1. The Lego Movie, $69.1 million (opening weekend) We all should’ve seen this one coming two Toy Story movies ago, but now it’s official: The Lego Movie is one of the biggest all-original, non-sequel debuts for an animated film, and the second-best February opener of all time after The Passion of the Christ’s $83.8 million a decade ago. Expect an even starrier Lego Movie 2 ASAP. 2. The Monuments Men, $22.7 million (opening weekend) That seems like a small figure for such a celebtastic WWII movie, but Box Office Mojo is quick to note that it’s the best opener for a film directed by George Clooney — 2008’s Leatherheads opened to $12.7 million, while 2011’s The Ides of March debuted with $10.5 million. Sony’s distribution chief says the tally “came in on the high end of our expectations.” 3. Ride Along, $9.4 million (last week: no. 1; $105.2 million cumulative) Congratulations to Kevin Hart and Ice Cube for hosting the first 2014 release to cross the $100 million mark.
Treat yourselves to something special and expensive. 4. Frozen, $6.9 million (last week: no. 2; $368.7 million cumulative) Frozen’s going to stick in the top five as long as a season of baseball, so we might as well keep coming up with stats. This week: It’s now the highest-grossing animated movie released in 2013, passing Despicable Me 2 by thismuch. Despicable still leads the global haul. 5. That Awkward Moment, $5.5 million (last weekend: no. 3; $16.8 million cumulative) A relatively soft dip in attendance for a movie that needed exactly that. (Last week’s debut was Zac Efron’s worst ever.) Filed Under: Box office, that awkward moment, frozen, ride along, the lego movie, the monuments menIt’s not every day a U.S. Senate election includes conspiracy claims over an animated children’s movie and a staffer dispatched to visit an opponent dressed as "Lord Business." It felt like something we should check out. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, took hits from bloggers in May 2015 after criticizing "The Lego Movie" for pushing an anti-business message.
Amid a contentious election that could swing the balance of power in the Senate, challenger Russ Feingold has repeatedly revisited Johnson’s statements, including June 3, 2016, at the state Democratic Party convention in Green Bay. Amid one of many reminders that he had visited all 72 Wisconsin counties, Feingold said this: "Something else I didn’t hear around the state is that, as Sen. Johnson said, that ‘The Lego Movie’ — he said this — that ‘The Lego Movie’ is an insidious, anti-business conspiracy. I didn’t hear that. My grandkids don’t even think that." Did a sitting U.S. senator claim Hollywood is in cahoots with anti-business forces elsewhere to bring their insidious doctrine to the masses? "The Lego Movie" — which was released in February 2014 and brought in almost $500 million worldwide — follows the exploits of an extraordinarily average Lego construction worker named Emmet. The Washington Post described him as "an unthinking worshipper at the consumerist temples that President Business has erected to distract his citizens from Business’ evil plan to freeze them into a state of perfection."
In short, President Business — later revealed to be the sinister Lord Business — is trying to glue all the Legos together to keep everything in its proper place, and Emmet and his team of master builders want to maintain freedom and creativity. We eventually learn the plot stems from the imagination of a young boy playing with Legos belonging to his businessman father, who plans to, yes, glue them together to keep everything in its proper place. So what did Johnson say? , a small group in Cedarburg and in a since-deleted blog post on his official Senate site. In the various comments, Johnson made multiple references to leftist control of education and the media and repeatedly referred to "The Lego Movie" as anti-business, though not in those direct words. , phrased it in a May 28, 2015, post, Johnson "lamented what he called a ‘cultural attitude’ that ‘government is good and business is bad,’ giving as an example the animated ‘Lego’ movie, in which the villain is called ‘Lord Business.’
"That's done for a reason," Johnson told the site. "They're starting that propaganda, and it's insidious." Johnson noted in his blog post the same day that his comments were inspired by a Wall Street Journal column criticizing the anti-business tone of the movie. So Johnson clearly called the movie ‘insidious’ and implied it was anti-business, but there’s no conspiracy claim. (Merriam-Webster defines a conspiracy as "a secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal.") When questioned on the "conspiracy" claim, Feingold’s campaign provided a dozen links to stories on Johnson and "The Lego Movie," but no evidence that Johnson had called it a conspiracy. A Feingold spokesman noted only that Johnson mentioned the movie to the Leader-Telegram two days after describing to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce how "the radical left" controls the university system, education system, news media, entertainment media and "more and more of our courts."
The coverage of that talk also did not include any more direct reference to a conspiracy. And the conspiracy claim was notably absent when Feingold’s campaign hammered Johnson on "The Lego Movie" several weeks before the Democratic convention speech. The campaign issued a news release May 14 and even sent a press assistant to Johnson’s Milwaukee office dressed as Lord Business, asserting he and Johnson were friends. The character offered to endorse the senator if he supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement backed by the Obama administration. As long as we’re on the topic, are Johnson and other commentators right to call the movie anti-business? However you summarize the plot, it is a feature-length piece of product placement, which seems a curious frame for anti-business propaganda. And while being "anti-business" is an opinion, it’s worth noting the creators at least didn’t intend it that way. Philip Lord, who co-wrote and co-directed the movie, described it as an "anti-totalitarian film for children.