Feeling blue: 'Cowboys & Aliens' ties with 'Smurfs' in weekend box office

Daniel Craig shooting at Smurfs? I'd pay to see that.

After attending the highly enjoyable "Cowboys & Aliens" on Sunday night, I sat in the theater lobby chatting with friends about the entertaining mixture of the Western and Sci Fi genres, the great cast led by Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde, and so on. My gaze wandered to the indoor marquee, which displayed a showing of "The Smurfs" at 10 p.m. And I thought to myself, "Who's going to see the Smurfs at that late hour?"

Little did I know.

According to CNN, the two films tied for first place in weekend box office receipts, at $36.2 million. For "Cowboys," being No. 1 is bad news; it cost $163 million to make. The tab for "The Smurfs" was $110 million, giving the film a brighter financial future.



What went wrong?

CNN believes the classic Western movie genre is dead with movie-going audiences under the age of 30, while nostalgia drove crowds to see an old cartoon favorite (why it's a favorite, I have no idea; I have never seen the show).

Maybe CNN is onto something. After all, Sci-Fi did well elsewhere in the top 10, with "Captain America" taking in $24.8 million in its second week, the latest Harry Potter film pulling in $22 million in its third week to become the highest-grossing movie in the series, and the news that "Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon," has reached $338 million.

You know what this might mean - a "Smurfs" sequel.

Go figure.