Director John Singleton outgunned his rivals at the North American weekend box office in North America with his revenge drama Four Brothers, one of four newcomers whose arrival failed to boost overall sales.
According to studio estimates issued on Sunday, Four Brothers sold about US$20.4 million worth of tickets in the three days since opening on Aug 12.
The film's distributor, Paramount Pictures, said it had hoped for an opening in the mid- to high-teens. The story follows four men who seek to find the killer of their kindly foster mother. It stars Mark Wahlberg, Andre 3000 of hip-hop duo OutKast, Tyrese Gibson and Garrett Hedlund.
PHOTO: EPA
The Skeleton Key, a voodoo thriller starring Kate Hudson, unlocked US$15.8 million at No. 2. The film was released by Universal Pictures, which said the opening was within expectations.
On the other hand, the comedy sequel Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (Columbia), starring Rob Schneider as a "man-whore," failed to find many clients, opening at No. 5 with US$9.4 million. The World War Two drama The Great Raid (Miramax) capitulated at No. 10 with just US$3.4 million.
Last weekend's champion, The Dukes of Hazzard (Warner Bros) fell to No. 3 with US$13 million, taking its 10-day haul to US$57.5 million. The southern comedy should hit US$85 million, said Dan Fellman, president of domestic theatrical distribution at the Time Warner Inc-owned studio.
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It cost US$53 million to make, with an additional US$17.5 million paid in an out-of-court settlement to a group of people who held rights to the underlying Dukes TV show.
The top-12 films sold a combined US$103.5 million worth of tickets, according to tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. The tally was down 16 percent from the year-ago period, when Alien vs. Predator opened at No. 1 with US$38.3 million.
Sister Mary Michael is no killjoy. Only the other day the 61-year-old Catholic nun was riding around on the back of a motorbike.
But her sense of fun does not extend to The Da Vinci Code, a film based on the Dan Brown best-seller and starring Tom Hanks that is being filmed this week at the towering Gothic cathedral in her home city of Lincoln, eastern England.
The sister staged a 12-hour prayer vigil to protest at the decision by the building's custodians to let director Ron Howard use it in his movie of the novel, which has angered the Vatican by suggesting Jesus was married and had children.
"It seems to be an attack on the very tenets of the faith," Sister Mary Michael, dressed in a brown habit and pale blue veil, said of the story by the US novelist.
"I was a little afraid that this might bring some disrepute and some badness to the city," shesaid at the small red-brick apartment she uses as a Christian community center.
"I love this city and I love the people and I didn't want anything bad to happen."
The sister protested on Monday outside the cathedral of pale yellow stone, which perches atop a steep hill of cobbled streets, as the building became a film set complete with scaffolding, giant lights and large trucks parked outside.
Conventional Christian teaching has it that Jesus was unmarried and celibate.
Cable network HBO on Friday said it will produce eight bonus episodes of its hit mob drama The Sopranos to air from January 2007 in a surprise move likely to delight fans of hot-tempered crime boss Tony Soprano. The much-anticipated sixth season of The Sopranos, scheduled to debut in March 2006 with 12 episodes, was expected to wrap up the often violent and darkly comic saga of Tony and his family, although creator David Chase had hinted that viewers might not have to say goodbye just yet.
Cliche or not, the James Bond 007 franchise continues to be held in high esteem as regards sex appeal in Britain, and this extends to the car most closely associated with the celebrated spy. Aston Martin drivers, numbering various Bonds from the movies among them, are considered the sexiest according to a British motor insurer survey released last week.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located