monday morning box office

Baby Mama's Success A Victory For Smart, Funny, Barren Women

Sadly, it's time to resign yourself to the fact that you are no longer in the "coolest place on Earth" (i.e. the desert, watching Prince cover Radiohead), and have returned to one of the lesser-cool places on Earth: your office cubicle. We won't even sugarcoat this: Here's the weekend grosses, straight up.

1. Baby Mama - $18.3 million
Ladies can! Some industry pundits were concerned the sudden ubiquity of Tina Fey could spell disappointment for her latest big screen effort. Audiences, however, proved them wrong, as public interest in the 30 Rock star's useless, T-shaped uterus proved even greater than for Forgetting Sarah Marshall star Jason Segel's lower-case-g-shaped penis.

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Deciphering your moviegoing options for the third week running, Defamer Attractions returns today with a look at the final weekend before the studios spill summer in our lap. Today we gauge Tina Fey's chances for box office superiority, corral the highest-profile dog since 88 Minutes (that was only last week? Really?), recommend a certain Oscar-winning actress's directing debut and scan the new arrivals shelf for DVD's of notice. As always, our opinions are our own, but they're also right. You can thank us later! More »

seeing what sticks

Marketing 'Baby Mama': Universal Tries The Kitchen Sink Approach

Ever since Mean Girls became a runaway success back in 2004, Tina Fey has been riding a wave of near universal acclaim. Her ability to ride that tasty wave of popularity for the last four years without succumbing to any nasty wipeouts has arguably turned her into the Laird Hamilton of the Writers-Turned-Performers circuit. But when Baby Mama hits theaters this weekend, all of that cred that she has built up will be put to the test. Not only has Variety's Todd McCarthy gone on record calling it "exceedingly predictable", but Videogum has been trumpeting the notion that "Tina Fey-Tigue" is about to set in for the last week and some change. Recognizing that this film doesn't exactly fit the mold of traditional studio comedies (namely, in that it stars two female protagonists), Universal has been throwing a bunch of dollars at Baby Mama television advertising over the last few weeks, alternately positioning the film as a Tina Fey Vehicle, a film In Which Amy Poehler Steals The Show and, gasp, as something that even sports-loving, beer guzzling men will dig (specifically, by scoring the spots with The Cars' dude-friendly power pop anthem "Just What I Needed").

While all three of these spots appear after the jump, we thought it would be fun to enlist Defamer's videographer par excellence Molly McAleer to cut a commercial for the film that would play to all the thrill-seeking teens who have made Prom Night one of this spring's surprise B.O. hits (above). Feel free to use our cut, Universal marketing team — all we ask for is a link in return. Enjoy! More »