Originally Posted by JoBlo

I'm really not surprised at the record-breaking numbers from HITCH this past weekend. First of all, the movie was actually pretty good, a nice mix of humor, romance and corniness (nothing to write home about, but a damn decent date movie). Second of all, it's friggin' Valentine's Day Weekend, man! Third of all, need I remind you all that films like WHITE NOISE, ARE WE THERE YET and HIDE AND SEEK have been opening with $20M+ weekends this year...that's right, we're starving to see anything new! And finally, well, let's admit it...people like Will Smith. I'm not saying that everyone digs the man, but on the whole, folks like him no matter the age, race, religion, etc... the man is just plain likeable overall. Anyway, for anyone wondering, the film opened with $45.3M in its first 3 days alone, beating the previous "romantic comedy" record set by Adam Sandler's 50 FIRST DATES last year, with $39.9M.

Sony/Columbia was also happy to report the 2nd and 3rd place finishers as part of their big, happy cinematic family with last week's #1 movie, BOOGEYMAN, surprising everyone by not dropping over 50% of its audience in its second week (like most genre pics will tend to do) and raking in another $11M to make itself even more profitable with a total of $33M after only 10 days of release. Ice Cube's ARE WE THERE YET also continued to impress with another $8.5M added to its coffers, leading it over the $60M mark. Yeah...I can't believe it either...that's nuts!

The only other wide release this week, POOH'S HEFFALUMP MOVIE (by the way, a "heffalump" is a bag of weed) opened in 5th spot with only $6M, surprising when you consider that "family flicks" have been the rave for some time now. ONG-BAK: THE THAI WARRIOR opened in only limited release (387 theaters) and did "okay" with an average of $3359 per screen, opening in 17th spot with $1.3M. Not sure if that will be enough for the studio to release it "wide" anytime soon. Time will tell.

Next weekend sees the addition of one of my most anticipated movies so far this year in CONSTANTINE, as well as two "family flicks", one of which seems prime to bomb big-time, entitled SON OF THE MASK, a horrible looking sequel to Jim Carrey's very successful 1994 film THE MASK, and a film with the lame title of BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE starring Jeff Daniels and a dog (no, not Paris Hilton).