And it went a little something like this…

Title (New Releases in Bold)                      Weekend                   Total

Failure to Launch                                         $24,600,000             $24,600,000

The Shaggy Dog                                           $16,024,000             $16,024,000

The Hills Have Eyes                                    $15,500,000             $15,500,000

16 Blocks                                             $7,306,000              $22,704,000

Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion         $5,800,000              $55,754,000

Eight Below                                          $5,412,000              $66,424,000

Aquamarine                                          $3,650,000              $12,165,000

Ultraviolet                                            $3,600,000              $14,751,000

The Pink Panther                                   $3,600,000              $74,603,000

Date Movie                                           $2,500,000              $44,264,000

The Libertine                                        $2,209,000              $2,256,000

Dave Chappelle’s Block Party                   $1,990,000              $9,598,000

That’s a 68% second week nosedive for Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, while Date Movie still hangs around in the top ten.  In other news, I’m going to start snorting meth.

Failure to Launch is Matthew McConaughey’s second $20 million-plus opening as a co-lead in a romantic comedy, the last being How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days with Kate Hudson.  That film went on to gross $100 million in early 2003, and, considering the fact that there’s not a single release going directly after its audience for another month, it’s possible that Failure to Launch might get there, too.  Even if it doesn’t, the opening will be enough to boost McConaughey’s asking price by a million or two, especially since he was out front in all of the television ads.  While the presence of Sarah Jessica Parker certainly didn’t hurt, it never felt like Paramount went out of their way to emphasize the Sex and the City star as McConaughey’s gangly foil, so don’t expect her studio profile to go up much if at all.  Finally, if Terry Bradshaw’s prominent role in Failure to Launch’s success brings us this much closer to Hooper 2: Ski’s a Crackhead, then consider this my full-throated yelp.

Disney’s got to be scratching their heads a bit at The Shaggy Dog’s underwhelming debut.  It’s Tim Allen’s weakest opening under the Walt Disney Pictures imprimatur since 1997’s warmly remembered Jungle 2 Jungle, and a good $14 million off of the studio’s big 2005 March offering, The Pacifier.  There hadn’t been a lot out there for family audiences aside from the studio’s surprise hit, Eight Below, and it’ll be that film’s solid box office that takes the sting out of The Shaggy Dog stumbling out of the kennel.  “The kennel” because it’s a movie about a dog.  A man-dog to be exact, which the Queen of Comedy in me would say is the same damn thing, Jack!

So, when endeavoring to remake a horror classic, the wise move is to select a title that resonates beyond the realm of the genre aficionado.  This is why The Texas Chainsaw Massacre soars and The Fog bombs.  Granted, When a Stranger Calls ain’t exactly the most saleable brand name, but “Have you checked the children” is an instantly identifiable catch phrase.  This will probably slam the brakes on Fox’s previously in-motion plans to sequelize The Hills Have Eyes, which means we’ll never know if Alexandre Aja would’ve had the nerve to retain the infamous dog flashback from Craven’s misbegotten 1985 follow-up.  Today, the world mourns.

16 Blocks held up reasonably well in its second week, but not so well that I need to waste any more space commenting on it.

The Weinstein Company wrung a $2,710 per screen out of Johnny Depp, though his starring presence in The Libertine proved insufficient to overcome mostly bad reviews. 

Brokeback Mountain tumbled a near 50% in its first weekend following the Oscar Sunday Massacre; however, even with a Best Picture win, a $100 million gross seemed awfully unlikely.  Now, it’s completely out of the question.

Okay, to put the whole Dave Chappelle’s Block Party thing in even more depressing perspective, Big Momma’s House 2 held better despite losing 459 screens, while (and this is for the “It’ll be huge in its second revenue window” contingent) Crash did a better per screen despite having been out on DVD since freakin’ September.  On the plus side, that first rail of meth went down smooth.

Of the two major limited debuts, Robert Towne’s adaptation of John Fante’s Ask the Dust did a respectable $10,385 per screen, while the Alfonso Cuaron presented Duck Season only mustered up 4,033 per.