Wesley Snipes starrer Blade II at top spot

Arthur J Pais

Wesley Snipes starrer Blade II, the sequel to the 1998 hit, beat Chris Wedge's Ice Age, to top spot, contrary to trade expectations.

Steven Spielberg's E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial, with a digitally enhanced look and a few never-seen-before scenes, was expected to climb to the top spot, with Ice Age following and Blade II coming third.

Blade II, which features Snipes as the vampire slayer, earned $33 million and beat Ice Age by $2 million. ET, which received some of the best reviews last year, earned $15 million.

Younger audiences clearly preferred the special effects laden Ice Age. The animated comedy is about the adventures of oddball heroes trapped by a big freeze, and their efforts of to restore a child to its father.

The film is also shaping into a big hit overseas. In Mexico, for instance, it grabbed about $6 million in the opening week. Part of last week's gross for Ice Age was due to the screening of the trailer of Star Wars: Episode 2 -- Attack of the Clones (to be released in May) Both films are from 20th Century Fox.

Ice Age is getting a lot of repeat audiences, theater owners say. The film may end up with a jaw-dropping $180 million in North America. Some expect the $50 million film to gross $200 million.

Many box office trackers had expected ET to gross at least $25 million, if not the $34 million taken by Star Wars in its 1997 re-release.

Even then Universal Pictures, the distributors of E.T., did not show their disappointment. E.T., which was originally to be re-released on about 1,500 screens, doubled the screen count due to the high expectations.

"We're very proud of E.T.," says Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal. The film needs only $16.2 million more to move ahead of Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phamtom Menace and take the third spot on the list of all-time top grossing films in North America. Titantic, with its $620 million, holds the record.

The 20th anniversary edition of E.T. was launched with huge fanfare and tie-ins with toy and cereal manufacturers worth over $50 million. If there is no big fall in the collections in the coming weeks, E.T. should end its run with a strong $60 million. It could enjoy a huge DVD sale a few months later.

Blade II, which brings Snipes back as the half-man, half-bloodsucker Marvel comic character who kills vampires, nearly doubled the debut weekend take of the original 1998 film. The collections for most horror films slacken in the second week.

Even in that case, Blade II, which cost about $50 million, stands to earn a tasty $90 million -- $25 million more than the North American earning of the first Blade.

Most of the reviews for Blade II were better than expected, with The New York Times calling it "...a rocking, dexterous piece of genre-busting tinged with sadness..."

In the new film, Blade is consumed by a desire to avenge the curse of his birth and save fellow humans from a blood-drenched Armageddon. In this newest adventure, Blade aligns himself with a high-powered team of vampires to take on a formidable evil than either has ever faced -- a super-vampire.

This is by far the biggest opening for a Wesley Snipes film. Unlike many films starring African American actors that play mostly to African Americans, the Blade films have turned into crossover hits.