The idiocracy has arrived! Dumb ruled the box office this week, as the latest exercise in lowering the collective IQ of humanity, otherwise known as Epic Movie, made almost $20 million. Clearly, that old dictum about not going broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public continues to be true.

Laremy, sweet soul that he is, seems to be overestimating the intelligence of the American public, which is perhaps why his box-office predictions on Friday were off. His numbers were pretty good in some instances -- he called for the excruciatingly awful Smokin' Aces [my review] to earn $15.4 million, which is fairly close, when we're talking numbers of this scale, to its actual haul of $14.3 million. But he has Aces in the No. 1 slot, and Epic Movie at No. 2, which I understand. It simply doesn't bear thinking about that millions and millions of people would pay good money to see bad send-ups of great movies. Maybe these people are so dumb they don't realize what else they could be doing with those little green pieces of paper?

Like go to a museum. I don't mean the one at which Ben Stiller is the night guard, but plenty of folks continue to flock to that one, too: Night at the Museum [my review] was at No. 3 this weekend, earning $9.5 million. Close behind, at No. 4 with $8 million, though on far fewer screens, was Catch and Release [my review]. I guess Jen's gonna be the one changing all the diapers this month ....

How dumb was this weekend? None of the very smart Oscar nominees, even the ones that added screens, could beat Epic Movie's per-screen of $6,854 or Aces' $6,430. Venus came close, with $5,694 on each of 59 screens, as did Pan's Labyrinth [my review] with $5,473 on 823 screens. The best per-screen of the week? Breaking and Entering, the Jude Law-Juliette Binoche drama that was totally snubbed by the Academy: it earned $10,350 on each of two screens. But that still means its total haul for the weekend was less than Epic Movie spent on drool guards for its producers.

(Box office numbers via Box Office Mojo.)

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