Lady in the Water Sinks At Box Office

Posted on July 24, 2006

M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water didn't fare well at the box office in its opening weekend. It took in only $18,210,000. The film cost $55 million to make, and certainly the studio was expecting a much bigger return. One problem is that the movie is being marketed as a horror film, and it's not. It's a fairy tale that M. Night made up as a bedtime story for his children. Although it has some scary elements, it's certainly no horror film.

Pirates of the Caribbean ruled at the box office again, bringing its total take to date up to $321,733,000. In second place was Sony's animated Monster House, which took in a respectable $23,000,000.

You, Me and Dupree showed some staying power, coming in at fourth, putting its total box office take at $45,318,000. It cost $54 million to make, and after DVD sales it will definitely be profitable. Two films that did not fare well on opening weekend were Clerks II ($9,625,000) and My Super Ex-Girlfriend ($8,700,000).

Some buzz about My Super Ex-Girlfriend indicates that women do like the two stars of the film but they really dislike the premise of the film: that Uma Thurman's character is basically crazy. A script retooling would have helped here: making the screenplay more of a madcap comedy, perhaps Uma's character finds her fiance in a horribly compromising position (through no fault of his own) so that she has a good reason to get revenge. Hilarious misunderstandings ensue and there's a happy ending as Luke's character is exonerated. But in the current script, she's just overly needy and obnoxious. In fact a lot of women feel the movie is quite misogynistic. Which is a shame, because this film could have been very funny, indeed.

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