Top 10 Movies: T3 walks the plank

By: Patrick Sauriol
Date: Monday, July 14, 2003

Somewhere in Disney's development division, the movie executives who came up with the idea to make movies based on theme park rides are breathing sighs of relief. Unlike last summer's bomb THE COUNTRY BEARS, Disney's PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL is a smash hit. The Gore Verbinski directed film grossed an estimated $46.4 million dollars this past weekend, raising itself to the top of the pirate mast and the domestic box office. In five days of release PIRATES has made off with an impressive $70.4 M.

Winding up with half of PIRATES gross was Fox's THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, or LXG as it's known to close friends. Stephen Norrington's steampunk X-Men took in about $23.3 M; not extraordinary indeed, but not abyssmal either.

Last week's champion, TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES netted another $19.6 M and crossed the coveted $100 M threshold. LEGALLY BLONDE 2 still has a firm grip on the audience's roots, grabbing another $12 M while FINDING NEMO has better legs than the first fish that crawled out of the ocean all those years ago. The fifth Disney/Pixar outing has now earned $290 M and will become the first film to gross $300 M later this week. Note to Disney execs: take the money from the PIRATES performance and use it to hammer out a new contract with Pixar, fellas.

Also showing they've got reach with moviegoers are THE ITALIAN JOB and 28 DAYS LATER. Both films are playing on about 1300 screens and they're still in the top ten racking up more money for theater owners.

Here's the list of the top grossing films from July 11 to 13, their weekend gross and the film's total gross to date:

1. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL $46,400,000 $70,400,000
2. THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN $23,300,000 $23,300,000
3. TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES $19,600,000 $110,500,000
4. LEGALLY BLONDE 2 $12,000,000 $62,900,000
5. FINDING NEMO $8,200,000 $290,800,000
6. CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE $7,300,000 $81,600,000
7. SINBAD: LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SEAS $4,600,000 $19,100,000
8. 28 DAYS LATER $4,300,000 $28,500,000
9. THE HULK $3,700,000 $124,700,000
10. THE ITALIAN JOB $2,700,000 $88,900,000



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