BOX OFFICE: Rats vs. McClane - Who Won?
LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD and RATATOUILLE both enjoy success but probably cut into their takings with opening opposite each other.
Bruce Willis' first Die Hard movie in 12 years actually came out on top over Pixar's Ratatouille with a $48.1 million opening. However most people don't, so Ratatouille wins the weekend with a $47.2 million opening, $14 million more than Live Free or Die Hard's taking of $33.1 million. Compared to last year's Cars opening of $60.1 million, Ratatouille is somewhat of a disappointment for Pixar, but it's still a figure that most animated movies would drool over as an opening, including the Dreamworks/Aardman animated movie Flushed Away which opened to $18.8 million last year. The Pixar flick is getting great word-of-mouth and may have the legs to be a big money maker over the coming weeks. When you count inflation, Live Free or Die Hard did around the same number as the last two movies in the franchise which has to be seen as a big success after such a long absence. One thing the Die Hard movies have always had is strong international success, so they should be on for a winner here when it opens in the U.K. and other countries this week. Michael Moore's health documentary Sicko made a very impressive $4.5 million on only 441 screens and has become the second highest opening documentary of all time next to Moore's previous flick Fahrenheit 9/11. The doc is getting great buzz and is likely to have long legs as it gradually opens on a wider scale over the next few weeks. 1 Ratatouille (2007) $47.2M $47.2M 2 Live Free or Die Hard (2007) $33.1M $48.2M 3 Evan Almighty (2007) $15.1M $60.6M 4 1408 (2007) $10.6M $40.4M 5 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) $9M $115M 6 Knocked Up (2006) $7.42M $122M 7 Ocean's Thirteen (2007) $6.05M $102M 8 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) $5.01M $296M 9 Sicko (2007) $4.5M $4.62M 10 Evening (2007) $3.51M $3.51M OPENING NEXT WEEK:TRANSFORMERS (Tuesday opening), License to Wed (Wednesday opening), Joshua (limited), Introducing the Dwights (limited) source - box office mojo, imdb