HollywoodIdiocy.com

While USA renewed MONK this week for an eighth season, the network also revealed it will mark the final bow for the Tony Shaloub-helmed dramedy. Shaloub has played the obsessive-compulsive detective long enough to make up for being part of NBC’s Wings, which is saying something.

Monk has always been a series on diet pills, producing only 16 episodes per season, and this final season, which begins next summer, in June, will be the same. That’s just as Shaloub and company would have it.

All the key players are still in place for the final season of Monk, including Traylor Howard as Monk’s assistant, Natalie Teeger. No word yet on whether producers will mend fences and bring back Bitty Schram for one final bow as Monk’s original assistant, Sharona Fleming, but one can only hope.

read comments (0)

It wasn’t even close.

007 James Bond: Quantum of Solace, the follow up to Daniel Craig’s debut as Bond, 2006’s Casino Royale, opened appropriately large this weekend, taking in an estimated $70.4 million in the US alone, with an additional $251 million worldwide to date, accounting for a total of $322 million worldwide, against a production budget of $200 million.

The PG-13 rating helped.

Coming in second was Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa, which added $36.1 million in its second weekend, making its 10-day take $118 million against a $150 million budget for the animated feature. Third was role models with $11.7 million, and then there was a big dropoff as High School Musical 3: Senior Year added $5.8 million and Changeling $4.2 million to round out the top five films in weak fashion.

Perhaps it’s the comfort of home theater seating that is keeping crowds away from the box office, or perhaps it’s just not holiday season quite yet.

Things are expected to pick up a bit next weekend as Bolt will add more PG kids fare to the mix, while Twilight will add some vampire romance to the last pre-Thanksgiving box office weekend of the year.

Where’s Harry Potter when you need him?

read comments (0)