It’s great fun looking at the weekend’s box office totals — particularly if you focus on the lower end, not the top.
Take this past weekend. Instead of worrying about King Kong’s financial health, look at the film that finished in last place: something called Ellie Parker, starring the pulchritudinous Australian Naomi Watts. (Who, ironically, also stars in “King Kong.”)
It’s apparently not that great a movie, although Ebert seemed to like it. But it certainly didn’t deserve a weekend take as demeaning as what it received: Its total gross box office was $62.
As in, less money than I have in my wallet right now. As in, what, maybe eight people total saw the movie over an entire weekend? Despite cameos by Keanu Reeves and Chevy Chase? Sad.
Although I must say that a key plot point — a man has sex with Naomi Watts and, at that moment, realizes he is gay because he spent the entire act thinking of Johnny Depp — seems to push the bounds of reality. The act of having sex with Naomi Watts, I would imagine, crosses all lines of sexual proclivity and would be enjoyable by all, would it not?
I mean, I remember this guy in college who was a devout heterosexual, but also a devout David Bowie fan. He was such a fan that, if at some future date David Bowie decided he wanted to have sex with him, he’d be fine with it. “I mean, we’re talking David Bowie!” he said. “Of course I’d have sex with him!” I like to think of Naomi Watts as the gay analog.