Weekend US box office report: Record-breaking failure for Transylmania

The story of this weekend's box office isn't what films made money. Hitting a traditional between holiday lull, the box office was fairly weak, but that's no explanation for the spectacular failure of Transylmania. The vampire-themed comedy reeked like a bad spoof, and, thankfully, audiences stayed away in groves. Transylmania's 1000+ opening screens netted the film a staggeringly low $274,000. That means, every screening Transylmania netted about $272. That's the lowest gross EVER for a movie opening in over 1000 screens!

All I can say about this is... thank you. Thank you, America. Thank you so, so much for killing this movie before it got started. I'm sure everyone involved is wonderful, but... yeah, no. The spoof is dead. I love the genre when it's smart, but it hasn't been worth watching in many years.

The Blind Side, like the real-life Michael Oher, just keeps working and working. After three weeks of being the caboose to the New Moon box office freight train, the two films have finally flopped places. The Blind Side takes the top spot this weekend with $20.4 million, while New Moon slips to second place on $15.7 million this weekend. The combined box office totals of those two films is pushing close to $400 million, with The Blind Side raking up nearly $130 million and New Moon banking $255 million and counting.

The top debuting movie this weekend was Brothers, which picked up $9.7 million and secured third place for Lionsgate. This can only be due to Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, and Tobey Maguire. You can't go wrong with cramming as many stars as possible in a film.

Then again, Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, and DoG (or my) favorite Sam Rockwell didn't help Everybody's Fine, which managed to stagger home with tenth place on a pretty lousy $4.027 million this weekend. Then again, De Niro hasn't been a good draw in ages, and the others are either cult figures or draws in specific movie series. Plus, word is getting out that the movie, pitched as a comedy, is more of a family drama. Lying to the movie-going public is always bad news.

A movie incapable of lying to the public is A Christmas Carol. Jim Carrey as Scrooge mixed with luxurious special effects, teamed with a story everyone already knows? It's box office gold! Or at least, bronze. Buena Vista's 200 million dollar baby has only turned in about $115 million Stateside, but it did manage to improve on last weekend's box office position, rising to fourth on a take of $7.5 million. Losing its 3-D and IMAX screens to Avatar is going to hurt this movie badly.

Old Dogs drops to fifth this week from fourth last week, swapping spots with A Christmas Carol thanks to a box office total of $6.9 million

Armored (sixth place, $6.6 million) also did fairly well, considering its lack of a bankable star. The small budget of the action film will definitely help it return its investment, even if they didn't have any mainstream box office draws involved. Well, it did have Laurence Fishburne, but good luck spotting him in the trailers. He gets even less time than Fred Ward.

Roland Emmerich's big-budget pornographic film for pyrotechnic lovers, 2012, is the big loser this weekend. The movie plunged from third last week to seventh this week, on a take of only $6.6 million. It's a dead-heat with Armored that will be resolved when the real box office totals come out late Monday.

Ninja Assassin sinks to eighth place this weekend, on $5.03 million, and Planet 51 drops to ninth on $4.3 million. Amazingly, Ninja Assassin is only $4 million or so behind Planet 51's cumulative box office receipts, despite being out a week less and being of more limiting subject matter.

Out this weekend is Clint Eastwood's fifth film in five years, the South African-themed drama about Nelson Mandela and the 1995 rugby world cup-winning Springboks, Invictus. Morgan Freeman takes on the role of Nelson Mandela, with Matt Damon playing rugby team captain Francois Pienaar. Also out this weekend is Disney's return to hand-drawn animation with The Princess And The Frog, a jazz-age fairy tale with a New Orleans flavor, featuring Disney's first black princess. Expect it to really clean up at the box office.