The Grosses: Everybody Flops! ‘The Help’ Wins By Default!

Will Leitch
·Editor

Top Five (Full list)
1. "The Help" $20,479,000 ($71,801,000)
2. "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" $16,300,000 ($133,764,000)
3. "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World" $12,020,000 ($12,020,000)
4. "Conan the Barbarian" $10,000,000 ($10,000,000)
5. "The Smurfs" $8,000,000 ($117,745,000)

First Place. By the time "The Amazing Spider-Man" comes out next year, audiences are going to wonder who the heck that weird skinny teenager hanging out with Skeeter is. "The Help" dropped only 21 percent off its opening week and pretty much secured itself of official August Sleeper Hit status ... and probably an Oscar nomination in five months. Also, its second-week success serves as a handy peg for every Week Of Box Office Carnage story this morning.

YOU FLOPPED. [sad trombone] Mass destruction! Three new 3-D movies, and three flops, which is 10 dimensions of flop, assuming you include the "Spy Kids' fourth dimension of smell-o-vision. (Because of course olfactory sensations are a whole other dimension.) "Spy Kids 4D?" Crash! "Conan the Barbarian?" Kerplooey! "Fright Night?" Squish! "Fright Night" couldn't even pass "The Smurfs." And even "One Day," the Anne Hathaway romance that received a smaller release, tanked as well. Deadline is trying to figure out what happened, but we dunno, it's August? Who wants to see a vampire movie in August? Or a Barbarian movie? Or a movie in which you can scratch a card and smell a diaper? We'll confess some relief: Some weeks, we have nothing to fill this YOU FLOPPED category. This week, gluttony.

Impressive Bridesmaid. At one point, we guessed that "Crazy, Stupid, Love" would end up being the July 29 film that grossed the most, but boy, the kids still love "The Smurfs." It's somehow still in the top five -- while "Cowboys & Aliens" gasps to reach the $100 million mark -- which means our dream of having Tim Gunn play the villain in the sequel remains tantalizingly within reach.

Tiny Dancer. We think we remember a time when the release of a John Sayles movie was something of an event, at least for dorks like us. This was probably about 15 years ago, unless you're kind and include "Sunshine State." Anyway, "Amigo" made $40,000 on 10 screens and will never be heard from again, unless Chris Cooper becomes a matinee idol once "The Muppets" comes out.

Next Week's Contestants. A non-CGI'd Zoe Saldana kicks many people in the head in "Colombiana." Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce have a terrified child in "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark." And Paul Rudd desperately needs a haircut in "Our Idiot Brother." Also, "Midnight In Paris" gets expanded again. Four more flop opportunities!