Steve Martin lead actor in this week's top movie in the U.S. 'The Pink Panther'. - CONTRIBUTED
LOS ANGELES (Reuters);
COMIC ACTOR Steve Martin brought Inspector Clouseau back to the big screen in triumphant style as a remake of The Pink Panther pounced to the top of a snowy North American box office this weekend, according to studio estimates yesterday.
The update of Blake Edwards' 1963 comedy classic, with Martin assuming the role Peter Sellers originated as a bumbling, oblivious French detective on the hunt for a stolen pink diamond, grossed US$21.7 million its first three days in theatres, distributor Columbia Pictures said.
Pink Panther, rated PG-13 and co-starring Kevin Kline, was picked up by Columbia from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when parent company Sony Corp. led a group of investors in acquiring MGM last year.
WINTER STORM
Opening to mixed reviews in 3,477 theatres, Panther was the biggest of three major film releases in a weekend in which movie-going was dampened by a major winter storm on the U.S. Eastern seaboard. Films also were competing for attention with the highly anticipated start of the Winter Olympics.
Pink Panther benefited from its appeal to a broad audience with families accounting for 51 percent of its attendance, said Rory Bruer, president of domestic distribution at Columbia.
"We really did get everybody, which is always very healthy for a movie in regards to how it plays," Bruer told Reuters.
Ranking No. 2 at the U.S.-Canadian box office was the roller-coaster thriller Final Destination 3, from Time Warner Inc.'s New Line Cinema, generating ticket sales of US$20.1 million for the Friday-through-Sunday period.
However, the latest edition of the body-count horror franchise opened in nearly 600 fewer theatres and boasted a higher per-screen average than Pink Panther - almost US$7,000 compared with about US$6,200.
Big-screen cartoon Curious George, based on the classic children's books about a mischievous monkey and his patient handler, the Man in the Yellow Hat, landed at No. 3 with US$15.3 million, according to Universal Pictures, controlled by General Electric Co.
FOURTH PLACE
Warner Bros. Pictures' new thriller, Firewall, starring Harrison Ford as a security expert whose family is held hostage by high-tech bank robbers, was in fourth place, with US$13.8 million in ticket sales.
Last weekend's top movie, Sony's horror remake When a Stranger Calls, fell to fifth place on ticket sales of US$10 million, down 54 per cent from its first week in theatres. Its two-week tally climbed to US$34.8 million.
Sony boasted a third film in the top 10 this weekend, vampire thriller Underworld: Evolution, which grossed US$2.5 million and slipped from sixth to 10th place as its cumulative total reached US$57.2 million.
Focus Features' Brokeback Mountain, the only Oscar contender in the upper rungs of the box office, declined from No. 4 to No. 8 on ticket sales of nearly US$4.2 million. The gay-cowboy romance has now racked up US$66.6 million during its run.
Rounding out the top 10 this weekend were the Martin Lawrence comedy sequel Big Momma's House 2, at No. 6 with US$6.8 million; the Emma Thompson family film Nanny McPhee at No. 7 with US$5.2 million; and computer-animated fairy tale Hoodwinked, at No. 9 with just over US$2.5 million. All of this week's biggest holdovers slipped four spots from their previous rankings.
VETERAN ROCKER
On the art-house front, concert film Neil Young: Heart of Gold, debuting a set of songs from the veteran rocker and directed by Jonathan Demme, grossed US$57,000 from just four theatres in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto.
That amounted to a hefty per-screen average of more than US$14,000 for the film, released by Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Classics studio. The film opens in seven more markets and expands in its current cities next week.
Despite snow in the Northeast yesterday, movie business was far more robust this weekend than last, when theatre-going took a back seat to the Super Bowl telecast.
Box office receipts for the top 12 films this weekend were up an estimated 30 per cent from last weekend and three per cent higher than the same weekend a year ago, according to Exhibitor Relations Co.
