Word: squeakquel
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Dates: during 2009-2009
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Explain to me, then, why Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel earned more than $75 million in its first five days of release. Was the boffo gross due to brand recognition after the 2007 movie about Simon, Theodore and Alvin was a hit? But that's no guarantor of success; the Stuart Little, Scooby-Doo and Garfield sequels all tanked. Were parents seeking a celluloid babysitter over the Christmas holiday? They could have taken the cherubs to The Princess and the Frog or Disney's A Christmas Carol, worthy efforts that, together, took in only about a fifth...
What's really frustrating about Squeakquel is the pedigree of some of the movie's perps. I don't mean the director, Betty Thomas, the Hill Street Blues actress who helmed one good movie (the Howard Stern Private Parts) before loading her résumé with the sort of dispiriting comedies (Doctor Dolittle, 28 Days, I Spy, John Tucker Must Die) that help give a bad name to the movies shown on airplanes. Instead, consider the stars who lend their voices to the Chipettes: Christina Applegate, Amy Poehler and Anna Faris, smart comediennes all. As for the movie...
...Squeakquel seems not to have been written so much as manufactured from an unwarranted pride in the first Alvin and desperation about what to do next. (If the director played by Daniel Day-Lewis in Nine had seen this movie, his sudden awareness of what the competition was producing would have instantly unblocked his creative sinuses.) The picture's single triumph, true to the mercantile nature of the enterprise, is thunderously obvious product placement. During one of their many demolition scenes, the Chipmunks perform the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" while opening a bag of Utz Cheese Balls. The whole...
Getting a jump on the Christmas competition, The Squeakquel opened Wednesday, nabbed a quick $18.8 million and knocked the reigning champ, Avatar, out of the No. 1 slot. The Cameron picture came back to the top the next day. Then on Friday Sherlock Holmes, Guy Ritchie's reworking of the Conan Doyle detective as a brainiac with a brawler's fists, hit the theaters and set a $24.8 million Christmas Day record, beating last year's Marley and Me by more than $10 million - and Avatar by about $1 million. On Saturday, Cameron again bounced back...
...Avatar, $75 million; $212.3 million, second week 2. Sherlock Holmes, $65.4 million, first weekend 3. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, $50.2 million; $77.1 million, first five days 4. It's Complicated, $22.1 million, first weekend 5. Up in the Air, $11.8 million; $24.5 million, fourth week 6. The Blind Side, $11.7 million; $184.4 million, sixth week 7. The Princess and the Frog, $8.7 million; $63.4 million, fifth week 8. Nine, $5.5 million; $5.9 million, second week 9. Did You Hear About the Morgans?, $5 million; $15.6 million, second week 10. Invictus, $4.4 million; $23.4 million, third week...