Hollywood Deep

Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker rushed back into theaters with Bret Ratner’s action sequel “Rush Hour 3″, and captured the number one spot. Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro’s, “Stardust” opened to disappointing results in fourth place while the weekend’s other new titles “Daddy Day Camp” and “Skinwalkers” were all but ignored by moviegoers. “The Bourne Ultimatum”, after its record-breaking opening, dropped 51% to an estimated $33.7M and boosted its ten-day total to $132.3M. “The Simpsons Movie” fell another 56% in its third weekend to an estimated $11.1M. That put the 17-day total at $152.2M for Fox.
New Line’s “Rush Hour 3″ opened on top with $50.2M. It was the fourth biggest opening ever in the month of August trailing “The Bourne Ultimatum” ($69.3M last weekend), “Rush Hour 2″ ($67.4M in 2001), and “Signs” ($60.1M in 2002). Chan and Tucker re-team to fight a Chinese organized crime syndicate in Paris. The critics pretty much all agreed that they hated the film, stating that the characters were tired. Bret Ratner, Jackie Chan, and Chris Tucker, have all made a career out of this franchise for the last 9 years. Hey they found a good formula that worked and they stuck with it. I can’t blame them for that, can’t have the show without the business. The bad part is that the only decent movie of the three was the first one. I worked with Ratner a bit on ON THE LOT, he was a judge early on. I expected not to like him, for some reason, and I was surprised that he was a pretty good guy, knowledgeable and very approachable. He certainly has been a good business man sticking with what works, and knowing his audience.
This summer’s movie audience has been amazing. It seems every week a blockbuster movie is released, and shoots to #1, with huge weekends. Showing that a mass amount of people are going to see a new movie every week. Here we are in the second week of August, and the hits just keep on coming. Unfortunately for a film like Rush Hour 3, it probably won’t have long legs. With a gigantic production budget of around $150, it will have to depend on it’s huge international appeal to turn a respectable profit.

Weekend Box Office
1. “Rush Hour 3,” $50.3 million.
2. “The Bourne Ultimatum,” $33.7 million.
3. “The Simpsons Movie,” $11.1 million.
4. “Stardust,” $9 million.
5. “Underdog,” $6.5 million.
6. “Hairspray,” $6.4 million.
7. “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry,” $5.9 million.
8. “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” $5.4 million.
9. “No Reservations,” $3.9 million.
10. “Daddy Day Camp,” which opened Wednesday, $3.3 million.

Full Box Office Chart

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