It’s a painful weekend for Mike Myers. It might be admirable when you create a new character, while you have many the people love – ‘Austin Powers’ and ‘Wayne’s World.’ But it’s also very damaging for your career when it goes horribly wrong. Well, at least he didn’t directly damage the ‘Austin Powers’ franchise (yet) and he has enough future projects, with ‘Shrek’ 4, 5, 6, 7, etc. But this weekend is turning out to be a disaster. ‘The Love Guru’ only made an estimated $4.7 million this Saturday, down from the official $5.3 million Friday. If you add another (low) $4 million for Sunday, the (un)funny movie won’t end above $14 million this weekend.

The final Friday number for ‘Get Smart’ was a slightly lower than expected $13.4 million. Saturday seems to be up a bit to $14.5 million. Add a low $10 mill for Sunday and you’ve got a ‘Get Smart’ weekend total slightly below $40 million.

‘Kung Fu Panda’ and ‘The Incredible Hulk’ will both end the weekend above ‘The Love Guru’ with about $21 million per movie.

Mike Myers is a big name in Hollywood. But just how big? The first ‘Austin Powers’ in 1997 opened with $9.5 mill, the last in 2002 with $73 mill. But can he carry a new movie (character) into the twenties? The Friday box office numbers for the $62 million ‘The Love Guru’ don’t say so. It made an even lower than expected $5 million this Friday.

Steve Carell is a totally different story. He began to make a name for himself just a couple of years ago. He starred in some hits (‘Little Miss Sunshine’) and some mild flops (‘Evan Almighty’). But most of his movies didn’t flop as hard as ‘The Cat in the Hat,’ by his weekend competitor Myers. The first numbers for the $80 million TV adaptation are good though. Carell opened with about $14.5 million in ticket sales this Friday.

The last numbers indicate a good weekend for Carell and a low point for Myers. The final estimates for the weekend box office are a meager $14 million total for ‘The Love Guru’ and a decent $40 million for ‘Get Smart.’ Based on its budget + marketing, this isn’t looking good for Paramount (‘The Love Guru’). Time for another ‘Austin Powers,’ maybe?

We already saw how low the analysts set their expectations for this weekend, but what do the critics say? Is there any chance the reviews will benefit ‘The Love Guru.’ I really don’t think so. Maybe ‘Get Smart’? A slightly bigger chance. Let’s take a quick look at the actual quotes from the critics.

Continue reading The upcoming weekend in quotes, are these comedies worth the popcorn? And ‘The Get Smart Guru’