TOP 10: Do they serve cake or pie at the AMERICAN WEDDING?

By: Patrick Sauriol
Date: Monday, August 04, 2003

Surprising no one, Universal's third entry in its AMERICAN PIE escapdes took top place at the box office this past weekend. AMERICAN WEDDING rocketed to first place, earning an estimated $34 million dollars. Not bad, but not as big an opening as AMERICAN PIE II.

One film that is taking industry analysts by surprise is SPY KIDS 3-D. In its second week of release that picture only dropped about 40% over its opening weekend gross. That kind of staying power has earned the KIDS nearly $70 M in just two short weeks. The movie will undoubtedly surpass the domestic box office earnings for SPY KIDS 2 ($85 M) and could give a serious run for being the largest grossing film of the franchise (presently the first SPY KIDS holds that honor, topping out at $111 M back in 2001.)

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN continues to plunder the box office. Did anyone working at Disney even dream that their picture would earn more than TERMINATOR 3? SEABISCUIT continues to hold strong in fourth place followed by BAD BOYS II and the second TOMB RAIDER outing.

With $319 M so far, FINDING NEMO is now just $8 M away from beating the record for the highest-grossing animated movie of all time (THE LION KING). Meanwhile, GIGLI had the cinematic equivalent of being beaten up and having its lunch money stolen. With under $4 M in its opening weekend, chances are execs working at Miramax are sweating a little bit; Kevin Smith's next film, JERSEY GIRL stars both GIGLI stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez and has a romantic angle as well. It's due out next year. One word of advice to those guys: DISTANCE.

Here's the list of the top grossing films from August 1 to 3, their weekend gross and the film's total gross to date:

1. AMERICAN WEDDING $34,258,000 $34,258,000
2. SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER $20,100,000 $69,000,000
3. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL $19,100,000 $209,800,000
4. SEABISCUIT $17,468,000 $49,050,000
5. BAD BOYS II $12,700,000 $111,300,000
6. LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE $11,300,000 $42,560,000
7. FINDING NEMO $3,800,000 $319,968,000
8. GIGLI $3,800,000 $3,800,000
9. THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN $3,100,000 $58,839,000

10. TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES $2,915,000 $142,783,000


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