Welcome to Movieline's Weekend Receipts, where we overturn the communal register and tally up the cash, hairballs and "Sorry About Charging You Twice and Calling It IMAX -- Have a Free Movie On Us" coupons that tumble therefrom. In today's edition, the fearsome beast known as The Romcom reascends to its rightful place atop the Hollywood food chain. Behold its mighty power to make chicks go, "Awwww."
1. The Proposal
Gross: $34,114,000 (new)
Screens: 3,056 (PSA: $11,163)
Weeks: 1
Audiences ate up Sandra Bullock's romantic screen pairing with dashing reverse-crunch addict Ryan Reynolds, as The Proposal opened to spectacularly robust business. Credit the right genre (date movies were in scarce supply this summer), with the right actors (sorry, Matthew McBiquity -- women want a new pretty face atop their naked torsos), at the right time (a plum summer spot where it could breathe, free from the long shadow cast by Megan Fox's hiked-up rear-end). Throw in the irrepressible charms of Movieline crush-object Betty White, and whatever apprehension you may have initially felt about cheering on Bullock's mildly racist corporate-cougress character quickly evaporated, allowing you to fall right along with her for the chiseled latte-fetcher of her dreams.
2. The Hangover
Gross: $26,855,000 (cume: $152,919,000)
Screens: 3,545 (PSA: $7,575)
Weeks: 3 (Change: -18.1%)
In honor of the summer's runaway comedy blockbuster coasting past the $150 million mark, I thought I'd share with you a fascinating bit of B-roll, surely destined for its DVD extras: Behind the Used Condom: Anatomy of a 'Hangover' Scene.
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3. Up
Gross: $21,336,000 (cume: $224,113,000)
Screens: 3,832 (PSA: $5,568 )
Weeks: 4 (Change: -30.6%)
I'm still in quiet awe of the story of the terminally sick little girl whose dying wish it was to see Up, and who tragically passed on just seven hours after its closing credits rolled. I really don't know what that says about the existence of God, however, or how Ed Asner or dogs outfitted with translator-collars fit into His Grand Scheme -- but I'm pretty sure everything is connected.
4. Year One
Gross: $20,200,000 (new)
Screens: 3,022 (PSA: $6,684)
Weeks: 1
The second high-concept, lowbrow comedy of the summer to earn official Turkey™ status from the Hollywood Poultry Bureau, Year One still managed to eke out $1 million more than Land of the Lost did in its first weekend. But it's a huge disappointment for Columbia, who've already jettisoned their ambitious plans to put 2045 sequels into immediate production should the first be a hit, with our hunter-gatherer heroes finally catching up to the present in 2046's The Year 2046.
5. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Gross: $11,300,000 (cume: $43,332,000)
Screens: 3,077 (PSA: $3,672 )
Weeks: 2 (Change: -51.7%)
Still clinging to life in the Top 5 is this John Travolta/Denzel Washington urban thriller, in which Travolta's subwayjacking leather daddy taunts his pursuers with the defiant, "Come down here and lick my bunghole!" His equally compelling, 100% ad-libbed follow-up, however ("No -- seriously. Are you any of you guys going to the Eagle beer bust? Because I'm really looking for my bunghole to be licked...") was inexplicably left on the cutting room floor.
[Figures: Box Office Mojo]