Box Office Numbers. What's Yours?

I have important questions to ask Hollywood and you...

Chart via Box Office Mojo

To Hollywood:

• Who greenlit $125 million for a remake of Total Recall without a star as bankable as Ahnuld? 
• Why don't you make more smart but mainstream adult productions as cheap as Magic Mike and then actually promote them well so they become big hits instead of just releasing them in 5 theaters and hoping for the best? The profit margins are pretty big with this one. Consider that it's already earned 15 times its budget and that doesn't even include home video where it will be an even bigger hit or any foreign box office yet since it hasn't gone international.  

To You:

• How many of this week's top 12 have you seen?
• How much life does The Dark Knight Rises (reviewed) still have in it? It's $43 million behind The Dark Knight and $103 million behind The Avengers at this same 17th day point in their runs.
• What do you think the semi-success of Moonrise Kingdom means for Wes Anderson? It didn't reach Tenenbaums popularity but it sure held on with word of mouth and will be much bigger in ten years time the way so many "acquired taste" movies are.

Speaking of numbers... Last night I was in one of those crap movie moods. Do you ever get those? It was too hot to be outside and I just wanted to see something stupid while laying on the couch. So I watched What's Your Number?

Well, I did ask for stupid. It's my own damn fault.

I did not, however, ask for relentlessly sexist and offensive. Women who have slept with more than 10 men in their lifetime -- even if they're gorgeous urban singles in their early 30s who've been to college-- are apparently "sluts"? It's one of those movies where if you switch the genders in your head it makes absolutely zero sense. Nobody would ever understand a movie wherein the plot involves a guy who feels guilty about having had more than 10 girlfriends and his friends all think he's an embarassment because of it so he vows to give up sex because THAT'S FAR TOO MANY! 

The plot and politics were so terrible (and predictable) that it even made it hard to enjoy the otherwise good cast though I did laugh at Anthony Mackie's crude gesture as a closeted gay and Blythe Danner's exasperation of the high strung mother of the bride. I felt so bad for Anna Faris and Chris Evans while watching it but, then again, they did sign on so they can't not have known what they were getting into. So shame on them, too. 

P.S. Remember that bizarrely misguided moment in Chris Evans career wherein his management team announced that he was no longer going to take his shirt off? Ha! That didn't last long.

Maybe their numbers from commissions on his movie offers immediately dried up? 

You think?