Weekend Box Office: Two Towers continues to "Rule Them All!"

[The Clown Prince]

OK, so my subject thread is cheesy, but you know I gotta have something as this is a big name movie.

Continuing to dominate the box office as well as it should, The Two Towers stayed at number one this weekend bringing in $48.9 million over the weekend. A lot of people found themselves at the theaters this past Christmas week as numbers during the regular week were pretty strong. Add those numbers with this weekends numbers and you get a grand total so far of $200.1 million! Remember, the first LOTR film grossed $313.4 million in it's approximate 5 month stay in theaters. And it also sits at number 9 on the all time box office list. We're at two weeks and already at $200 million! Very impressive!

Debuting at number two was the newest Steven Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can starring Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Christopher Walken. Catch brought in $30 million this weekend and total that with it's Wednesday and Thursday opening and you get a total of $48.6 million. Looks like Spielberg's got another hit.

Number three this weekend was Two Weeks Notice which brought in $16.1 million and has a $43.6 million total.

Continuing to plague us all is Jennifer Lopez's Maid In Manhattan which dropped to fourth this weekend with $13 million and a total of $57.4 million.

And rounding out the top 5 is another Leonardo DiCaprio film that's not doing as well as Catch Me If You Can is, Gangs of New York. It only brought in $11.2 million this weekend and has a pretty weak total of $30.1 million. Well below what it cost to make this thing.

Poor, poor Star Trek Nemesis. This film deserved to do much better than it has. Maybe this is a sign to Paramount to give the Star Trek franchise a rest for a while. And that includes it's current TV series. Give the public a break for a while and then see what happens. Nemesis fell all the way to number eleven this weekend bringing in $4.1 million and managing a $33.9 million total. And as a Trek fan, I have to say I'm really disapointed. A big mistake too was the timing of the release. This should have been a late summer or early fall release when there are no other big name movies to compete with. Instead Paramount decided to take on LOTR head on.

And Die Another Day continues to hang in there at number ten with $4.4 million and a $146 million total.

With Christmas over, people didn't seem to mind to go see a Christmas movie as Santa Clause 2 came in at number 12 with $2.3 million.

Next weekend begins 2003 and it's the start of the slow down period in theaters with not really any big name movies around. Which means a good thing for movies currently in theaters as they can try to get people to come back for multiple viewings, or people who haven't seen a movie yet don't feel bombarded by a lot of releases. As if there haven't been lately anyways. But next weekend there are NO movies opening. Not until January 10th.

So with that, here are your numbers...

1) The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers- $48,925,000 $200,108,000
2) Catch Me If You Can- $30,000,000 ($48,600,000) NEW!!!
3) Two Weeks Notice- $16,115,000 ($43,641,000)
4) Maid In Manhattan- $13,000,000 ($57,426,000)
5) Gangs of New York- $11,200,000 ($30,125,000)
6) Drumline- $8,350,000 ($36,864,000)
7) The Wild Thornberrys Movie- $7,400,000 ($18,454,000)
8) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets- $6,510,000 ($240,343,000)
9) The Hot Chick- $4,800,000 ($22,200,000)
10) Die Another Day- $4,450,000 ($146,785,000)
11) Star Trek: Nemesis- $4,125,000 ($33,917,000)
12) The Santa Clause 2- $2,300,000 ($135,690,000)

The Clown Prince

[Tobias]

The next movie opening in wide release (January 10th) is "Just Married" starring Ashton Kutcher. Nothing Oscar worthy, I'm positive on that, but maybe his "teen idol" status will be enough to knock J-Hole down another notch or two.

[Daredevil_2003]

Poor Nemesis . It's a real shame to see such a good film get beat down by a pathetic romantic comedy one week and then completely overshadowed by another great film the next, what was Paramount thinking when they decided to put it up against 007, Harry Potter, J-Ho and LOTR? Oh well, at least my boy Jimmy is still hanging in there. I think I'll do a 3 for the price of 1 deal and go see Catch, Gangs, and maybe DAD again this weekend.

[Kathy Kane]

LORD OF THE RINGS; THE TWO TOWERS

Gosh, I love this movie.
I hope this time around it doen't get snudded by the Oscars, if not it will still make a great deal of money.

[PeppeRaskell1]

I see the Wild Thornberrys movie is still hanging on for dear life at the Box Office, and that Pinocchio with Roberto Begnigni is nowhere on the list (it looks like a stinkburger anyway!)

So what did "Arnold!" and "PPG" do wrong that "Thornberrys" did right? Wrong holiday season, IMHO.

Anyone out there copy on this?

[The Clown Prince]

Originally posted by PeppeRaskell1
I see the Wild Thornberrys movie is still hanging on for dear life at the Box Office, and that Pinocchio with Roberto Begnigni is nowhere on the list (it looks like a stinkburger anyway!)

So what did "Arnold!" and "PPG" do wrong that "Thornberrys" did right? Wrong holiday season, IMHO.

Anyone out there copy on this?

Ah, thank you PeppeRaskell1! I had completely forgotten about Pinocchio. Well, it opened in 1,195 theaters, came in 19th place, recieved $1,140,000, and has a total of $1,790,000. I don't know, I don't think American audiences really wanted to embrace a foreign version of Pinocchio. But that might be wrong. When American audiences think Pinocchio, they think Disney right? But like the upcoming live-action Peter Pan movie (NOT like "Hook" at all), these classic stories just don't belong to Disney so other studios get a crack at what Disney made famous so that they too might be able to get a hit with a classic story. Who knows, it could be for a number of reasons Pinocchio "failed". To me it just looks odd. Something about it just screams "don't watch me." I don't think though that it cost a whole heck of a lot to make, so I don't think the movie makers are worried.

As for Wildthornberrys, it's recieved some pretty good reviews. I'm not sure exactly what that one did right to attract the audience that Hey Arnold and PPG could not get. Maybe it was timing and maybe it wasn't. Both of the those were summer releases, so in theory they should have done well. But Wildthornberrys opened at a time when school is also out, but also a lot of parents have taken the holiday weeks off. Who knows though.

The Clown Prince

[Nightflower]

Originally posted by The Clown Prince
Ah, thank you PeppeRaskell1! I had completely forgotten about Pinocchio. Well, it opened in 1,195 theaters, came in 19th place, recieved $1,140,000, and has a total of $1,790,000. I don't know, I don't think American audiences really wanted to embrace a foreign version of Pinocchio. But that might be wrong. When American audiences think Pinocchio, they think Disney right? But like the upcoming live-action Peter Pan movie (NOT like "Hook" at all), these classic stories just don't belong to Disney so other studios get a crack at what Disney made famous so that they too might be able to get a hit with a classic story. Who knows, it could be for a number of reasons Pinocchio "failed". To me it just looks odd. Something about it just screams "don't watch me." I don't think though that it cost a whole heck of a lot to make, so I don't think the movie makers are worried.

As for Wildthornberrys, it's recieved some pretty good reviews. I'm not sure exactly what that one did right to attract the audience that Hey Arnold and PPG could not get. Maybe it was timing and maybe it wasn't. Both of the those were summer releases, so in theory they should have done well. But Wildthornberrys opened at a time when school is also out, but also a lot of parents have taken the holiday weeks off. Who knows though.

The Clown Prince

Not necessarily... when I think of Pinocchio, I don't immediately think of the Disney story. But I do think of a wooden puppet trying to be a real live boy... certainly not a real grown man (Err... I don't think he seemed wooden in the commercials)... trying to be a real live boy? I don't know, something about the commercials just made the movie look... well... ugly... and tacky... to me. ^_^'

[Tobias]

One of the problems with the new Pinnochio, in my opinion, is that it's essentially a remake of a remake of a remake.

Remember the version that was released last year with Drew Carrey? And then version six years prior to that with Jonathon Taylor Thomas? And then there's the version with Sandy Duncan many years before. I think people are getting tired of the same story being told over and over again.

The only retelling that I can think of that took a risk was "Pinnochio's Revenge" released in the mid nineties. It was a terrible attempt at turning it into a horror movie, but at least someone was trying to do something different with the formula.

[Daniel P]

Harry Potter is hanging in there very well, same with Santa Claus 2.

Wild Thornberrys won't be there for long. It won't last more than a few weeks.