Category: Films

The box office was bustling this Christmas holiday weekend with DreamWorks' "The Prince of Egypt" and Disney/Pixar's "A Bug's Life" holding their own against many new live-action releases including "Patch Adams," "The Faculty" and "Stepmom." "Prince of Egypt" dropped two places from second to fourth; however, the film saw a 5% rise in business grossing $15.3M for a grand total of a little over $40M. "A Bug's Life" saw a 1% jump in totals despite being taken off more than 300 screens. The film finished seventh with $10.1M and has now grossed $114.6M in six weeks.

This year's final and quite possibly, most anticipated, animated feature, DreamWorks' "The Prince of Egypt" debuted this past weekend at number two with a respectable but not stellar $14.5M. While DreamWorks reps blame the impeachment proceedings, the White House affair didn't seem to have much effect on the strong $18.4M number one opening for the live-action Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan film, "You've Got Mail." It is too early to make any guesses on the success of DreamWorks' 'Prince' and the next few holiday weeks will be integral in determining the film's profitability.

Coming off their successful animated feature, Antz, Pacific Data Images (PDI) and DreamWorks have announced that their next collaboration will be Tusker, directed by Tim Johnson (co-director of Antz) and Brad Lewis (producer of Antz). The film will be PDI/DreamWorks third project and will follow the release of Shrek, which is currently in production. Tusker follows a herd of elephants as they make a perilous trek across Southeast Asia confronting numerous dangers including a malevolent group of poachers.

Disney/Pixars A Bugs Life led the way at the box office for a second straight weekend beating out Universals shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcocks classic Psycho. The computer-animated film dropped a respectable 48%, earning $17.4M for a total cume of $68.7M. In fourth place, Paramounts The Rugrats Movie had a heavier drop of 64% from Thanksgiving weekend adding $7.6M for a grand total of $67.5M in 17 days.

Animated films played a very big role at this weekend's box office whichsaw strong performances from three animated features. After eight weeks,"ANTZ" remained in the Top 10 at No. 9 pulling in $2.3 million. "A Bug'sLife" was impressive in its one-theater debut in Hollywood, California'shistoric El Capitan theater grossing an amazing $291,000 during theweekend. This opening set house records at the El Capitan according tosources at Buena Vista. The biggest story this weekend though was

After six weeks of US release, Dreamworks/PDIs computer-animated bug pic Antz saw a rare 20% boost in box office business this weekend placing fifth. Despite losing 300 screens and new competition for the family crowd from the re-release of The Wizard of Oz, the film grossed an estimated $5.4 million in 2,604 theaters bringing the films cume to $74.8 million.