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Ah, there it was. Predicatability.

Now, because I’m a glutton for punishment, here’s a little something called Monday Morning Box Office Quarterback, where we can look back at the weekend that was and marvel at the shenanigans that go on. Follow along at Box Office Mojo, which you should be looking at anyway.

Click takes the #1 spot, which should surprise no one at all. Sandler can still deliver butts in seats. $40M worth of butts in seats is a bit of a surprise, however, and he should be happy as hell about that. Sony should be pleased as hell about that, since they’ve already scored half the production budget and regardless, Sandler movies have long shelf life on DVD.

Cars still comes in at #2, and I’m still baffled why people are surprised this isn’t performing to Nemo standards. It’s about racing, for God’s sake. I know that’s huge in some parts of the country, but it’s probably easier to compare to Incredibles, which was also based on a niche idea: namely, the knights of the spandex. Cars should continue to perform reasonably well and will do well in DVD. Case closed.

Nacho Libre drops a given 57% (standard is 50% to 60%) and has maybe one or two weeks left in lots of cinemas before it fades away to a quick DVD release. If Paramount was smart, they knew this, but that’s a big If. Jack Blacks also has huge DVD shelf life, so they’ll be fine. What will be interesting to see is how this plays outside the States.

Waist Deep, the Tyrese Gibson-starring, Vondie Curtis-Hall helmed crime thriller, comes in at #4 and actually performed really damn well. Whereas Click was doing $10K a screen, this did $9K. And opened in a third of Sandler’s cinemas. So rock on with their bad selves.

Tokyo Drift astounded people not by coming in at #5 but by simply being made in the first place. Expect the fourth installment of the franchise to go direct to video. Somebody call Casper Van Dien. He’s a hella nice guy and we should keep him working.

The Lake House continues to underperform, teaching Keanu the lesson he should have learned with Sweet November, but here it’s facing up to the fact that Somewhere in Time has already been made and is readily available for rental.

Speaking of rental, The Break-Up‘s DVD sales will be nothing but gravy, as they’ve topped their production budget and showing that sometimes people just want a romantic comedy. I’m personally very happy that Jennifer Aniston will be known as having a career and not just “That chick Brad Pitt dumped.” You might think that’s harsh, but that’s the only reason GQ named her Woman of the Year which is pretty freaking sad. But, the pics were hot. So on the other hand, I’m not too torn up about it. Garfield 2 gives Bill Murray a paycheck. And because of that, we can’t be too terribly hard on it.

Last but least we get X3 and DaVinci Code. Code has gotten its ass kicked in the final round by X3, which is kinda sad considering the whole lead-up. People probably heard the reviews that said, “It’s just like the book!” Knowing that the book was dog crap, they figured they’d wait for DVD. Now, they’re happy it’ll probably end up with 3/4 of a billion worldwide, but that’s about it. X3 is still an underperformer, but it’s done enough to guarantee a fourth movie. They’d be smarter sending Magneto direct to video, and maybe doing Wolverine as a lead-in to X4, which, despite all the hemming and hawing, will happen. God knows what the team will look like but whatever it is, it’s got to be better than anything Marvel’s printing right now, and that makes all the difference.

So that’s your box office report. Check out Box Office Mojo for all your box office comparisons and bitch session ammo needs. Join us next time where we can talk about how badly Superman Returns underperformed at the box office. That’s one prognostication I will stick my hat on.

Special thanks to Exit Mindbomb for letting me use “Godzilla Will Rule You” from their album Happy Accident for my new WGO music. Check them out on MySpace here and I tried to link up as many songs as I could here.

Widgett Walls is the chief cook and bottle washer for Needcoffee.com. He’s also the author of Mystics on the Road to Vanishing Point and Magnificent Desolation. His personal blog is at OneTusk.com. He lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. He hardly ever sleeps.

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