'American Gangster' Killing at the Box-Office

‘American Gangster’ Killing at the Box-Office

November 3, 2007

By Brad Brevet

It looks like the American public likes their American Gangster as the Ridley Scott and Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe drama pulled in $16.5 million on Friday with sights set on an estimated $47 million for the weekend, which would make Gangster the #7 all-time opening for an R-rated film.

Following Gangster, despite the fact that it is a terrible movie (and I would even say not a quality kid’s film) Bee Movie raked in $11 million on Friday on its way to an estimated $40 million. As Steve Mason at Fantasy Moguls points out this will place Bee Movie at #18 on the all-time animated film list, which if you ask me isn’t all that good, especially for a movie that was tracking higher than Ratatouille which manage $47 million on opening weekend securing it a slot at #12 on the list. And on a side note, after seeing Bee Movie and watching Ratatouille again this weekend, if Disney doesn’t try to push that film for a Best Picture nomination it has Best Animated Oscar wrapped up.

The other new release that will manage to crack the top ten despite New Line’s best efforts to make sure no one sees it is Martian Child pulling in $1.1 million on Friday, on its way to an estimated $3.2 million. Now this is a film New Line should have tried to actually promote and also moved off to November 30th as our Box Office Oracle pointed out to me. It’s not a great film, but I moderately enjoyed it, and it would have done far better up against Awake, which is currently the only film releasing wide that weekend at the moment. Sometimes studios confuse me, but then again they are now just eyeing those DVD dollars that they don’t want the writers to have any piece of.