It’s hard for mere mortals like we movie fans to look at numbers like this weekend’s box office and appreciate how anyone could see them as “disappointing.” After all, to most of us, a single million dollars would be an extraordinary windfall — $37.1 million, which is what the weekend’s No. 1 movie, Ocean’s Thirteen, earned, is a number so remote from our experience that it almost ceases to have any connection to the concept of money. And yet even this unimaginable number isn’t enough to make some folks in Hollywood happy: it’s less than both Ocean’s Eleven and Ocean’s Twelve made in their opening weekends. Not a lot less at first glance, granted, but ticket prices are up considerably even from 2004, when O12 was released. You’ll hear studio execs and box office watchers inside the industry pretend to be happy with $37.1 million, but they probably aren’t. [my review of the film]

Disappointment No. 2: the No. 2 film of the weekend, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, earning $21.3 million, down another 52 percent. Used to be, summer blockbusters hung on all summer, but at this rate, the film will be gone from theaters in a month. [my review of the film]

Disappointment No. 3 is a disappointment to me only: Knocked Up held strong this weekend, earning another $20 million, a drop of only 35 percent. I think it’s a terrible movie, and I’m appalled that it’s striking such a chord with audiences, but Universal Studios must be delighted: the film earned back it modest production budget in its first weekend, and everything else after that is gravy. (POTC: AWE, on the other hand, still hasn’t earned back its budget … domestically, anyway. The film is doing gangbusters internationally.)

The other two new releases this weekend must also be considered to have performed poorly: a meager $18 million for the cute animated No. 4 flick Surf’s Up means, probably, that the film will never connect with usually reliable kids-and-families audience that is typically practically built in for movies like this. But perhaps we can hope that the disastrous debut of Hostel Part II, at No. 6 with only $8.8 million, heralds the beginning of the end for torture-porn movies. *fingers crossed*

The best per-screen of the weekend? That goes to the Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose, which more than doubled Ocean’s Thirteen‘s per-screen, earning $21,500 on each of eight screens. Go, Edith.

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MaryAnn Johanson (email me)
reviews, reviews, reviews! at FlickFilosopher.com