This week, the number one movie at the box office was the drag racing action flick The Fast and The Furious (#26). Starring a group of relative unknowns, the film sprinted to a $41.6 million opening, more than double what the studio expected.
The film has already recouped its production costs in three days, and there is talk of a sequel. And nobody could have predicted that this unheralded movie would be the sleeper hit of the summer.
Except us.
Yes, thanks to the Lycos users, we knew that The Fast and the Furious would be huge. The Lycos 50 has been predicting success for the film for two months thanks to search traffic coming straight from you.
Here's what we wrote in May: "Each summer, one movie sneaks through to be a midsize sleeper hit that defies expectations despite big league competition. This summer, early search traffic is telling us that movie will be The Fast and The Furious."
Allow us a moment of giddy self-congratulation, because, thanks to Lycos users, we nailed this one with a bulls-eye.
Speaking of those unknown actors, it looks like it is Vin Diesel, not Paul Walker, who stands as the Furious breakout star. Last week the two stars were even but Diesel searches outpaced Walker searches this week, 60 percent to 40 percent. Diesel received as many searches as movie hottie Shannon Elizabeth, and twice as many as he got last week.
Of course, the hottest movie online is still the video game-powered Tomb Raider (#7), not Furious. Tomb Raider and related searches (such as #4 Angelina Jolie and #41 Lara Croft) went up this week, but with the movie's grosses tumbling in week two you can expect Lycos traffic to do the same.
SMART PICKS: Two other topics recently highlighted in the Lycos 50 daily report enter the list for the first time this week. We wrote about Eminem's rap posse D-12 (#44) two weeks ago, and we featured an article on the online virtual pet site Neopets (#50) back in March.
JACKPOT: One unidentified man in San Jose holds the winning ticket to the California Lottery (#5), which this week gave away the largest single-state jackpot in history. Just as lucky is San Jose liquor store owner Alex Wang -- for selling the winning ticket, he'll take home $705,000.
It is a testament to the number of Internet users in California that the lottery finishes so high on the Lycos 50. The multi-state Big Game peaked at #6 in May 2000, and the Powerball lottery has never finished higher than #32.
JUAN OF A KIND: Two men received the federal death penalty this month. One, Timothy McVeigh, was #3 on last week's Lycos 50. The other, drug dealer Juan Raul Garza, received nearly zero attention. This week, Garza was the subject of only one percent as many searches as McVeigh was last week.
FEELING DRAFTY: Its champion decided, the NBA (#47) drops significantly this week, but interest in tomorrow's draft keeps it on the list. Nearly half of NBA searches requested draft information, and the NBA draft was four times more popular than the NHL draft.
SHORT SUBJECTS: Morpheus (#14) seems to have definitely replaced Gnutella (#28) as the hot music swapping software of the moment? Josh Hartnett (#27) has fallen each week for three weeks and still is ranked higher than any other actor has been over the last two years? Tons of last-minute online greeting card requests keep Father's Day (#17) strong.
NEW THIS WEEK: California Lottery, The Fast and The Furious, D-12, Playstation 2, Neopets.
DROPOUTS: Timothy McVeigh, U.S. Open golf tournament, Allen Iverson, U. S. Postal Service, the poem Invictus.
BIGGEST RISE: Morpheus, up 20 places to #14.
BIGGEST DROP: The NBA, down 23 places to #47.
TOMORROW: Why does clothes retailer Abercrombie and Fitch almost make the Lycos 50 this week?
FINALLY: In celebrity death news, more Lycos users searched for bluesman John Lee Hooker than actor Carroll O'Connor, 55 percent to 45 percent. Both men received about one-fourth of the searches needed to make the Lycos 50.
