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'King Kong' Takes in $9.8M in First Day
2005-12-17
American movie "King Kong" poster |
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LOS ANGELES - ``King Kong,'' Peter Jackson's remake about the giant ape in love, took in $9.8 million domestically in its first day, solid for a Wednesday debut but far below the king-size premieres of other action epics.Distributor Universal called it a good beginning that will generate audience word-of-mouth on top of stellar reviews for ``King Kong.'' ``My little monkey's doing great,'' said Nikki Rocco, Universal's head of distribution. ``We're convinced with all the information we have that this is the big guy, and he's going to be around for a long time.'' The first of Jackson's ``The Lord of the Rings'' films, ``The Fellowship of the Ring,'' opened on a Wednesday in December 2001 with $18.2 million, nearly double the take of ``King Kong.'' The second installment, ``The Two Towers,'' debuted on a Wednesday a year later with $26.2 million, while the final chapter, ``The Return of the King,'' opened with $34.5 million the next year, a record for a Wednesday debut until ``Spider-Man 2'' broke it six months later with $40.4 million. ``The Lord of the Rings'' flicks opened closer to Christmas, when college students generally were off for winter break and free to hit the theaters. The $9.8 million gross puts ``King Kong'' at No. 21 on the all-time list of best Wednesday debuts, just behind ``Catch Me If You Can'' and ahead of ``Armageddon.'' Most other films ranking above it were summer blockbusters or franchise films such as ``The Matrix Revolutions.'' Still, expectations have been huge for ``King Kong,'' though analysts say it could follow the long-haul pattern of ``Titanic,'' which had a comparatively modest $28.6 million opening weekend but stayed afloat to become the biggest-grossing modern film at $600 million domestically and $1.8 billion worldwide. ``I think the thought is that this movie would have opened bigger, because it's `King Kong' and it's Peter Jackson,'' said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. ``But I think this is a movie that's going to perform well this weekend and be in this for the long term, because it's a really good movie, and that will hold it in good stead and generate great audience reaction,'' Dergarabedian said. ``So this is just the beginning for this film.'' Besides its domestic gross, ``King Kong'' debuted with a total of $8 million in 36 other countries Wednesday. According to Universal, ``King Kong'' had the biggest Wednesday opening ever in Jackson's home turf of New Zealand and outgrossed the first days of ``The Lord of the Rings'' movies in Hong Kong and Malaysia. A new take on the 1933 classic, ``King Kong'' stars Naomi Watts as the beauty who catches the eye of the 25-foot gorilla when she travels with a film crew to the island where Kong is king of the beasts. The film co-stars Jack Black as the filmmaker leading the expedition and Adrien Brody as the screenwriter who becomes romantically involved with Watts. Critics generally called ``King Kong'' a triumph of big-studio filmmaking, raving about the colossal action and visual effects, though some reviewers felt the movie could have been shorter. The three-hour length limited the number of screenings that theaters could fit in, though ``The Lord of the Rings'' movies all had similar running times. ``You had the geek audience waiting for `Lord of the Rings,''' Rocco said. ``We're a very different movie. We knew going in we were going to be building a franchise.'' Rocco noted that ``Shrek 2'' had a ``good Wednesday debut, not a blowout,'' but went on to become a blockbuster. ``Shrek 2'' took in $11.8 million on opening Wednesday and followed with $108 million in its first weekend on its way to becoming the top-grossing animated film ever at $436 million. Boxofficemojo.com, which tracks movie grosses, forecast a $58 million opening weekend for ``King Kong.'' The trade paper Variety reported that industry expectations peg the film's prospects at a bit less than the $65.6 million debut of last weekend's ``The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.''
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