BOX OFFICE: Millions of you paid for what you could see on T.V. for free!

$70 million for Homer and his family!

Simpsons Movie may not have fulfilled the dreams of what we expected from their first big outing but those studio guys at Fox and Matt Groening won't care. Budgeted at $75 million, the Simpsons Movie took home only $3 million less in it's opening domestic weekend and it quickly became the highest opening debut for a T.V. adapted movie ever. Worldwide, the movie has made $168 million. The opening totally eclipsed the $32 million that The Spongebob SquiarePants Movie and the $27 million The Rugrats Movie made in their opening weekends and is actually a far higher number than those who regularly watch the first run episodes in the U.S. Truly then, audiences were quite happy to pay for what they could see on free T.V, probably with the hope it would be of a better standard than what they see on the small screen but that didn't end up being the case. Last week's number one, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry dropped only 44% to notch the movie's gross up to a cool $71.6 million and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix adds another $17 million to it's now $241 million total. For the other new releases this week, the hideous looking Aaron Eckhart and Catherine Zeta Jones rom-com No Reservations took home a very quiet $11 million whilst Lindsay Lohan's last movie for what we expect to be quite a while absolutely bombed. The horror flick I Know Who Killed Me where she plays a stripper who is kidnapped but then then manages to escape and loses her memory made a very disappointing $3.4 million. Some sources online are suggesting a $35 million budget for the movie (which seems a little high to me) but if true, then that movie has flopped big time... and could Lohans's antics be blamed? Or is it just simply the fact she isn't a bankable star anyway and the movie looked like crap? 1 The Simpsons Movie (2007) $71.8M $71.8M 2 I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) $19.1M $71.6M 3 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) $17.1M $242M 4 Hairspray (2007) $15.6M $59.3M 5 No Reservations (2007) $11.8M $11.8M 6 Transformers (2007) $11.5M $285M 7 Ratatouille (2007) $7.23M $180M 8 Live Free or Die Hard (2007) $5.35M $125M 9 I Know Who Killed Me (2007) $3.4M $3.4M 10 Who's Your Caddy? (2007) $2.9M $2.9M OPENING NEXT WEEK: The Bourne Ultimatum, Hot Rod, Underdog, Becoming Jane, Bratz: The Movie, El Cantante, The Ten (limited) source - imdb, box office mojo

Editor-in-chief
Editor-in-chief

Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.