Are audiences finally tired of the repetitive nature of the Saw movies? I sure hope so. Saw V was so bad I couldn’t sit all the way through it, and I vowed to never watch another one ever again (though my brother, who went to the latest premiere, said that this one wasn’t half bad – and that coming from someone who rightfully believed that the first Saw movie was absolutely terrible). Even loyal Saw fans were put off by the fifth entry, and that may have led to this round’s decline.

Of course, the real reason Saw VI fell is that it had direct competition in another, more positively received horror movie titled Paranormal Activity, which won the box office weekend with $22 million. The little horror movie that could, which cost only $11,000 to make and $300,000 to purchase, is the quintessential definition of profitability: having earned $62 million so far, it has made back its production costs 5600 time over. More importantly, Paranormal Activity, which is actually scary, has denied Lionsgate the chance to market that “Saw VI is the #1 horror movie in America.”

Of course, next year’s Saw VII, which is already in the works, will reveal whether the failure of Saw VI is a fluke or a trend. Considering that Lionsgate has basically relied on the brand to sell the movies for the last several years, we may see some more intricate marketing to try to attract audiences beyond its core demographic. Let’s hope that the Saw movies will continue to fade – though it will be some time before Lionsgate starts losing money on these ventures. With a production budget of around $10 million, even Saw VI’s meager opening has already put the film in the black.

The other new movies of the weekend were dead on arrival. The Godawful-looking Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant earned a paltry $6.3 million. Twilight, it is not. Astro Boy debuted with only $7 million, and the first real Oscar contender of the fall to open semi-wide, Amelia, fell flat, opening outside the top ten with $4 million and a 17% rotten rating at RottenTomatos. Ouch.

Head on over to the FilmJabber home page for the entire top ten at this weekend’s box office.

Yes, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra overcame incredibly bad buzz and horribly cheesy movie trailers to make $56.2 million in its opening weekend, the fourth-highest August opening ever. This amounts to a per-screen average of over $14,000.

I am floored. With everything that I have seen over the last eight months regarding this money, I was hoping – almost fanatically praying – that audiences would ignore the strong brand name and give it a $20 million opening or so. I thought it was going to be this year’s Speed Racer. But I fell into the trap movie buffs like me can fall into so easily: I took my personal opinions and extended them to expectations for the film’s box office performance. I ignored the fact that Paramount has been marketing this film relentlessly; that they were being very selective about who they screened the movie to; that this movie is, in fact, using one of the strongest toy and cartoon brands out there; and that people will go see mindless action films.

But, America… why?

The only dignity I can hold onto is that despite its fantastic opening, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra is rumored to have cost $200 million (with a lot more spent on marketing) and that it is highly unlikely the film well get to that level. The people who wants to see this movie saw it this weekend; and next weekend, it will plummet over 60%. But I’m no box office expert, so that’s just me hoping.

In other weekend box office news, Julie & Julia opened strong in second with $20.1 million, a pretty good take for a cutesy movie that didn’t seem to have  a very strong hook. Funny People plummeted to fifth with only $7.9 million, making this movie Judd Apatow’s first directorial failure. A Perfect Getaway, despite a 71% fresh rating from the Top Critics, opened in seventh with only $5.8 million – a poor release date and lack of promotion killed this one. Lastly, the excellent romantic film (500) Days of Summer broke into tenth place with $3.7 million against only 817 venues.

For the full list of box office winners and losers, visit the FilmJabber homepage or read Box Office Prophet’s analysis.

The Hangover

Up earned another $30 million, while The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 debuted in third with an okay $25 million. Eddie Murphy’s Imagine That fell flat with only $5.7 million.

I finally posted my Hangover movie review… Read on for more…

In The Hangover, a desperate bride finally reaches her fiancé’s best man five hours before the wedding and is informed that the event is not going to happen. It’s not that the groom, Doug (played by Justin Bartha), has changed his mind; it’s just that his three friends can’t find him, and they don’t remember what happened. Cue the opening credits.

The Hangover is a man’s movie, but not one that resorts to ridiculous over-the-top storytelling for the sake of it. One of the more clever comedies in recent memory, the movie makes us laugh while keeping us guessing as to what happened and where the groom is. After the first scene, the movie jumps back two days to introduce us to the eclectic group of guys that will be taking part in the bachelor party in Vegas. Then, we see is the three “survivors,” played by coolheaded Bradley Cooper, pushover Ed Helms and strangely idiotic Zach Galifianakis (he changed his name when he became an actor, clearly), waking up to find their penthouse suite trashed and burned. Doug’s bed is literally missing, and there is a tiger in the bathroom.

Read the rest of The Hangover movie review.

Few people are crying over this.

Up, the expected box office winner, earned approximately $13 million on Friday, and will most likely wind up at around $40 million for the entire frame, given its rave reviews and family appeal.

The big surprise, however, is The Hangover, a comedy that really hasn’t been marketed all that much despite the fact that it’s from the director of Old School. The R-rated comedy, which is generally receiving good reviews, opened to $16 million on Friday, and could remain #1 throughout the weekend if the cards are played right.

Thanks to Get the Big Picture and Box Office Mojo for the numbers/analysis.

Given just how bad The Da Vinci Code was, and how much more brand recognition that Dan Brown book has versus this one, $48 million can’t really be considered a disappointment; in fact, it’s a little higher than what some analysts were predicting. Still, for a middle-of-May “blockbuster,” $48 million isn’t all that much, and given its rather dismal reviews, strong legs may not be in its future. Expect this one to fade quickly, at least domestically (internationally, the movie has already made over $100 million, so no one can truly consider it a box office disappointment).

Star Trek dropped only 43% in its second weekend, a sign of strong legs. This movie is soon going to surpass X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which made $14.8 million this weekend after a 44% drop, despite starting out with a lower opening weekend a week later.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past continues to show that there is room for counterprogramming, as it dropped 33% to bring its total up to $40 million.

Visit the FilmJabber homepage for the full box office top ten. I get my numbers from Box Office Prophets, who do a great weekend recap each week.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine continues its downward slide, falling another 44% to earn $14.8 million this weekend. To put it another way, despite opening $10 million higher and a week earlier, its $151 million domestic box office take is only $4 million higher than that of Star Trek, and it will be surpassed and left in the dust midweek. Had Fox and Marvel actually devoted some time to make this movie good, this might not be happening.

Anyway, here’s my second-ever video movie review, which looks at X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I definitely have to upgrade from Windows Movie Maker to something a little cooler where I can actually add some B-roll and shit to the production…

If you prefer, you can read my much-more-eloquant Wolverine movie review here.

Star Trek

The final weekend tally, including the Thursday evening numbers, was $79 million.

An even better sign for Paramount was the amount the movie earned on Monday, May 11. Its box office revenue was $7.5 million, much better than Wolverine’s Monday take last week, which was $5.4 million. As a better example, Iron Man last year dropped from its $100 million take to $6.9 on Monday, a much larger percentage drop.

Even though Angels & Demons is going to be big, it’s not going be as disruptive of a competitor as Star Trek was to Wolverine, for instance. In other words, Paramount must be seeing gold.

Paramount must be seeing gold.

This new Star Trek sailed through that number sometime on Saturday, and will finish out the box office weekend with an estimated $76.5 in box office receipts. Saturday’s numbers were higher than Friday’s, indicating that the picture isn’t completely frontloaded due to a fan boy rush, either – which isn’t all that surprising given the general appeal this picture has. For the first time ever, my casual moviegoing friends, including all of my female friends, want to go see a Star Trek film, and that says something.

Sure, $76.5 million isn’t as huge of an opening as last week’s blockbuster blunder X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but no one was expecting it to top that one. However, given that Wolverine plummeted 68% to only $27 million in its second weekend, it’s quite likely that Star Trek – with glowing reviews and strong word of mouth – will surpass the film in a long run.

J.J. Abrams has successfully rebooted the Star Trek franchise, and Trekkies who have been upset about the changes made should rethink their position: it’s either this or nothing, and this is pretty damn good.

In other box office weekend news, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past showed good legs given its lack of competition, as it dropped only 30% to $10 million this weekend. Next Day Air, the only other new release and one that no one has even heard of (I haven’t seen a single commercial or preview) debuted with only $4 million, albeit on just over 1,000 screens.

The big surprise on Friday was The Haunting of Connecticut, the rather crappy horror rip-off starring Virginia Madsen. The haunted house movie scared up close to $10 million on Friday, making me thankful that I saw it for free on Wednesday. Look at $20-25 million for the weekend.

And then there’s John Cena. Poor little boy. Just when he thought his Hollywood career was starting to take off, it crashes and burns. Audiences apparently learned their lesson with The Marine, as Cena’s follow-up, the much-better-looking 12 Rounds, stole less than $2 million from theatergoers on its opening day, meaning it will be lucky to make $5 million over the weekend.

The franchise that never dies has just financed an additional ten films with a three-day opening weekend slaughter of $42 million, leading a pack of other box office successes. The entertaining reboot of Friday the 13th, which went back to roots and offered fans and non-fans – like me – alike enough murders and thrills to meet or exceed expectations, and audiences responded favorably.

As Box Office Prophets put it, this weekend was a perfect storm for the above movie. Friday was, after all, Friday the 13th. Saturday was Valentine’s Day, where both romantic comedies and horror movies prosper. And Sunday was just like another Saturday, as many people have Monday off for President’s Day.

Other successes of the weekend were He’s Just Not That Into You, which took in another $20 million to fend off the $15 million opening of Confessions of a Shopaholic. Considering that Shopaholic is Isla Fisher’s first headlining film and that she was going up against a romantic comedy cast that involved every other actor in Hollywood, it’s not a bad opening. Oh, and it received more bad reviews than Jason did. Ouch.

Two movies that just keep on giving are Taken, which is definitely entertaining, and Paul Blart: Mall Cop, a mvoie that I hear is quite the opposite. The Liam Neeson thriller dropped only a few percent from last week, continuing to defy analysts and guaranteeing at least $100 million in the bank, while the Kevin James slapstick film actually increased seven percent over last weekend. While I’m thrilled about Taken’s success, I am fearing next year’s Paul Blart Strikes Back, and several years down the line, Paul Blart, Jr.

Coraline, the best reviewed film of the year thus far, at least eases my concerns that American audiences are once again swarming to crap while ignoring the good stuff, as it held brilliantly and took in another $15 million. However, Clive Owen’s The International, which had the strongest reviews of the new openers this week, lived up to the expectations the movie trailers set by filching only $10 million.

All in all, it was an amazingly impressive weekend – I suggest you read John Hamann’s analysis at Box Office Prophets. For a full box office ranking of the top ten, head on over to the FilmJabber homepage.