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Horror has its takers
The Ring rewrites BO history for scary movies
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Arthur J Pais
With amazing resilience, The Ring has rewriten the box-office history of horror movies. With its $18 million gross in its third weekend and a $64 million cumulative gross, the DreamWorks film, which cost $45-$50 million, is on its way to $100 million.
As a rule, horror films decline each week by about 50 per cent but not The Ring. Of course, the addition of a few hundred screens helped it maintain a rock steady grip, but even otherwise, the decline would not have been significant.
Though The Ring was the second highest grossing film of the week, following the Tim Allen starrer Santa Clause 2 ($29 million), its strong performance was the one that is the buzz of Hollywood today. Earlier predictions had the film grossing $70 million.
The Disney comedy Santa Clause 2 played in nearly 3,350 theaters, the highest count for any movie. The Ring was shown in 2806 theaters while I Spy was busy in 3200 movie houses.
Though the reviews for the new Santa Clause movie weren’t as exciting as the first Santa Clause (which grossed a jolly good $145 million about eight years ago), the new film is expected to haul at least $100 million.
The poorly reviewed comedy I Spy, which grabbed about $14 million, is further proof that Eddie Murphy cannot ignite the box-office on his name alone. After the disastrous The Adventures of Pluto Nash, which made just about $5 million and the $40 million gross for Showtime, in which he was paired with Robert De Niro, Murphy needed a stronger vehicle. There were signs that the new film, based on the 1960s television series about the interracial espionage adventures of Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, could become a huge hit. It was directed by Betty Thomas who had successfully teamed with Murphy in Dr Dolittle, four years ago.
"An overblown clunker of bad jokes, howling cliches and by-the-numbers action sequences," complained Chicago Tribune reviewer Mark Caro, echoing the sentiments of many leading critics.
Last week’s top film jackass was still laughing merrily. Even though down by about 50 per cent, the low-budgeter grossed $13 million, taking its total to $42 million. The steady My Big Fat Greek Wedding continues its honeymoon, having reaped $5.6 million and reached $185 million mark. The film is expected to end its North American run with at least $210 million gross.
The much praised Adam Sandler comedy Punch-Drunk Love nearly doubled its screen count (now 1252) but isn’t drawing mainstream audiences in significant numbers. It grossed $4.2 million over the weekend and its cume reached $11 million. Unless the film holds on in a few dozens theaters till the Golden Globe and Oscar nominations come in and then add on more screens, it might not gross beyond $30 million. The previous Sandler film, Mr Deeds, grossed a healthy $125 million in North America. Fans of the star overlooked the mostly mixed reviews and had a sentimental time.
Continuing its successful run in key American cities, Michael Moore’s documentary Bowling For Columbine, which examines American preoccupation with violence, grossed $1.6 million (total, $4.6 million) on just 162 screens. The film, which was at No 11 spot, is going to have several more expansions. Distributor MGM has plans to play it on over 600 screens for at least couple of weeks.