The feverishly awaited thriller The Matrix: Reloaded made box-office history this weekend for an R-rated movie, seizing $93.3 million during the three-day session and a mighty $135.8 million since its release late Wednesday night. In a limited release abroad, the film made $31 million.
Reloaded, in its first four days, has already surpassed the first five weeks of the original, which opened to $27.8 million in 1999 and earned $174 million in North America in 10 weeks. Worldwide, the original grossed $450 million. Box-office experts think the new movie will surpass the total gross of The Matrix in 10 days.
Though Reloaded could not overcome Spider-Man's eye-popping $114 million domestic Friday to Sunday, it won an easy victory when its four-day gross was compared to that of the latter. The much better reviewed Spider-Man, which went on to earn a mighty $410 million in America, made $124 million in its four days.
It is rather early to speculate if Reloaded has enough repeat value to fly beyond the $400 million benchmark; but a $350 million US gross seems realistic.
The next highest grossing weekend by an R-rated film is held by Hannibal ($58 million), released three years ago.
Reloaded's huge bow tore into X2: X-Men United, the market leader in North America for two weeks, which tumbled by 57 per cent but was still good to be No 3, following the Eddie Murphy comedy Daddy Dare Care with a $19 million weekend gross. The Murphy film has had a fun time with a $57 million gross in 10 days. Its sturdy second session has surprised many, and it is now expected to reach $100 million. The sci-fi adventure X2, which grossed $17 million over the weekend, has grossed $174 million in less than 17 days and could exit with $220 million.
Finding itself on the Top 10 chart for the third time, Bend It Like Beckham grossed about $1.5 million, down about 15 per cent from the previous weekend. The feel-good movie, which came down a notch to tenth position, has a total gross of about $15.1 million. It overtook Monsoon Wedding's $14 million total gross early in the week.
But the romantic comedy Down With Love didn't seem too happy, though it was the fourth highest grossing film of the week. Set in New York City in 1963, it tells of a romance between womanising journalist and playboy Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) and feminist advice columnist Barbara Novak (Renee Zellweger). It grossed an unromantic $6.3 million.
Though the film -- inspired by comedies like Pillow Talk starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day and crafted to look like the 1960s films -- impressed The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle, many other critics gave it bad reviews.
'Down With Love is a ball of fluff that draws smiles, a chortle or two, but not many belly laughs,' wrote USA Today.
The film 'never really decides whether it wants to be an all-out parody or an affectionate recreation', complained Hollywood Reporter. 'Despite the currently high star wattage of the two leads, 20th Century Fox has an uphill battle with this one,' the trade publication argued. 'Older audiences will compare it unfavourably to its inspirations and younger audiences won't have a clue as to what's being sent up.'
