Battle Of Sexes At Box Office
There was a battle of the sexes at the box office this holiday weekend.
"Hanging Up" and "The Whole Nine Yards" pitted Matthew Perry and Lisa Kudrow of TV's "Friends" sitcom against each other on the big screen.
Women connected with the comedy "Hanging Up,", which took in $15 million. But Bruce Willis measured up to the competition with "The Whole Nine Yards," also taking in $15 million and tying for first place.
In "The Whole Nine Yards," Perry is a Montreal dentist who winds up running for his life because of his new neighbor, a Chicago hitman played by Bruce Willis.
Kudrow stars with Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton and Walter Matthau in "Hanging Up," about three sisters and their ailing father, who maintain family ties largely by telephone. Keaton directed the movie.
The teen comedy "Snow Day" stuck to the number three spot, while "Pitch Black" , an R-rated sci-fi thriller about survivors of a spaceship crash hunted by aliens, came in fourth. "Scream 3" came in fifth place.
"American Beauty," which had dwindled to just seven theaters, roared back to ninth place with $5.3 million as distributor DreamWorks reintroduced the film to 1,287 cinemas on the strength of its eight Academy Award nominations last week.
The dark comedy of family madness in suburbia led all Oscar nominees and is regarded as a frontrunner to win best picture. The movie's re-release pushed its total gross to $80.1 million.
"That's a movie that has a lot of life left," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc., which tracks movie attendance. "For people on the fence in terms of not really understanding what the movie's about, the film may have suddenly become a must-see."
With seven Oscar nominations, including best picture, "The Cider House Rules" took in $3 million, double its gross from last weekend. The film stands to benefit from the Oscars even more next weekend, when distributor Miramax plans to roughly double its theater count from the current 857.
Another best-picture nominee, "The Green Mile," was up slightly at $3.2 million, a 4 percent increase over last weekend.