My history delving into movie numbers only goes back to last September, so I don’t have a long history of knowledge to draw from, but it seems to me that even since just last year, there’s been a noticeable increase in the importance of a movie having a big opening weekend. Sure, having a big opening weekend should always be the goal of a movie, but it takes several weeks for most movies to get near breaking even, that’s generally not even close after one weekend. It follows that of course the first weekend is important, but maximizing the box office of the entire theatrical run should be paramount.

But that isn’t the reality. In practice, as time has gone on, the opening weekend has become the sole focal point and anything after is icing on the cake. The picture in this post isn’t just a nice graphic to visually convey the topic, it’s actually the graph of the weekend totals for Watchmen.

The Holiday (Fall-ish) and Summer movie seasons are when the moneymaking movies are generally released, so we’ll look at those two periods over the years. For the Holiday season, during the 1980′s, the average decline from the first weekend to the second weekend was around 15.7%. In the 1990′s, that average increased to 24.1%. So far in the 2000′s, the average second weekend drop has increased to 31.2%. For the Summer season, the average decline has increased from 30.3% to 38.6% to 48.8%.

So what does that mean? Movies now are getting a higher percentage of their total gross from the opening weekend. They’re building up the hype to give them a big opening and hope some of it spills over into the next few weeks.

Looking at it another way, the percentage of a movie’s box office that comes from the opening weekend has increased over the years. In the 80′s it was 15.7%, 90′s was 21.5%, and the 2000′s is 33.1%. Nowadays a movie’s opening weekend represents twice as much of it’s box office as it did during the 80′s.

Out of the 100 biggest second weekend drops since 1982, three were from the 80′s, 35 from the 90′s, and 62 from the 2000′s.

Of the movies that have debuted in over 3,000 theaters since 1982, the one that has experienced the biggest drop in the second weekend was this year’s Friday the 13th, which dropped 80.4%. X-Men Origins: Wolverine comes in with the sixth biggest drop (69%) and Watchmen the tenth (67.7%). That’s three of the top ten movies that have seen the biggest second weekend drop, all from 2009. The oldest movie in the top 10 is Hulk from 2003. The oldest movie on the list of 58 was Pokeman from 1999.

Let’s take a look at Angels & Demons. It made $46 million it’s first weekend. Based on the averages, it might make around $24 million this weekend and $138 million overall. Using the 1980′s average (with an average 80′s ticket price of $3.41), a movie like A&D would have opened to $22 million, had a second weekend of $15 million, and a total of $140 million. The overall total is nearly identical, but the 80′s opening was less than half the 2009 opening.

There is even a trend developing where movies are relying more heavily on their opening day. The list of movie whose opening Friday represented the biggest percentage of their opening weekend is topped by Hannah Montana the Movie, only a month old. 53.9% of Hannah’s opening weekend came from Friday. Twilight is number two at 51.7%. Think about it: the two movies in the history of movies that have had their opening day represent the biggest portion of their opening weekend were released in the last six months. Four of the top five were released in the last seven months. 20 of the top 100 were released in the past year.

There have been more than 600 movies released into theaters each year since 2006. There aren’t enough screens to go around for everyone to have a nice long run, so studios gear everything toward the opening weekend and hope for the best. With so much resting on that one weekend, if it isn’t big, all hope is lost for the film being financially viable in the near future. Take a movie like Watchmen, with a $150 million budget and a $55 million opening weekend it looked good, but it cut it’s losses after 11 weeks and $107 at the box office, averaging $5.2 million per week after it’s first weekend. Those first three days of a movie’s release have become the most important in the entertainment industry.

I recently treated (some might say subjected) myself to a Living Dead marathon, watching Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, and Diary of the Dead back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. There are worse ways to spend a day.

What struck me the most was that, as the movies progress, Romero starts looking more favorably on the zombies and more cynically toward (living) people.

In Night of the Living Dead, it’s pretty clear that the zombies are evil and need to be killed. The undead are always attacking and the living have to defend themselves. There’s really no middle ground, it’s kill or be killed (or be killed again) for both sides. Romero has always had a cynical streak, as pointed out by the African-American protagonist being shot and killed by a redneck posse at the end of the movie. But at least Romero suggests that the struggle to stay alive is worth it.

Dawn of the Dead (1978) picks up where Night if the Living Dead left off, just transporting us 10 years ahead. All hell is breaking loose and a new band of survivors has taken refuge in a shopping mall. The zombies still attack mindlessly, but often disposing of the undead is more about sport than survival. The living taunt the zombies and pick them off shooting gallery-style. Eventually the little group clears the mall of  zombies and seals all the entrances. It’s a perfect refuge from the undead, but not from the motorcycle gang that forces their way into the mall. The zombies still pose a significant threat, but the marauding bikers are way more dangerous.

Then we jump ahead to Day of the Dead (1985). A small group of scientists and soldiers are trapped in a secure research facility, surrounded on all sides by zombies and may very well be the last living people on Earth. The scientists are experimenting on some zombies they have captured, trying to find a cure for the zombism. The soldiers are there to provide security and relish each opportunity to harass and torture the undead. Maniacal Dr. Logan has made a breakthrough in his private experiment with one zombie, affectionately named Bub, able to curb his zombie instincts and form a bond. But the soldiers, seeing themselves as an authority unto themselves, take control of the facility and show no hesitation to take the lives of their fellow living. It is Bub that eventually kills the soldier in command, the zombie exacting revenge for the evils committed against both the undead and the living.

It’s then 20 years until the next movie, Land of the Dead (2005). The living are now vastly outnumbered by the dead and have managed to secure the city of Pittsburgh from the zombies. Absent any real law and order, a feudal system as taken hold in the city, with a wealthy few, and the masses impoverished. The zombies have learned to stay away from the city, as coming near results in either death (again) or being tormented and used for sport. Although the living are relatively safe and unprovoked by the zombies, they never miss a chance to kill a few just for fun. Then the zombies start showing some signs of intelligence, and the most aware among them makes a zombie call to action- to advance upon the city. As the living are fighting amongst themselves, the zombies are able to breach the city’s security and make their way to the center of the city, where the upper-class lives. After wreaking their zombie justice on the upper-crust, the undead leave the city, allowing most of the population to survive. The zombies don’t want to kill everyone, they just want to live their (after)lives in peace.

Finally Diary of the Dead (2007) takes us back to the beginning, with a first-person account of the zombie outbreak, only set today. The zombies are always on the attack and the living are just defending themselves, same as with Night of the Living Dead, but some of the characters openly ponder whether or not the living deserve to keep on living. When you get down to brass tacks, who’s really the monster? The movie closes with a video of men shooting zombies that have been tied to a tree, with the narrator asking, “Are we worth saving? You tell me.”

Zombies were once something to fear and made a good argument for cremation, but George Romero seems to be suggesting that maybe zombies aren’t so bad. Can a zombie possess intelligence and control it’s craving for living flesh? He seems to think so. It could be that we’re scared of the zombies because they’re gross and different, so we assume they’re bad. If we took the time to get to know them and treat them like equals, maybe there wouldn’t be a zombie apocalypse, just some new, ugly neighbors.

I’m not a big fan of trying to read allegory into movies, so as to what the zombies are meant to represent, I’ll leave that to others. But as far as zombies go, maybe it’s finally time we start thinking of them as an alternative lifestyle rather than the embodiment of evil.

I suppose I’m making a third assumption as well- that you’d believe I hold myself to be a fairly pragmatic person. It may seem there’s a plethora of evidence on this site to the contrary, but my normal course of business is to rely more on logic and reason than emotions. And in situations where the shit has hit the fan, I’d think I’d stay calm and logical without letting dire circumstances rattle me too much.

So if you couldn’t tell, I recently watched The Mist. This in itself was a big deal, since the movie is based on a Stephen King story. Up until The Dark Tower, I was a devoted Constant Reader, but I took deep and serious offense to the afterword of that book and vowed never again to read another thing penned by Stephen King or Richard Bachman. It’s not something I did lightly, having read and currently owning nearly every book he’d written up to that point. I may get into that in another post, but know that I had to consciously make an affirmative decision to watch the movie, I wouldn’t have just happened upon it on HBO and started watching it. And due to the degree I despise Stephen King, I had a bad taste in my mouth before the movie started.

Up to the end, the movie was okay. It was when the small group of people who refused to turn to the religious doom-and-gloom drove out into the mist that I noticed there was still 15 minutes of runtime left, meaning the movie wasn’t going to end like the book. Rather than leave the people hanging in the mist, there was too much time left for something not to happen. When the Landcruiser ran out of gas, my interest perked up. I knew as well as the characters that walking around in the mist meant certain death. They were okay in the confines of the vehicle, but outside they were toast.

Then David started counting the bullets left in the gun, and I really got interested. Whether a movie ends up or down, it seems almost universal that the characters always maintain some sort of positive outlook. No matter the odds, it’s rare to see the main character give up all hope. But when all the people in the Landcruiser shared a glance, you knew the decision they’d all accepted: a bullet in the head was preferable to being eaten alive by whatever nasty creature finds them first. No matter what they chose, death would be the result.

Putting myself in that situation, suicide seems like a very reasonable decision. They could drive no further. There was no refuge within sight. Hungry monsters certainly awaited all around them. They’d gambled and lost and having left the (relative) safety of the grocery store, they were basically living on borrowed time. Everyone accepted it, and I really appreciated that the characters were able to resign themselves to the decision without getting all emotional.

But I still didn’t think it’d happen. It’s just not the way movies end. Characters don’t give up and make a reasonable decision to kill themselves. They may sacrifice their lives, but it’s in a effort to survive. So I was absolutely shocked when David shot everyone, especially his son. Totally floored. I didn’t think the filmmakers, or more likely the studio, would let allow the characters to follow through. Imply it, sure, but actually do it? It was certainly a sad decision, but I felt the right one.

Then when David got out of the truck (lacking a bullet for himself), I expected something to jump out and rip him apart, validating the decision that killing themselves was the only decent choice left. Then what rumbles forth from the mist: a tank. And soldiers. And the mist starts to clear. And everything maybe be alright. And David starts screaming.

That’s when I started to question my own philosophy and wonder if trying to think rationally and logically about every situation is the right course of action. Is it better to make the best decision based on the evidence available, or should you never give up hope, no matter how futile it seems?

Honestly, this movie made me reevaluate the way I think I’d think in that situation. Maybe it’s better to never give up hope. Staying put, the characters in The Mist faced death by dehydration and/or starvation. Outside the truck they would be dead within minutes. But if they’d held onto the tiniest shred of hope and sat there with their fingers crossed, rescue would have been there in minutes.

The mist dissipating soon after David shot everyone may seem a bit obvious, but I was so in tune to the characters’ line of thought that it caught me by total surprise. And because of this otherwise unremarkable movie, my life is changed. In that situation, at minimum I’d really struggle to make that decision. But maybe I’d hold onto hope and resolve to never give up. I look at movies with such a jaded eye anymore that I never really expected one would be able to reach me in this way, make me take a deep look inside myself and ask if there’s something I should do differently. If I was really the person that I wanted to be.

Maybe movies aren’t as heartless and empty as I thought. Maybe they do mean more than money. Maybe they still can do some good in the world.

very good: excellent; also: all right

Using this as a guideline, Entertainment Weekly tried to create a list of the 20 All-Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture. In descending order they are:

20. Sydney Bristow

19. Atticus Finch

18. Batman

17. Nancy Drew

16. Jack Bauer

15. Dirty Harry

14. Will Kane

13. Foxy Brown

12. Captain James T. Kirk

11. Mad Max

10. Spider-Man

9. Robin Hood

8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

7. Han Solo

6. John McClane

5. Ellen Ripley

4. Harry Potter

3. Superman

2. Indiana Jones

1. James Bond

There’s a lot to quibble about with this list, but there is one huge glaring eyesore of a problem with this list. It sits right at number four: Harry Potter. I don’t know who’s idea that was, but Harry Potter is one of the least cool characters I could possibly think of. When it boils down to it, he’s a dweeby little nerd with a couple friends that practices magic all day. You ask anybody, that’s no one’s definition of cool.

And it’s not like there is anything inherently special about Harry Potter. It seems like he only knows anything about anything because one of his parents’ friends grabbed him by the shirt collar and forced something upon him. He’s always given special treatment and secret knowledge just because of his parents. That’s not cool. It sounds more like he’s kind of spoiled.

Even if it’s accepted that Harry Potter is one of the coolest cats to ever be thunk up, how in shit’s name is he cooler than John McClane or Mad Max. Harry Potter wouldn’t even be a forgettable pun for John McClane. Really, Han Solo too? How could anyone even think that up as a joke? Harry Potter flies on a broomstick. A freaking broomstick.

Then we’ve got Atticus Finch. I’ve seen the movie and read the book, and Atticus Finch just isn’t cool. A great character, deserving of a lot of respect and whatnot, but he’s square like… like the most square thing you can think up. No one runs up to Scout screaming about how cool her dad is. No one. Ever.

Same thing goes for Will Kane. He gets mad props for standing alone and risking his life to serve up the justice Frank Miller and his gang deserve, but he’s just not cool. Isn’t the cooler version of High Noon High Plains Drifter? Clint Eastwood’s character isn’t exactly nice, but he’s a hero of sorts, and a damn sight cooler than Will Kane.

The list does have some good females characters, but how could anyone think Ellen Ripley is cooler than Foxy Brown. Killing aliens is pretty sweet and saving little girls is heroic, but she wouldn’t know cool if it spit acid in her face. Foxy Brown, on the other hand, oozes cool with every bit of her take-no-shit attitude. She says things like “You pink-ass corrupt honky judge, take your little wet noodle outta here and if you see a man anywhere send him in because I do need a MAN!” Ripley calls an alien a bitch. The former is cool, the latter, not so much. And Foxy Brown’s thoughts on vigilante justice: “It’s as American as apple pie.” Enough said.

And does anyone in the real world think Robin Hood is cooler than Dirty Harry? Dirty Harry breaks up a bank robbery while eating a hot dog. He doesn’t even set it down when he starts blowing punks away. That. Is. Cool.

The problem Hollywood has is that not every movie is financially appropriate for 3D. Using Monster vs. Aliens (the biggest digital 3D release to date) as a case study, if you’ve got a big tent pole movie that’s going to be released into over 4,000 theaters, then investing an extra $15 million on the movie is kind of a no-brainer, especially if that can increase the gross by about 20%. But if the movie only cost $20 million to make and will only hit 1,000 theaters, then the cost/benefit ratio doesn’t really look so hot. Sure a few more people would have gone to see Miss March in 3D, both those three people wouldn’t have made that a worthwhile investment. It needs to be a high-profile movie that people want to see, not something someone needs to be convinced to see.

So what can Hollywood do to keep you spending your money on those 3D ticket premiums while trying as little as possible? They’ll do what they always do when they want to make a quick buck: give you the same thing you’ve seen before. The twist is that instead of going to the trouble of remaking movies in 3D, they’re just going to convert the original to 3D. They’ve already been working on Titanic, Transformers, and The Matrix, and Disney has plans for Sleeping Beauty and both Toy Story movies.

Aside from just being a gimmick, it’s a nice little business idea. Take a movie everyone is familiar with and try to give them a reason to see it again. They can 3D retread these mega-budget movies for a fraction of the cost with the possibility of huge profits. When the Special Edition of Star Wars was released in 1997, it made over $250 million- that’s about $400 million at today’s ticket prices. I don’t know what the cost was to add those super swell special effects, but even if it was $100 million, they still made a killing. Some people may have grown a bit tired of Star Wars after all those prequels, but don’t you think if they could 3D it and market it for like $50 million total, George Lucas would make another ton of money and be able to milk the whole franchise for another few hundred million dollars.

Maybe it’s just that everything I’ve ever seen in 3D was just a gimmicky there’s-something-flying-at-your-face-neat-huh kind of thing, but this 3D-ification sounds like something along the lines of colorization, when Ted Turner made people use crayons to color black-and-white movies. It was supposed to bring these old-timey movies up to date so people who associate a lack of color with an abundance of crap would find these movies approachable (i.e. make more money by releasing the same thing again).

Isn’t converting a movie to 3D just today’s equivalent of colorization? Can it do anything to make a movie better or more enjoyable? Proponents will say yes and opponents will say no, but there’s no argument that the however the 3D version turns out was not what was intended when the filmmakers completed the movie. It’s someone else’s version of how the movie should look. Like it or not, Hollywood is going to reach into the vault and see if they can get you to come back for the same thing one more time. At least until the next time.

AFI’s biggest list is the 100 Greatest American Movies. Not to be outdone, others have come up with their own 100 movie lists, such as Time’s All-Time 100 Movies. These lists are nice and all, but trying to list the best movies is so subjective that the lists really aren’t more than a soon forgotten conversation piece.

But Yahoo might have come up with a list that is, for lack of a better word, perfect. 100 Movies to See Before You Die. As I read through the list, I couldn’t argue against the inclusion of any movie. Sure there are some I would have added, but none I could remove. How could you argue against Animal House or Die Hard? You don’t usually see Groundhog Day on these kind of lists, but there’s no way I’d take it off. Or The Matrix. Or This is Spinal Tap. Yeah it’s got the usual suspects like Casablanca and Citizen Kane, Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, but what balls on these list-makers to include Titanic as a must-see. And you should see it at least once, even if it’s just to be confused about how it made so much money. The list has even got Enter the Dragon.

Movie lists are a dime a dozen or cheaper, but this one really stands out for it’s honesty. Everyone should see all 100 of these movies before they die, so some of us really need to get busy.

DreamWorks Animation’s next 3-D event will be Monsters vs. Aliens, releasing on the 27th. What they hope is that people will get all hot and bothered about 3-D and opt to pay the premium over the archaic 2-D projection. DreamWorks had hoped to get a bunch of new theaters converted to 3-D in time for this movie, but there was a little issue with the economy that prevented it.

DreamWorks wanted this to be the big movie that took 3-D mainstream and would obviously do whatever they could to make it happen. One of these big ideas is to get Bank of America to allow their customers to upgrade from a 2-D ticket to a 3-D for free. So for each of these tickets, the 2-D vs 3-D difference is going towards Monsters vs. Aliens 3-D box office and into DreamWorks’ bank account.

Under most circumstances, this would just be your regular old promotion-type deal, but the problem is that, in case you hadn’t heard, Bank of America has recently received billions of dollars from the government. Now some of these tax dollars are being used to pay BoA customers to see the 3-D version of a movie.

You could argue that this could stimulate the economy by getting people to go to the theater and buy all the overpriced concessions, but the people that get the upgrade already bought a ticket. They’re going to go and buy popcorn and candy anyway. No one is going to spend any more money because of this. Well except BoA.

Could the real reason behind this promo be that DreamWorks really, really wants the 3-D portion of the box office to look big and convince more theaters to convert to 3-D and get patrons to pay that nice little bump that comes along with 3-D. Maybe they were able to swing this deal with BoA since DreamWorks President Lew Coleman was a former Vice Chairman and CFO of BoA. Yeah, it’s pretty hard to believe that a Hollywood studio and a giant financial institution would try to fleece tax payers. It’s inconceivable, really.

So when you go see Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D next week, you might want to ask the person next to you if they got their ticket from Bank of America. If they did, you need to ask them for a thank you since you helped pay for the ticket.

The movie studios and their comic cohorts are trying to make a movie of every damn comic that’s ever been made. It’s like every obscure comic they can find. Fathom, Jonah Hex, or Preacher anyone? Yeah, apparently those are comic books coming soon to a theater near you.

With both popular and obscure superhero/comic movies in the works and decades of comics to pull from, you’d think there would be plenty of fresh new movies coming out for years. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.

As we learned in 2008, it’s never too soon to start over- The Incredible Hulk was released last year, just five years after Hulk. Why? Because the first one didn’t make Hulk fans shit themselves with joy or make a huge profit, either of which would have probably led to a sequel. But The Incredible Hulk wasn’t a sequel, it was a reboot. It just pretended that the first movie never existed and hoped audiences wouldn’t notice. The funny thing is though, Hulk made $245,360,480 against a $137 million budget and The Incredible Hulk made $263,427,551 against $150 million, pretty damn near the same numbers for both. Neither was a huge hit, but neither fell on it’s face. The result is two unrelated Hulk movies in five years, neither of which achieved the huge box office Universal Studios or Marvel Enterprises wanted. Don’t be surprised when you hear news of  re-reboot.

But this big Hulk test case isn’t deterring anyone from trying a do-over with other comic properties. Everyone was thinking Superman Returns was literally the second-coming, but it couldn’t double it’s $200 million budget. That clearly wasn’t good enough and earned us a brand new, starting-from-scratch Superman movie in the near future. It seems Daredevil is a huge star in the comic book world, to the point that making $179 million with a budget of $78 million was like a slap in the face. So yeah, we’re getting a Daredevil reboot.

Now there’s news that despite two financially successful movies in the past four years, the Fantastic Four franchise is going to get to start fresh. Not even two years after the second movie, they already want to wipe the slate clean and try again.

Are Marvel and DC convinced that every one of their properties has to be an unabashed blockbuster before they’ll give up? Are there that many people out there that are convinced the first Daredevil was compromised and should be forgotten? The damn DVD of Rise of the Silver Surfer hasn’t been out a year and a half and already they want to jump back in and pummel us over the head with more of the Fantastic Four’s mildly exciting exploits, of which none tie in to either of the first two movies.

Even though I ain’t no huge comic fan, I saw Hulk. I saw Daredevil and The Fantastic Four. Shoot, I even saw Rise of the Silver Surfer. But I didn’t see The Incredible Hulk, and dude, I’ve got no plans to in this life. One Hulk movie in five years is plenty for me, I won’t go back for seconds. One Daredevil movie a decade is overkill. I won’t be watching the reboot even if Roger Ebert says it’s the next Gone with the Wind. And holy hell, I sure as shit am not going to sit through another movie about the Fantastic Four. Ever.

I mean, all these comic book movies crowding up the theater is one thing, but do we really want to see the remake before the first one comes out on DVD? There has to be some point where even the biggest comic book fan wants them move on to something new.

The Deer Hunter: The Next Generation

Harry and the Hendersons 2: Let’s Get Hairy

Remo Williams: The Adventure Ends

Chaplin II: 23 Skidoo

The Continuing Adventures of Ford Fairlane

The Return of George Kaplan: North by Northwest 2

American History XI

8ight

The Fourth Man

Platoon 2: In the Shit

Searching for Bobby Fischer 2, Learning to Castle

Jerry Maguire: Holdout

Traffic Jam – An Easy Rider Tale

Yours, Mine and Ours 2: Who’s Your Daddy?

Breakfast at Tiffany’s: Out to Brunch!

Freaks 2: Freakier

Singing in the Rain: Thunderstorm

Some Like it Hotter

Tranquilizer: The Big Sleep 2

Fargo 2: Whiteout

Triple Indemnity

Lawrence of Arabia: Trek to Mecca

Full Metal Jacket 2 – Bulletproof

Punching Bag, The Sequel to Raging Bull

Chariots of Fire 2: Hitting the Wall

Top Gear – Maximum Overdrive 2

Rudy Two: Extra Credit

Ishtar 2: Goldmine!

The Natural 2, Extra Innings

MTV was able to get the scoop on a couple of these movies and it seems, just like we may ponder about how the hell it could translate into a movie, the filmmakers haven’t a clue either.

Monopoly executive producer and Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner says Ridley Scott has “built these great big worlds of imagination” and the script is about “about real people kind of playing a real-life game of ‘Monopoly,’ not the board game, although they’re icons of the game. And then you really get the idea why this story could make sense right now.”

Ridley Scott says, “I have do direct it.” Then after thoughtfully making up a story to fill out the interview says, “We’re in progress right now. We’re having it written. We have identified a pretty good story and it is fundamentally a movie, not a game, probably describing in a way the characters in the film, the passion of the game, and how the game came about.” Translation- we’ve got no clue how to turn this into a story so we’re making up some crap and including some Monopoly elements.

So it’s a movie, well it’s fundamentally a movie (what the shit does that mean?), about the real icons of Monopoly (top hat, shoe, thimble, wheelbarrow) playing real-life Monopoly in a big world of imagination. And it’s an origin story. And it’s pretty good. And it makes sense.

Then there’s Candy Land, a game with basically no premise. Golder describes the story as “Imagine if you took that basic idea of going to a better place, and then allowed the audience to go to that same place together. But then you come to find out, like every other place that’s promised to just be all better and all sweets and candy, you come to find out there’s actually some controversy there as well, that of course the stars of the movie have to solve for.” He goes on to say that it’s “very human and very natural.”

I don’t know about you, but that sounds an awful lot South Park’s Imaginationland. It also sounds a a damn lot like Hansel and Gretel. It also sounds pretty lame.

If these are the best undescriptive descriptions that can be given for these two extremely popular games, what are they going to come up with when they roll out Trouble or Pass the Pigs?