Here are the movie box office numbers for last weekend. 1. The Messengers – $14.7 million. 2. Because I Said So – $13.1 million. 3. Epic Movie – $8.4 million. 4. Night At The Museum – $6.4 million. 5. Smokin’ Aces – $6.1 million. 6. Stomp The Yard – $4.1 million. 7. Dreamgirls – $4.0 million. 8. Pan’s Labyrinth – $3.7 million. 9. Pursuit Of Happyness – $3.0 million. 10. The Queen – $2.7 million.
Things are about to get going with American Idol as the auditions are over and we’re on to the Hollywood episodes. The previews for next week make it look like we’re ready for a wild week. As far as this week, good episodes. The montage of clips of the people going out the wrong door was very funny. I think that is going to have to be the new catchphrase, “other door”. In other Idol news, Katharine McPhee’s debut CD sold 116,000 copies in its first week debuting at number two on the chart. Number one was Norah Jones’ new album with 405,000 copies sold and third place was Chris Daughtry with 77,000 copies sold. Comparing Katharine’s sales to all the other second place Idol finishers first albums, she is right in the middle of all of them with Clay Aiken and Bo Bice selling more while Diana DeGarmo and Justin Guarini sold less.
Well, the Super Bowl didn’t go my way. I did get to cheer on that opening kickoff as the Bears ran it back for a touchdown off the opening kickoff. The Colts are Super Bowl champions. On to the commercials. They were all right this year. I didn’t really like a ton of them but Budweiser once again stood on top as the best commercials. It was proven that you don’t have to have this huge budget or have these super qualified advertising people to make commercials. The Doritos commercial was made by contest winners. They only did one take of the commercial as they were on such big time restraints on getting it done. It was shot and edited in 4 days. Then, the one girl made the Chevy commercial as it was her concept. The girl was all over the media the next day. The commercial did take $1.5 million to make which shocked her as she didn’t know it cost that much until it was revealed in an interview. Can you imagine seeing a commercial that you made air on the Super Bowl? Amazing. What was with the sad ones? The one with the dog that just kept getting run off and treated badly was SAD. It tugged on the heartstrings when the dog got splashed with the water. Happy ending to it though. Then, the one with the robot was sad too. Here are the top ten results for the fan voting in the USA Today Super Bowl commercial poll. It is a panel of 238 people that electronically score each commercial as they happen on what they feel about them.
USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter
- Budweiser – Crabs worship Bud ice chest.
- Budweiser – Stray dog and Clydesdales
- Bud Light – Rock, Paper, Scissors
- Doritos – Guy in car, girl show Dorito qualities
- Bud Light – Immigrants learn to ask for Bud Light
- Bud Light – Wedding shortened by auctioneer
- Bud Light – Ape loses out on beer while posing
- FedEx – FedEx truck on the moon
- Snickers – Mechanics enjoy candy bar
- Bud Light – Scary hitcher gets ride for Bud Light
The new Indiana Jones movie is set for a May 22, 2008 release. Also being released on that same Memorial Day weekend will be the Speed Racer movie.
Nielsen has begun counting college kids in their ratings system beginning last week. It had been talked about that college kids away from home aren’t being counted on what they are watching while being in the 18-34 target demographic. I’m not sure how they are counting them but several shows across a ton of networks did have more viewers last week. MTV, Comedy Central, and Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim all added more viewers. Here is a link to the article if you’re interested.
http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=31459
Top 10 DVD movie rentals for last week were: 1. The Marine. 2. Open Season. 3. Flyboys. 4. Saw III. 5. The Guardian. 6. Employee Of The Month. 7. Crank. 8. Gridiron Gang. 9. The Illusionist. 10. One Night With The King.
Survivor Fiji premiered tonight. Good premiere and I think this cast will be good. The cast was dropped off on the island and then had a package dropped from an airplane. Inside were details on how to build a shelter. Later, the tribes were split into two by who the tribe considered to be leader. She separated them and then a twist was revealed that she would be going to exile island. The tribes then competed for immunity and the winner not only got immunity but got to live in the newly built shelter. The losing tribe would have to go to a new beach and start completely over. Going home tonight was Jessica. What in the world was that one guy, Dreamz, thinking? Survivor 101 says don’t completely annoy every cast member on the first night. It’s a good thing that his tribe didn’t lose cause I’m sure he had to be going home.
I haven’t watched any of the Road Rules or Real World challenges in many years but I did watch a little bit of the new Road Rules. I tuned in mainly cause there were actually people on it that I knew. I used to LOVE Real World and Road Rules back in the beginning when the shows were about social experiments and not about how many men or women cast members could hook up with. The Las Vegas season completely turned me off although I did come back for the Paris season which I did enjoy. I haven’t watched any of them since. Anyway, most of the cast members that I remember don’t do the challenges anymore. I tuned in the other night and saw Suzie and Veronica. Suzie was my favorite from the Australia Road Rules season. Veronica is always good TV. I still remember when Veronica was taunting Amaya in the football game in the 2000 challenge and Amaya slammed her. Pretty funny. I’m not really clear on the rules of this new season so it sounds like these new cast members could get put into the game immediately which would probably make me tune back out.
Good episode of How I Met Your Mother this week. If you haven’t watched it yet, you may want to skip this paragraph for spoilers. The gang all had a tradition of watching the Super Bowl together. This year goes wrong though when they end up having to attend a funeral. The problem with that is that they don’t even know the person at first but get pressure put on them to go since the person liked them. They decide to TIVO the Super Bowl and watch it on delay when they get home. They end up having to stay longer than they plan at the get together after the funeral. The gang decides to stay with tradition and make a pact to do the impossible, a media blackout, meaning that they will avoid all media to avoid the score until 6:00 the next night. This is a problem for Robin especially who is a newscaster. She tries to shut down sports being talked about as the Super Bowl is for sure to be recapped. She puts her fingers in her ears the whole time the sports guy is talking. Marshall goes to Lilly’s classroom thinking it will be the safest place to hide out. A kid makes Marshall pay him $10 or he will tell him the result but then continues to blackmail him on threatening to tell him the result. Marshall finally gets fed up with him and squirts his drink on the kid’s pants saying that he was going to tell the rest of the class that the kid wet his pants if he didn’t stop. Ted goes to the sports bar to get food but wears a cover on his ears and eyes to avoid seeing or hearing anything. Barney goes crazy as he placed a bet on the game and ends up begging people on the street for the result of the game. Barney runs into Emmitt Smith who doesn’t know the result saying he forgot there was a game last night. All he was thinking lately was “dance”. Funny. It does end up getting spoiled for Robin, Marshall, and Lilly. Robin accidentally hears it on the news. Lilly and Marshall hear it on the janitor’s radio. Barney ends up going to the newsstand and getting a newspaper. He tears it to pieces when he realizes the team he bet on, lost the game. They all show up and Ted is the only one to avoid the results. Barney spoils it for him though when he goes in the bedroom and starts yelling over the money he lost. Ted knows what team he bet on so he knows who won. They decide to still hang out and watch the commercials and “watch Barney lose some money on this game”. Funny episode on a funny concept of trying to avoid a score. I used to do this with Bulls games years ago and it is an extremely frustrating thing to attempt to do. Super Bowl though is multiplied by 100.
TBS has started doing something different with their programming and it drives me nuts. Here is what they are doing. Let’s say a show or a movie is ending. When the credits start to roll, the show or movie coming on next then starts up. Basically, one thing is ending and another is starting on the screen together. It is extremely annoying especially if you are trying to record a show on there.
I watched the first episode of the new Rob and Amber: Against The Odds reality show on Fox Reality. The show centers around Survivor and Amazing Race reality stars, Rob and Amber. Rob decides that he would like to try and be a professional poker player. Amber doesn’t go for it at all but after talking to people about it, she reluctantly decides to support him on it.
SoapNet is going to start showing all seasons of One Tree Hill and The O.C. beginning on April 9. The cost for the rights to these shows is reported to be a total of $30 million. This will change up the afternoon schedule for shows which will see Beverly Hills 90210 move to 2pm and 3pm. One Tree Hill will air at 4pm followed by The O.C. at 5pm.
TV on DVD releases for Tuesday, February 13th. All In The Family (Season 6), Beauty and the Beast (Season 1), Cobra (Complete Series), Emergency! (Season 3), Fat Friends (Season 1), Golden Girls (Season 7), Grosse Point (Complete Series), The Hills (Season 1), Hustle (Season 2), The Last Of The Mohicans (Mini-Series), Men Behaving Badly (Complete Series), Reno 911! (Reno’s Most Wanted Uncensored), Zoey 101 (Season 1).
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