Miraculous surge for Mel's 'Passion'

Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ rose to the top of the box office across North America with a miraculous $17 million Easter weekend gross, while most of the five new releases, including the immensely forgettable war drama The Alamo, had to bite the dust.

The Gibson phenomenon, which was at No 5 on the box-office chart last week with a decent $10.5 million gross, flew to the top again without adding new screens. On the contrary, the film, which is in some 3,200 theatres, lost screens in about 300 theatres.

With its cumulative gross reaching $354 million in seven weeks, distributor Newmarket expects the film to reach the $400 million landmark in North America in the next six weeks.

Hellboy, the smartly made horror film, reigned at No 2 with a good $11 million gross and $41 million cumulative.

More on rediff.com! Bollywood's best pictures, by Dabboo Ratnani Hollywood Pix: Uma kills Bill! Rana: Don't call me Akshay!

Reviewers were not too pleased with the film. One called it a 'bad trip', but the film is surely a crowd-pleaser.

Closely following Vacation was the ill-fated big budget film from Disney, The Alamo, which looks poised to lose a substantial part of its $90-100 million budget. Set in 1836, it tells the story of a motley group of Americans who bravely defended an enclave in Texas and defied the numerically overwhelming Mexican Army that wanted to retain Texas as a province of Mexico.

Though the Americans perished in the battle, for decades, the phrase, 'Remember Alamo', has stirred Americans. Critics had a great time on Friday playing around with those words while reviewing the movie. 'Forget Alamo', declared one headline. A reviewer for The Washington Post said no army could defend the awful movie.

Now that the film has become a resounding flop, reviewers are saying Alamo has fallen again.

Disney hasn't had a solid hit as yet this year with films like The Lady Killers, Hidalgo, and Home On The Range performing far below expectation. The situation could change next week when Kill Bill Vol 2 is released. But that film, a stylish martial arts revenge drama, was produced by Miramax, a Disney subsidiary.

The vigilante drama Walking Tall, co-produced by Ashok Amritraj, dropped from second to fifth. With $28.8 million grossed in two weeks, the film is headed for a medium-range hit status ($50-$55 million).

Another disappointment for Disney, Home On The Range, was struggling at No 5. It was followed by Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Damned by most major critics, the children-friendly film, which has grossed $62 million, is expected to be around for at least four more weeks and could wrap its run with a heartening $80 million gross.

The Whole Ten Yards opened at No 7, testimony to Bruce Willis's waning star power. The movie's $6.7 million gross is less than half of the $13.7 million that The Whole Nine Yards, a medium-sized hit, took four years ago. Both films starred Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry and Amanda Peet.

The story of a former hitman who is back in business, the new film has been severely panned by critics. In Boston Globe, Wesley Morris wrote: 'As it turns out, The Whole Ten Yards is not as desperate, unfunny, and nonsensical as its title. It's worse. Worse than you can imagine.' And in the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert observed: 'A fog of gloom lowers over The Whole Ten Yards, as actors who know they're in a turkey try their best to prevail.'

Though some major critics at newspapers like The New York Times liked the romantic fantasy Ella Enchanted, a re-telling of the Cinderella story accompanied by rock music, viewers were far from bewitched by the film despite an arresting performance by the luminous Anne Hathaway.

At ninth position, it took in just about $6.1 million, and was closely followed by another newcomer, The Girl Next Door.

Hathaway plays a young woman bedevilled by a nasty stepmother and stepsisters in Enchanted, which cost about $30 million. Unless the film does well abroad and has strong video and DVD sales, producer and distributor Miramax will not be able to recover its investment.

On the other hand, The Girl Next Door, starring Elisha Cuthbert as a former porn actress who falls for a high-school nerd (Emile Hirsch) with a sweet nature, cost a few million less than Enchanted. Much of the film concerns Hirsch's discovery of his girlfriend's past. Its fate too is tied to the overseas run and DVD sales. It got mostly mixed reviews.

The Tom Hanks-starrer The Lady Killers has no slaying power at the box office. Out of the top ten, the film is headed for a disappointing $45 million run in North America, and has emerged as one of the most disappointing films in Hanks's extraordinary career.

The box office this week:

Click here for More Box Office Reports