Jon Schnaars's blog

For the second week in a row, no one film took film goers by storm, but a wide variety of films did admirably enough to bring home a tidy sum. In terms of total revenue, April 2009 has been killing April 2008 -- to the tune of nearly a 40-50% increase -- and aside from "Fast and Furious" it's done it without a real monster film. The last three number ones? "Hannah Montana," "17 Again," and then this week's "Obsessed."

Why does it feel like I only watched 22 minutes of Lost tonight? Let's dig in and find out.

Episode: "Some Like it Hoth"

If you've landed at this post, I'd take a wild stab and say that you might have trouble naming the number one film at the box office this weekend. Hell, I was downright shocked when I looked it up myself. Largely that's a function of it not being "for us," but it's also a function of this week's releases not getting a ton of wattage from the hype machine. Sure, there was the "Observe and Report" brouhaha over date rape, but that certainly didn't help the film at the box office.

A mediocre Kate episode is followed up by a doozy of a Ben episode. Time to run it back.

Episode: "Dead is Dead"

Somewhere a Universal film executive is having a very good weekend. "Fast & Furious," a movie so high concept that it demanded to be made four times, just set a new record for an April release. Not only that, but it's $72 million bests the previous April high - set by "Anger Management" in 2003 - by $30 million. "Furious" had plenty of breathing room in the top spot, but a second strong showing by "Monsters vs.

With episode 11 of the fifth season, we're really moving into home-stretch territory, which is typically when things start to really crank up. We got the beginnings of that here...

Episode: "Whatever Happened, Happened"

In what may be a landmark first, the top three films at this past weekend's box office were all (at least marginally) genre themed releases. Leading the way in what was an extremely strong weekend overall was "Monsters vs. Aliens," a 3-D tribute to creature features past as well as a big budget animated kids film. It was also the largest opening of the year thus far, beating out "Watchmen" by roughly 10%, with a total of $59 million. "M vs.

Though the folks behind "Disaster Movie" apparently didn't get the memo, the genre has been in decline for sometime. The last legitimate success, "The Day After Tomorrow," came five years ago, opened at #2, and only really entered the win column with a very strong overseas showing.

After several episodes where the twists were coming fast and furious, here we find newly established storylines charging full-steam ahead.

Episode: "Namaste"

The box office cooled off a bit this week, which shouldn't come as a surprise. The "Watchmen" build-up had reached almost intolerable levels going into last weekend, and movie goers and industry types all probably just needed a weekend off from feeding at the trough of hype. There were a trio of new releases though, including the "Last House on the Left" remake, which became the sixth horror release of 2009.