U.K. box office: ‘Night at the Museum 2’ clings to No. 1

Oh, what a burn on Sam Raimi! The second week of the Ben Stiller pseudo-intellectual fantasy about museum exhibits coming to life just edged out the debut of his sneakily sly black comedy horror. Proving, once again, that the fifth-grade mentality is the dominant one, even among supposed grownups, and that P.T. Barnum was right, that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of any large group of human beings.

Is this bugging you, Sam Raimi? He’s not touching you!

Other stupidities, though, failed to make much of an impact on the British box office, so maybe there’s hope. WWF “star” John Cena earned about three quid at British multiplexes this past weekend with his Die Hard wannabe 12 Rounds, but that was better than Obsessed, debuting at No. 9 with £154,344, and Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience, entering the rankings at No. 10 with £117,060. Maybe there’s hope for some segments of humanity...

Overall business was down a huge 55 percent over the same weekend last year, which is suggesting -- and this is looking to be the case for North America, too -- that while the winter box office may have enjoyed a big boost over recent years, for whatever reasons, the summertime movies won’t see a comparable rise in attendance. Maybe everyone who can actually get to the movies in the warm weather is already going...

[numbers via UK Film Council]