The new Eddie Murphy comedy Norbit has a big box office weekend with 33 million dollars, crushing the competition. The people over at yahoo.com tell us the details:
Movie fans couldn’t pass up three Eddie Murphys for the price of one. Murphy’s comedy “Norbit,” in which he plays three wildly different roles, opened as the top weekend movie with $33.7 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The movie was trashed by critics, but the lure of Murphy again handling multiple roles as he did in “Coming to America” and “The Nutty Professor” proved irresistible. Murphy plays mild-mannered Norbit, his grossly overweight and overbearing wife and a Chinese orphanage owner who raised him.
With the other major competition being Hannibal Rising (which apparently is wretched) I guess nobody should be too shocked that Norbit took the box office. It is always a surprise when a movie like this does so well, but maybe people just wanted to forget politically correctness and laugh at fat jokes and asian jokes all weekend. Is that right? No. But is it their right to do so? Yes it is.
When I talk to the average person about what kind of movies they like to watch often the biggest wish is a nice, light comedy, something to escape the drear of their daily life which is filled with so many scare tactics brought to us by the news media. I can understand that. Myself mostly I like horror movies and “think films”, and odd combination when I stop to consider. I like to scream my guts out and then contemplate life.
What is clear to me from seeing the results is more people than not just want a happy escape from reality, and if Norbit is the best option to that, then they take it. I am certain that if they had a better alternative this weekend they would have taken it. But when the choices are the story of a young serial killer being brought up in World War 2 Germany
Or A mild-mannered guy who is engaged to a monstrous woman meets the woman of his dreams, and schemes to find a way to be with her…
I understand people wanting to see Norbit.
