CNN.com, the Pulse tick me off.

Here's a couple of headlines I want you to look at. Two that really bother me.

• CNN.com: Big green ogre stomps Spidey
• The Pulse: Shrek Stomps Spidey.

Now, it's not the fact that stomping has become the action most identified with Shrek, or the witty use of alliteration in each. It's the headlines themselves. It gives readers the idea that Shrek has completely dominated Spider-Man 3, that Spidey 3 is week and lame compared to Shrek, box office gross-wise.

Okay, granted. Shrek 3 made about 4 times as much as Spider-Man did THIS WEEK. And on the surface, that might seem like a stomping. But let's look at it a little closer.

Spider-Man 3 is in its third weekend of release. Most of the people who really wanted to see it have already seen it. Now is the time when people who are not willing to stand in line for an hour and people on their third or four viewing come to see it. Of course it is going to do less than Shrek the Third. That's a given. Shrek was highly anticipated and in its first weekend. I doubt even the folks who made Spidey three thought it would be number one this week.

But Spidey 3 still did fairly well this weekend. It grossed over five times as much as the number 3 movie, Disturbia. As a matter of fact, it grossed more than the 17 movies below it COMBINED.

And while Shrek's $122 Million opening was good enough to rank as the third highest grossing opening weekend of all time. it was a full $30 Million less than Spidey 3's opening just several weeks before.

But the knee jerk reaction by looking at those headlines is that Shrek was far superior to Spidey 3. And, when you think about it, it wasn't.

I believe news outlets sometimes report about how they wish things were, not how the really are. People are influenced by these type of stories and a lot of them think that box office grosses automatically translate into quality. I believe that all the articles saying that Grindhouse was a disappointment was one of the reasons it didn't do so well in the theaters. I think the overall grosses would have been higher if word of mouth were allowed to spread uninterrupted. But it had to compete with articles saying thet the opening grosses were "disappointing", which translates into some peoples mind as that it was not good enough for people to go see it. So it didn't do as well.

I just wish writers were a little more responsible with their writing. Sure, a variation of Shrek Stomps Spidey makes for good copy, and is accurate when it comes to the small picture. But in the big picture, it really doesn't hold up.