After being disappointed by Will Ferrell’s Semi-Pro (and the box office results agree), I was excited to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall… but the box office response was far from overwhelming (although I thought it was great). This past weekend, it placed 2nd ($17.3 million) behind the Forbidden Kingdom. In fact, movie ticket sales in 2008 have been down and year-over-year growth has been flattening:

So what’s the connection between Forgetting Sarah Marshall and GTA IV? First, I had seen these Sarah Marshall billboard ads everywhere:

from Defamer

And then I saw the below GTA ads placed on a series of LA buildings (from Kataku). Not only has Rockstar created an awesome mural ad – video games are a big, big business. Grand Theft Auto III has sold 14.5 million units – at $50 a copy, that’s $725mm in sales. Titanic is the highest grossing domestic film ever at $601mm.

Popularity: 2% [?]