'Hero' Tops Movie Box Office With $17.8 Million Opening
LOS ANGELES -- "Hero," Jet Li's acclaimed martial-arts epic, vanquished giant snakes, serial killers and a gang of superbabies to debut as the top weekend film with $17.8 million.
"Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid," a sequel to 1997's monster-serpent flick, opened in second place with $13.2 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. The weekend's other new movies debuted weakly. The serial-killer tale "Suspect Zero," starring Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley and Carrie-Anne Moss, came in at No. 10 with $3.4 million. "Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2," a follow-up to the 1999 kid flick, finished at No. 11 with $3.3 million.
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The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, "Exorcist: The Beginning," tumbled to fifth-place with $6.7 million, a steep 63% drop from its $18.1 million debut.
Overall, the top 12 movies grossed $84.7 million, virtually unchanged over the same weekend a year ago.
With Hollywood's summer season wrapping up over Labor Day weekend, the industry will finish slightly ahead of summer 2003's revenue record of $3.9 billion. But factoring in higher admission prices, the number of tickets sold will lag a bit behind last summer's.
"Hero," nominated for the foreign-language Academy Award for 2002, is director Zhang Yimou's saga of China some 2,000 years ago. The film stars Li, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Dao Ming, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Donnie Yen, a lineup of Asian superstars that distributor Miramax calls the "Ocean's Eleven" of Chinese films.
"It obviously hit a nerve and certainly bodes well for Chinese films and foreign-language films," said Rick Sands, chief operating officer at Miramax, which opened "Hero" in 2,031 theaters, unusually wide for a foreign-language movie. "We believed in the movie and went for it."
Presented in Mandarin with English subtitles, "Hero" twists through several retellings of an assassination plot against the ruthless leader of Qin, who seeks to subjugate China's other six kingdoms and became the land's first emperor. The stories, character motivations and even color schemes change with each retelling as the film weaves toward the ultimate truth of events.
Critics raved over the cinematography, romance, lush imagery and glorious fight sequences, whose balletic grace rivals that of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," the 2000 martial-arts hit.
"We talk about the dog days of August, but maybe these are the days of opportunity for certain types of films to do well after the blockbuster onslaught of early summer," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "This is a time when competition is a lot less fierce, and a movie like 'Hero' can take advantage of that."
《英雄》登上北美票房冠军宝座
一部由李连杰(Jet Li)主演、广受好评的武打影片《英雄》(Hero)周末首映战胜巨蟒、连环杀手和一群超级宝宝，以1,780万美元的佳绩登上北美票房冠军宝座。
根据周日的票房统计数据，位居票房第二位的是《狂蟒之灾2：搜寻血兰》(Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid)，这部影片周末进帐1,320万美元。这是1997年的《狂蟒之灾》的续集。其他周末首映的影片表现平平。由亚伦?艾克哈特(Aaron Eckhart)、本?金斯利(Ben Kingsley)和凯瑞－安妮?摩斯(Carrie-Anne Moss)主演的连环杀人片《零号嫌疑犯》(Suspect Zero)排在票房第10位，票房收入340万美元。紧随其后的是1999年影片《天才宝宝》的续集《天才宝宝2：超级宝宝》(Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2)，票房收入为330万美元。
上周末票房冠军《驱魔人前传》(Exorcist: The Beginning)本周下滑至第五位，收入为670万美元，较其首映周1,810万美元的票房减少了63%。
从总体上看，排在票房前12位的影片共获得8,470万美元的收入，与上年同期基本持平。
好莱坞的这个夏天将在劳工节(Labor Day)的周末结束，预计夏季票房总收入将略微超过2003年夏季的创纪录总收入39亿美元。但如果将今年电影票价上涨的因素考虑在内，真正售出的电影票的数量却可能比去年有所减少。
《英雄》获得2002年奥斯卡最佳外语片奖提名，导演张艺谋通过这部影片展现了大约2000多年前古代中国的一个传奇故事。影片由李连杰、张曼玉(Maggie Cheung)、章子怡、陈道明、梁朝伟(Tony Leung Chiu-Wai)和甄子丹(Donnie Yen)主演，这些人都是亚洲的超级明星，电影发行公司米拉麦克斯(Miramax)曾将其誉为中国电影的“11罗汉”(Ocean's Eleven).
米拉麦克斯公司的首席营运长里克?桑德(Rick Sands)说，”这显然对中国电影乃至外国电影都是一个好兆头”。米拉麦克斯公司在2,031影院同时上映了《英雄》，这样的规模对一个外语片可是不常见的。“我们对这部电影很有信心”。
《英雄》的原声是中文普通话，影片播放时附有英文字幕。故事讲述的是刺杀古代暴君秦始皇的故事。秦始皇一心要征服其他六国，最后成为了中国历史上第一个皇帝。
“好莱坞的大制作在夏初拼杀完毕后，8月份的三伏天可能是其他一些影片表现的好时机”，票房跟踪机构Exhibitor Relations的总裁保罗?德加拉伯迪安(Paul Dergarabedian)说。“这段时间竞争热度已经降温，像《英雄》这样的电影完全可以利用这样的时机”。
