Franny’s on Flatbush Avenue was possibly the best pizza I’ve had in the U.S., Gala Manor in Flushing was definitely the best dim sum I’ve eaten in this country, the projected fall in Wall-E box office is 61 percent (July 4th is a tough weekend but ouch!), and wars of independence are easiest to justify when the population is still relatively small and the nation state is not yet built. Call it investment. Quasi-independence or full independence was inevitable so the real question is whether North America would be better off if Florida remained a Spanish colony and the Louisiana Purchase had never happened. That said, American independence was probably very bad for native Americans and blacks and of course that rent transfer is part of what motivated independence. I am preparing a lecture on The Merchant of Venice and, via Eduardo Pegurier, here is All the Water in the World.
You need to have Pepe’s and Modern Apizza in New Haven before you write about the best pizza you’ve ever had… they truly make superior pies. Pepe’s has been doing it for 83 years, and Modern was founded by a former cook there. Go give a talk at Yale and eat the best pizza you’ve ever had.
Not sure where you got your numbers, but those I saw showed Wall-E only dropped from $63 million to 33– less than a 50% drop and right about what one would expect for a hit with good word of mouth.
Heck, its total box office has now surpassed that of the Hulk, which pulled in $55 million its opening weekend and has been out for 4 weekends now.
Wall-E is a commercial success.
The figure you cite is for the Friday one-day totals, comparing the take from Friday, July 4th to the film’s opening day. It did well over the weekend.
Tyler, thanks for this wonderful hodgepodge of information. Regarding “The Merchant of Venice”, I strongly recommend Dick Posner’s book “Law and Literature” which has a chapter devoted to it.
PS: you were right about Wall-E: it’s really for adults and not children, though kids will like the animation and the robots
Franny’s and Gala Manor, with links, at TCEDG
On “Merchant of Venice” I strongly recomend John Gross’ “Shylock: A Legend and its Legacy.”
Curious to hear what your lecture is about, exactly? The rise of insurance? Elizabethan money-lending practices?
I’m serious.
Using Box Office Mojo’s data for this and previous weekends, Wall-E’s projected drop of 47.0% (figure not yet finalized) is at the lower end of the range of second-weekend drops in gross revenue for major (number 1 or near number 1) movies:
Wanted: -59.5%
Get Smart: -47.8%
The Incredible Hulk: -60.1%
Kung Fu Panda: -44.2%
Sex and the City: -62.8%
Indiana Jones/Crystal Skull: -55.3%
Narnia/Prince Caspian: -58.6%
Iron Man: -48.1%
Most people go on opening weekend, nothing new here.
See this list for biggest second-weekend drops
Biggest second-weekend drop of 2008 among major movies: Cloverfield, at -68.3%
Here is a related and broader question to ponder: would most of us Americans be worse off or better off if America had never broken from the U.K.? Forget rent transfers, my relatives arrived after that event, as did most of the readers of this blog, I suspect.
brainwarped,
My wife and I went to see Wall-E last week. One of the better movies I’ve seen. Definitely worth going. More about it on my blog if interested.
If you like Forrest Gump you’ll probably like Wall-E
The danger is that we would have declared independence later. Canada is fine but if the us had declared independence on the schedule of Ireland or India, would we have allied with Britain in the world wars or cold war?
Ireland and India both had majority colonized populations — the majority of the US comprises the colonizers.
Some time round about 1944, as a British child in the USA, I realised that the long term effect of the American War of Independence had been to establish the independence of Britain. Without the War of Independence, a confederal empire would probably have developed, with its drive and effective center increasingly in Nortnh America.
Box Office Prophets update:
Cars opened to a similar $60.1 million, and fell 44% in its second weekend, which was just a quiet weekend in June with no holiday to deal with. I think Pixar and Disney will be quite pleased with the second weekend of WALL-E. It now has a ten-day total of $128.1 million, crossing the $100 million mark on Friday, its eighth day of release. That ties Finding Nemo as the fastest Pixar flick to reach $100 million. WALL-E will have no problem becoming Pixar’s seventh film to earn $200 million.
The final figure for Wall-E’s second-weekend gross revenue drop: -48.5%
Comments on this entry are closed.