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Jesus Battles Zombies at the U.S. Box Office


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Jesus Battles Zombies at the U.S. Box Office

Fri Mar 19, 4:52 PM ET

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The forces of heaven and hell battle for the souls of moviegoers this weekend as Mel Gibson (news)'s box office Messiah "The Passion of the Christ" heads into its fourth weekend facing a remake of the horror classic "Dawn of the Dead."

Even as "The Passion" nears the $300 million mark in North American ticket sales, box office analysts say Gibson's film about the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus is expected to see another week-to-week decline, leaving it vulnerable to an attack of the zombies.

"Dawn of the Dead," an update of the 1978 chiller that carries the tag line "When there's no room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth," opened Friday in 2,744 in theaters with an ensemble cast that includes Ving Rhames (news) and Sarah Polley (news).

The R-rated film, the feature debut of director Zack Snyder, pits survivors of a worldwide plague holed up in a shopping mall against an onslaught of flesh-hungry undead. The film is released by Universal Pictures, a unit of Vivendi Universal.

Competing for attention are two other R-rated wide releases this weekend -- the crime thriller "Taking Lives," starring Angelina Jolie (news) as an FBI (news - web sites) profiler chasing a serial killer in Montreal, and the memory-erasing romance from writer Charlie Kaufman "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," starring Jim Carrey (news) and Kate Winslet (news).

Boding well for "Dawn of the Dead" is the strong track record demonstrated by a string of recent horror films, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracking service Exhibitor Relations.

"Horror movies do really well at any time of the year, and last year they did very well," he said. "You can never count them out as a genre. They always find an audience."

SCARING UP BOX-OFFICE RECEIPTS

For example, the slasher matchup "Freddy vs. Jason" opened with $36.4 million last August, followed by two weeks later by "Jeepers Creepers II," which grossed $15.3 million during the three-day portion of the Labor Day weekend. The vampire flick "Underworld" opened three weeks after that with $21.7 million, and the remake of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" grossed 21.7 million its first weekend in October.

Another movie about flesh-eating zombies, "28 Days Later," opened with $10 million last June in 1,260 theaters -- fewer than half the cinemas showing "Dawn of the Dead" -- and went on to rack up $45 million in ticket receipts.

If "Passion" declines 40 percent, as it did last weekend from the week before, that would yield a Friday-through-Sunday gross of about $19 million, putting "Dawn of the Dead" within striking distance of the box office pinnacle.

"The Passion," released Feb. 25 by art-house distributor Newmarket Films, grossed about $32 million last weekend and its tally stood at $276 million through Thursday. It goes into its fourth weekend showing in 3,250 theaters.

In the meantime, "Dawn of the Dead" will be feeling some heat from Time Warner Inc.-owned Warner Bros. Pictures' "Taking Lives," which opens in about 2,700 theaters pairing Jolie with Ethan Hawke (news) and Kiefer Sutherland (news).

Gregg Kilday of entertainment trade paper The Hollywood Reporter predicted "Taking Lives" would draw a more female-skewing audience than "Dawn of the Dead" and would finish the weekend in the top rungs of the box office.

A second thriller, Sony Picture Entertainment's "Secret Window," starring Johnny Depp (news) as a writer stalked by a psychotic stranger who accuses him of plagiarism, begins its second weekend on Friday. It opened at No. 2 last weekend.

This weekend's other wide release, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," from specialty studio Focus Features, will roll out in 1,353 theaters. Carrey's last film, "Bruce Almighty," grossed more than $240 million last year, and Winslet starred in the biggest-grossing film of all time, "Titanic."

Even if "Passion" wanes this weekend, pundits expect it to rise again over the Easter weekend next month. In the meantime, the film faces an intriguing matchup two weeks from now against the opening of "Hellboy," a supernatural thriller, on April 2.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...isure_movies_dc

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