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The Dead Will Rise at The Box Office This Weekend
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Halloween might be a week away, but Hollywood is beginning its annual horrorfest on Friday when “The Grudge,” starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, opens in theaters.
Offering horror fans another chance to see Gellar fight off demons — following her seven-year stint as the heroine in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” — “The Grudge” is on track to lure young males in droves.
A remake of the Japanese thriller “Ju-on,” the Columbia Pictures release is expected to bring in about $20 million, a bit better than DreamWorks’ “The Ring,” another PG-13 Japanese remake, which opened to $15 million in 2002.
The film was written and directed by Takashi Shimizu, who also was responsible for the Japanese original and who used his Japanese crew to shoot the remake.
The other wide release hitting theaters this weekend is DreamWorks’ “Surviving Christmas,” starring Ben Affleck and James Gandolfini. Following in the wake of some dismal early reviews, “Christmas” will likely hover around the $5 million mark.
In the past 18 months, Affleck has been widely lampooned for his role in “Gigli” and didn’t really energize the box office with either John Woo’s “Paycheck” or Kevin Smith’s “Jersey Girl.”
Those films likely to fill the rest of the top five include DreamWorks’ “Shark Tale,” which topped the charts with $22 million last weekend; Miramax’s “Shall We Dance?” which has maintained strong midweek numbers after a respectable No. 4 opening last weekend; adult fare “Ladder 49”; the high school football drama “Friday Night Lights”; and perhaps Paramount’s “Team America: World Police,” though it disappointed with its No. 3 bow last weekend.
The limited-release market is becoming increasingly crowded in preparation for awards season.
Fox Seachlight’s “I (Heart) Huckabees,” No. 12 last weekend, will expand wide this weekend to 720 theaters and hopes to build on an already impressive $2.6 million gross.
Searchlight also opens Alexander Payne’s “Sideways” Friday. Starring Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, “Sideways” revolves around two men traveling to the Santa Barbara, Calif., wine country for a bachelor sendoff.
Fine Line Features will expand “Vera Drake” to the top 15 markets, following a successful opening in New York in conjunction with the New York Film Festival. With a $20,435 per-screen average for its second weekend in release, the film, centering on an abortionist living in 1950s England, already has won critical acclaim for actress Imelda Staunton and director Mike Leigh.
Paramount Classics will unveil “The Machinist,” starring Christian Bale as an industrial worker who hasn’t slept in a year and is beginning to question his sanity. The R-rated film will open in three locations in Los Angeles and New York.
The documentary “Lightning in a Bottle” from filmmaker Antoine Fuqua will be released by Sony Pictures Classics on two screens in Los Angeles and New York. The PG-13 film showcases the 2003 Radio City Music Hall concert celebrating the anniversary of American blues.
MGM will release through its United Artists’ specialty label “Undertow” on six screens in Los Angeles and New York. The R-rated thriller is directed by David Gordon Green.