Ferrell’s “Other Guys” tops box office

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 12:41:00 +0000

"The Other Guys" are the main guys at the box office, knocking off "Inception" to take the No. 1 spot.

The buddy-cop parody starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg made $35.6 million in its opening weekend, according to Sunday estimates from Sony Pictures.

It's the second-highest debut for a film in which Ferrell has starred, and yet another strong showing for the movies he's made with his frequent collaborator, writer-director Adam McKay. Their biggest opening was "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," which debuted at No. 1 with $47 million in August 2006. "Step Brothers" made $30.9 million and came in second place when it opened in July 2008. And their first film together, "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," opened in second place in July 2004 with $28.4 million.

"Inception," which had been the top film in the country the past three weeks, fell to No. 2 with $18.6 million. Christopher Nolan's mind-bending dream thriller from Warner Bros. has now made $227.7 million since its debut July 16.

“The Other Guys”: A late-summer cop-comedy surprise

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:20:00 +0000

For its first few minutes, the new cop comedy "The Other Guys" seems like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie mainlining a blend of crystal meth and Colt 45. It features Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as a pair of macho, swaggering supercops who kick ass and destroy property. They take down a drug gang by driving a New York tour bus -- with a vintage Chevelle muscle car jammed through it sideways -- into a glass-fronted Manhattan building, causing one of those massive fireballs from which action stars always emerge unscathed.

At the ensuing press conference on the steps of City Hall, a gushing reporter asks Danson (Johnson), "Are the rumors about you and Kim Kardashian true?" Doing his best smooth-operator Barack Obama impression, Johnson responds, "No comment -- but yes!", cracking everybody up. You might barely notice the movie's first surprise, when another reporter asks the duo whether it was worth causing all that mayhem and destruction to arrest a carload of Rastafarians holding a quarter-pound of pot. (They blow it off: "We'll let New York City decide that! Greatest city in the world, yo!") You'll definitely notice the second one, when, let's just say, Danson and his partner Highsmith (Jackson) make an unexpected exit from the film, leaving room for a new pair of NYPD alpha dogs.

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Ferrell’s “Other Guys” tops box office

“The Other Guys”: A late-summer cop-comedy surprise