Living Dead Unseat Reborn
This is a bit surprising: Dawn of the Dead replaced The Passion as the #1 box office draw this weekend. Looking down the list, however, I see that the Dead distributors wisely picked an excellent week to release the film. The only other major releases were the dubious-looking Taking Lives and the promising-looking Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The latter’s success depends on a classic word-of-mouth campaign, and was released in about half of the theatres that Dead was shown in.
As a result, Dawn of the Dead gets great press for topping out the box office. I’m not sure why people are going to this movie–it’s pretty much your average zombie flick, and 28 Days Later is superior in every way. I’d say that Dead and Taking Lives had similar consumer visibility, and I would have thought that Ms. Jolie, Mr. Hawke and Mr. Sutherland would have more draw than Sarah Polley (did my favourite indie starlet need some cash?) and Ving Rhames. Plus, with Angelina as the straight girl’s favourite fantasy, I would have assumed Taking Lives had more cross-gender appeal.
But, then, I went to Dawn of the Dead this weekend, too.
