Box Office Bloodbath: The Help Cleans Up.

This weekend was a bloodbath for new releases, and not because Conan the Barbarian and Fright Night's Jerry the vampire were spilling so much of it. Both of them bombed. Though I enjoyed Fright Night, can we at least hope that the combined failure here makes Hollywood question the need to remake every 80s hit? Maybe not. With The Smurfs chuggling along nicely despite virtually no one enjoying it, we'll still get name brand regurgitation until all of them start bombing. 

Box Office U.S. Top Ten (estimates)

01 THE HELP [review] $20 (cum $71.3)
02 RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES [articles] $16.1 (cumulative $133.5) 
03 SPY KIDS: ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD $11.6 
04 CONAN THE BARBARIAN $10 
05 THE SMURFS $7.8 (cum $117.5)
06 FRIGHT NIGHT [review] $7.7 
07 FINAL DESTINATION 5 $7.7 (cum $32.3)
08 30 MINUTES OR LESS $6.3 (cum $25.8)
09 ONE DAY $5.0 
10 CRAZY STUPID LOVE [articles] $4.7 (cum $64.2)

Three Talking Points:
Emma Stone hits are bookending the top ten this week, her star shines ever brighter.

In fact, though one can hardly name Emma the reason for its success, The Help barely dropped at all, doing a rare climb to the number one spot after its debut week (a rarity). In other words, it's shaping up to be a long legged big hit. And people are still definitely talking about it, even if it's mostly to call each other names (such as: this article which has upset some people.) 

The biggest news though occured outside the top ten as Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris crossed the $50 million mark this week. To celebrate, Sony Pictures Classics announced that the comeback hit will be going wide AGAIN (even more of a rarity) next weekend.

Shall we celebrate?

If so, how?

If you haven't yet seen it, here's your last (theatrical) chance essentially. Movies don't generally lose hundreds of theaters and then return to them but the film has had such great legs that SPC is obviously bullish about its Oscar chances at this point. If you don't adjust for inflation this is Woody's biggest US hit ever and if you don't adjust for inflation it will soon be his second biggest hit ever worldwide where it has grossed $84 million; any second now it will pass Match Point though surpassing Vicky Cristina Barcelona's nearly $100 million take might still be a considerable challenge.

What did you see this weekend? Are you also bullish on Midnight's Oscar chances at this point?