Bringing Down the House Stays on Top

March 17, 2003

The Steve Martin / Queen Latifah comedy earned $22 million at the box office and its second straight first place finish. Bringing Down the House dropped less than 30% for its debut last week and has earned a total of $61.3 million. $100 million is all but assured at this point.

Battling for second place were two of the three new releases this week.

After spotting The Hunted a $300 grand lead on Friday, Agent Cody Banks came back to take second place by half a million dollars, $14 million to $13.5 million. Compared to last year’s Big Fat Liar, Agent Cody Banks pulled in a little more than 20% more in the box office with almost identical CinemaScores so look for nearly identical legs. MGM is obviously quite pleased with its performance so far since work on a sequel is already beginning.

The Hunted, on the other hand, will not impress the folks at Paramount. The Hunted had a much higher budget than Agent Cody Bank’s and a lower internal multiplier, weaker CinemaScores, etc. The studio’s share of the box office probably won’t even cover their advertising budget. This is the second weak in a row with an under-performing military movie, perhaps real-life events are affecting the box office of these movies.

In fourth place was last week’s under-performing military movie, Tears of the Sun, which became this week’s biggest drop off in the top 5. Its weekend tally of only $8.7 million is barely more than half of last week’s and brought its total box office to only $30 million so far. This one also won’t pay for the advertising budget.

In fifth place is the unstoppable Chicago. In it’s twelfth week Chicago’s box office climbed nearly 4% without any increase in its theatre count. With the Oscars only a week away a big win could keep Chicago in the top ten for many more weeks to come.

The only other movie to be released wide this week was Willard. The low budget horror was only able to pull in $4 million and should disappear quickly from the theatres. Willard had good critical reviews, but horrid CinemaScores, which usually means the fault lies with the marketing campaign.

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Filed under: Chicago, Bringing Down the House, Agent Cody Banks, Tears of the Sun, The Hunted, Willard