Weekend Box Office

Nobody knows anything, unless they look at the numbers.

William Goldman is one of the most brilliant and successful screenwriters who ever lived, but even more remarkable than that is he boiled down to three words the reason why executives pour money into projects that fail and little independents become blockbusters: NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING. This weekend served as an illustration of that axiom.

Spy Kids: All The Time In The World opened at #3 with $11 million. This you could have actually seen coming. #4 was a 3D remake of Conan The Barbarian, which brought in $10 million but reportedly cost 3 times what Spy Kids did. Fright Night, another remake (where have you gone, William Ragsdale?) made about $8 million at #6 and a little independent from Focus called One Day came in at #9 with $5 mil.

So what about the top slots? #2 was last week's #1, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a 3D science fiction epic. What could possibly do better? Last week's #2 movie, a civil-rights era weepie based on a best-selling novel even though everybody knows that people don't read nowadays.

Here's to you, William Goldman.