Image Credit: Barry Wetcher; Everett Collection
Now this has to be one of the oddest box office happenings since Mary Hart first beamed up her Miss America sparkle on Entertainment Tonight. I mean, really: When was the last time an actor starred in two movies that took the number one and number two slots — and he still looked like a loser? Hard to say, but that’s exactly what happened to the foppishly eccentric British cutup Russell Brand this week. He starred in a remake of Arthur, the drunken-rich-goofball romantic comedy that people still remember fondly from 30 years ago, when it featured the spit-take giggles of Dudley Moore. The movie — let’s not beat around the martini shaker — opened with a resounding thud. It’s not just that the $12.5 million it made was significantly below the $18 million that had been predicted. It’s that the $18 million “expectation” was itself a rather pathetic lowball figure, at least for a project that had the nostalgic pedigree, the built-in audience affection, and the ’80s-update curiosity factor that Arthur did — and one that was clearly geared to launch Brand into orbit as a major brand. READ FULL STORY »
