse leads the way with $300.5 million). I know your patience for predictably bad puns only stretches so far.
So let’s just not talk about Breaking Dawn – Part 2, shall we? Let’s pretend that Twilight’s Jasper has used his powers of mind-melding persuasion on us, eclipsing the Twilight-themed portion of this blog post entirely and allowing dawn to break on an entirely new moon of a movie. Let’s talk about something we’ve never talked about, like—
Oh, curses. Another long-in-the-tooth movie, Skyfall, is second for the third straight week, banking another $17 million to bring its own yearly total to $246 million. And while $17 million could certainly buy a lot of (ahem) bonds, after having written the review and a blog and another blog on 007’s latest outing, writing much more about this movie leaves me shaken, not stirred.
Two other holdovers, the historical drama Lincoln and the animated lark Rise of the Guardians, are wrestling over third place. (According to estimates, Guardians holds a slight advantage over the 16th president, but both are expected to make around $13.5 million.) Life of Pi, another second-week entry, floats around in fifth with $12 mil.
Yep, not a single new movie cracked the Top Five. And why is that? Because Killing Them Softly, Brad Pitt’s new artsy but seriously violent crime flick, died quite softly itself. It made just $7 million—barely enough to cover the cost of Pitt’s hair gel—to slump into seventh place. The only other new release, The Collection, did even worse—torturing movie extras and audiences alike for a mere $3.4 million.
Perhaps we best forget about this weekend altogether. Let’s pretend this blog never happened. Jasper, could you do the honors?
Final figures update: 1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, $17.4 million; 2. Skyfall, $16.6 million; 3. Rise of the Guardians, $13.4 million; 4. Lincoln, $13.4 million; 5. Life of Pi, $12.1 million. Killing Them Softly was seventh with $6.8 million, while The Collection finished 10th with $3.4 million.
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