'Monsters' Scare Up Another Big Haul
Nov. 5 -- Pixar and Disney's Monsters Inc. had another huge weekend, winning the box office race again in its second outing with a mere 26 percent decline against its powerful opening.
Its $46.2 million take gave it a total gross well over $100 million and forced the weekend's biggest new movie, Gwyneth Paltrow's lowbrow comedy Shallow Hal, to settle for second place. If Monsters keeps drawing moviegoers this way, it's likely to join Shrek and Rush Hour 2 as one of the year's biggest hits. The most telling sign of its long-term prospects will be its performance next weekend opposite the two-ton gorilla of holiday movies, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
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Hal's numbers suggest that moviegoers may be starting to cool on Peter and Bobby Farrelly's sweet-tempered brand of gross-out comedy, but Farrelly movies come cheap. Even if it tops out at $65 million or so, the Farrellys, Paltrow and Fox will all come out ahead. The only other wide release, Heist, came in fifth — a disappointment by some standards, but a huge opening compared to those of playwright David Mamet's other films.
Elsewhere on the charts, Jet Li's The One held up respectively, while Domestic Disturbance and Riding in Cars With Boys continued to perform like certified flops. After two weeks in limited release, the Kevin Kline melodrama Life As a House opened wide and met with massive indifference from moviegoers as it landed in eighth place. With only Harry Potter opening wide next week, however, House may just live to see another day in the top 10 after all.
Andrew Johnston is a film critic and associate editor at US WEEKLY magazine.
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