Superbad Gets Some Box-Office McLovin

I went to the 4:20 PM screening of Superbad this past Friday at the historic Vista Theater in Los Angeles (and no, I don't think it was a coincidence that there was a 4:20 screening). The place was packed with stoney kids blowing streams of soda out their noses as they laughed at film's supremely crass humor. You knew then that the R-rated Sony movie was going to outperform expectations this weekend, and that's exactly what it did, bringing in an impressive $31.2 million (the movie was made for around $20 million), marking the first summer that two R-rated comedies (the other being Knocked Up) have opened above $30 million. And Judd Apatow, who directed Knocked Up and produced Superbad, has proven himself the undisputed king of summer comedy two years running. Let's see if he can extend his streak this holiday season with music biopic spoof Walk Hard, about guitar hero Dewey Cox (played by John C. Reily). The Apatow-produced movie comes out Dec. 21st. Here's more about Apatow from Variety:

Apatow and scribe Seth Rogen shopped "Superbad" for seven years before finding a home at Sony, with every other studio turning down the project because of the risk of making a crude teen comedy with a restrictive rating that makes getting into theaters difficult for the core aud.

"It's hard to make a great comedy with a PG rating if you have adult subject matter -- even immature subject matter," said Apatow. The R rating allows you to make jokes that reveal characters in an honest way. This is how a lot of young people talk, and if I was trying to dance around that, it would be a terrible movie."

Sony prexy of distribution Rory Bruer said the studio had expected "Superbad" to hit the high teens or low 20s -- in large part because of its rating.

"We didn't anticipate how broadly the movie would play," Bruer said.

Roughly 60% of the aud was between the ages of 18 and 30, Bruer said. He attributed the 16% decline from Friday to Saturday to the usual drop seen with teen comedies.

So will Superbad become the Fast Times at Ridgemont High of this generation? I don't see it. In my opinion, the movie didn't capture an era of adolescence the way Fast Times did. Instead, what we are going to see is more of a trend that started a couple years back (with Wedding Crashers, etc.)--raunchy R-rated romantic comedies disguised as sex comedies. But if you disagree, I suggest you show your support for the film by buying this Superbad shirt, which like all things in our ephemeral consumer culture, will seem dated in about three weeks. And then, by my calculations, you'll be retro. And on that note, here is what Apatow told EW about his "legacy."

APATOW: I assume 2007 will be seen as a solid year in my career, followed by a very quick, stunning flameout. And everybody will say, "I guess he was out of gas. That's what he had to offer." And it's over. But at least it will end with us telling a very important story that we all can learn from.