Black Sheep @ The Box Office

ALICE IN WONDERLAND continues to dominate the spring box office but the spring box office bestows it's riches upon a number of other films regardless. Tim Burton's biggest career hit dropped off a respectable 45% in its third week and continues to rule internationally as well, with a grand global total of $565 million so far.


The runner-up spot was fought for all weekend. The Jennifer Aniston-Gerard Butler dud, THE BOUNTY HUNTER, opened second behind ALICE IN WONDERLAND on Friday but the family crowd push throughout the weekend helped DIARY OF A WIMPY KID overtake the supposed romantic comedy for a number two finish. Final results may vary when the final numbers come in on Monday but my money is still on the kid flick.


Past that, there was very little love for the REPO MEN remake, starring Forest Whittaker and Jude Law. Buzzed about Sundance Joan Jett biopic, THE RUNAWAYS, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning pulled in a disappointing $3300 per screen average on 244 screens. Roman Polanski's latest, GHOST WRITER, expanded as successfully as possible considering its rough start with a 71% increase after adding 595 screens. The film's total gross now stands at just under $7 million with a reported budget of $45 million. Providing hope though, art house success Noah Baumbach's latest, GREENBERG, pulling in over $120K, on just three screens, with an average of $40K. The Black Sheep review will be coming later this week.

NEXT WEEK: The much-hyped, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, will be cracking it up on 2750 screens. 3D animated offering, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, will be exploding out of 3000 screens. And Atom Egoyan's latest, CHLOE, hits the limited scene.

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THE BOUNTY HUNTER

Written by Sarah Thorp
Directed by Andy Tennant
Starring Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler and Christine Baranski


Jennifer Aniston is looking a little tired these days. Fortunately for her though, the attempted humour in her latest starring vehicle, THE BOUNTY HUNTER, is infinitely more unoriginal than she is, so you don’t necessarily notice her worry lines so much.


I don’t really blame her for worrying though. There is no way she could have been making this movie and thinking it was actually going to turn out well. I’m sure it sounded great when somebody pitched it to her. It’s Aniston and romantic comedy hunk, Gerard Butler, playing exes on the run. He, being the aforementioned bounty hunter, is giddily tracking down his ex because she skipped her court appearance for a traffic accident involving a police officer. Before they know it, they’re mixed up in a major undercover police operation that could get them killed. And, now this is the clincher, while they’re stuck together in this crazy impossible scenario, this old flame of theirs has the chance to be reignited again. Clearly, with all this deliberate and obvious set up, hijinks should ensue. Instead, scene after repetitive scene followed with not a trace of laughter to be had.


In order to catch a criminal, an effort must be made. In order to entertain people at a movie, an equal effort must be made. Between Butler barely trying to mask his accent and director, Andy Tennant, barely focusing on anything other than Aniston’s back side, it seems pretty fair to say that the only real effort being made in this film is Aniston running around in ridiculously high heels all the time. I’m sure if she was wearing more sensible footwear, she would have ran right off the set.

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