Box Office: Grinch Is Unstoppable

December 10 -- Neither avalanches nor illicit romance nor computer-generated dragons could unseat The Grinch from his own Mount Crumpit, the top of the box office.

For the fourth week in a row, Jim Carrey's grouchy mugging in Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas has bested all newcomers. This weekend, the luckless challengers were the mountain-rescue adventure pic Vertical Limit, which settled for second place and $16 million, and the Meg Ryan-Russell Crowe romancer Proof of Life, which debuted in third place with $10.4 million.

Grinch on Its Way to No. 1 of 2000The Grinch added $18.5 million to its coffers this weekend and has now earned $195.5 million, blowing past Gladiator to become the second-highest-grossing film of 2000. Exhibitor Relations' Paul Dergarabedian predicts that it will easily surpass Mission: Impossible 2's $215 million take, and will do so in about half the time.

The last film to go four-for-four in No. 1 weekends was Meet the Parents, and the last film to top that was The Sixth Sense, which had five No. 1 weekends in a row in 1999. Titanic still holds the record, having spent 15 weeks at No. 1.

Limit, Proof Have Limited AppealBox-office analysts predicted that the adrenaline-heavy mountaintop heroics of Vertical Limit, which stars Chris O'Donnell and Robin Tunney, would unseat Universal's furry green moneymaker. Still, Limit's $16 million December debut is "nothing to cry about," says Dergarabedian.

Although Gladiator sword-wielder Crowe still cuts a fine action figure in Proof (with a few critics already hailing him as "the new Bogie" for his part in the Casablanca-like tale), the film from director Taylor Hackford didn't show anything like the drawing power of Gladiator's $34.8 million opening in May (insert your own box-office quarterbacking here). It could be that the public had gotten enough of the real-life romance between Crowe and Ryan in the tabloids, or that Ryan's perfectly coifed presence in the drama still made it too much of a "chick flick" to appeal to guys.