TOP 12: RESIDENT EVIL sequel makes bank

By: Patrick Sauriol
Date: Sunday, September 12, 2004

The game is still most definitely on for Screen Gems' RESIDENT EVIL film franchise. RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE, the second movie in the series, had a strong debut for its opening weekend taking in an estimated $23.7 million dollars in three days. The first film took in $17 million in its opening weekend, eventually going on to gross $40 M domestic, so it's a good sign that the survival horror zombie slaughter will continue in a third film.

Second place went to New Line Cinema's thriller CELLULAR which opened with $10.6 M, a little weaker than expected. Both WITHOUT A PADDLE and last week's champ HERO are still earning dough and clocked in at third and fourth place, respectively. Still, it's easy to see that we're out of summer season; consider that PRINCESS DIARIES 2, in its fifth week, comes in at fifth spot on the box office chart and you can see the weeks of three or four films having major openings have passed us by.

The week's other winner has to be NAPOLEON DYNAMITE which jumped four spots to ninth overall place thanks to another expansion in its screen count. The comedy, which had a budget of less than half-a-million dollars, has now earned over $30 M and is ahead of OPEN WATER, the summer's other much-talked about indie success story.

Here are the estimated box office receipts of the top twelve films from September 10 through to September 12 with their weekend gross and the movie's total domestic gross to date. The week's new films are signified in red.


BOX OFFICE FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 10 to SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 12, 2004:


1. RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE $23,700,000 $23,700,000
2. CELLULAR $10,600,000 $10,600,000
3. WITHOUT A PADDLE $4,575,000 $45,581,000
4. HERO $4,420,000 $41,652,000
5. THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2: ROYAL ENGAGEMENT $2,931,000 $89,258,000
6. ANACONDAS: THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID $2,900,000 $27,671,000
7. VANITY FAIR $2,750,000 $11,232,000
8. COLLATERAL $2,700,000 $92,674,000
9. NAPOLEON DYNAMITE $2,650,000 $30,427,000
10. PAPARAZZI $2,600,000 $11,835,000
11. WICKER PARK $2,550,000 $11,113,000
12. THE BOURNE SUPREMACY $2,500,000 $168,700,000



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