|
'Wedding
Planner' catches US box office bouquet
Reuters
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LOS ANGELES: Another weekend, another ``chick flick'' tops
the North American box office.
``The
Wedding Planner'' (Columbia), a romantic comedy starring Jennifer
Lopez and Matthew McConaughey, replaced ``Save the Last Dance''
as the most popular movie in the United States and Canada,
selling about $14.0 million worth of tickets, according to
movie estimates issued on Sunday.
``Last
Dance'' (Paramount), an inter-racial high school romance set
in the dance clubs of Chicago, slipped to No. 2 with $10.0
million. The Tom Hanks drama ``Cast Away'' (Fox) also fell
one, to No. 3, with $8.9 million.
With the
annual Super Bowl football contest expected to keep American
men glued to the television on Sunday, ``The Wedding Planner''
marks a counter-programming effort to lure women to the multiplex.
The $28
million movie coincided with the release of Lopez' new album,
``J.Lo,'' and Lopez has been plugging both aggressively. In
the film, she plays the titular nuptials expert who falls
for the fianc (McConaughey) of one of her clients. Reviews
were generally bad. A spokesman for Columbia Pictures, a unit
of Sony Corp., predicted it would end up in the $50 million
range.
The film's
average of $5,027 from 2,785 theaters was the second highest
in the top 10, behind $5,846 for ``Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon'' (from sister studio Sony Pictures Classics), which
jumped two places to a new high of No. 6 with $5.1 million.
The martial arts romance, which has now banked $44.4 million
after 52 days, gained some enhanced visibility with its two
Golden Globe wins last weekend, for director (Ang Lee) and
foreign-language film.
The only
other films in the top 10 to snag Globes were ``Cast Away''
(best actor in a drama, Tom Hanks) and ``Traffic'' (screenplay,
Stephen Gaghan; supporting actor, Benicio Del Toro).
``Traffic''
(USA Films), a drug-war drama directed by Steven Soderbergh,
slipped one place to No. 4 with $6.5 million, taking its 33-day
total to $56.3 million. USA Films is a unit of USA Networks
Inc. .
The top
10 contained one other new entry, ``Sugar & Spice'' (New
Line Cinema), a cheerleading crime caper, which debuted at
No. 5 with a not very nice $6.0 million. The AOL Time Warner
Inc.-owned studio took the unusual step of canceling scheduled
advance screenings for critics, an indication of its meager
confidence in the film's prospects.
The top
12 films grossed a combined $76.2 million, down 16 percent
from last weekend, but up 74 percent from the year-ago weekend
when the Ashley Judd thriller ``Eye of the Beholder'' opened
at No. 1 with $6.0 million.
New releases
next weekend, the thriller ``Valentine'' and the Freddie Prinze
Jr. romance ``Head Over Heels,'' both target young audiences.
After
17 days in release, ``Last Dance'' has grossed about $59.6
million, and is on track to end its U.S./Canada run in the
$75 million-$80 million range, said a spokeswoman for Paramount
Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc. .
``Cast
Away'' has $194.1 million after 38 days, and should hit the
$200 million mark next weekend, said a Fox spokesman. Twentieth
Century Fox is a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc.
TOP
|
Cover
Story
