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Latest "Lord" Towers over Box Office
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers lorded over cineplexes in its debut Wednesday, ringing up a dramatic $26 million.
That represents one of the best single-day hauls in history and a marked improvement over its predecessor.
Factor in the $16 million earned overseas, and Peter Jackson's epic second installment in J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy trilogy has earned a whopping $42 million worldwide. Not bad for one day at the (box) office.
Two Towers, which just earned Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture, Drama and Best Director and made both AFI and the Broadcast Film Critics Association's Top 10 lists, played to sold-out crowds in the U.S. and abroad since zombie screenings began at 12 a.m. Wednesday. The film snapped single-day records in Denmark, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Sweden and Norway, according to New Line Cinema, the studio behind the flick.
The Two Towers is playing on nearly 12,000 screens worldwide (6,633 sceens at 3,622 theaters domestically and about 5,000 screens internationally).
The second chapter is already outperforming the first, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. According to receipt tallies released Thursday, Two Towers is doing 44 percent better business.
Fellowship took in $18 million domestically on its first day a year ago--and $11 million internationally--on its way to grossing $313 million domestically and $860 million worldwide. (And that's not even counting the huge sales generated by the Fellowship DVD.)
"We're astounded by these numbers," says New Line distribution chief Rolf Mittweg. "For a three-hour film that is central in a trilogy to open this way is engergizing and termendously exciting."
The middle chapter in Tolkien's tale zig-zags back and forth between three separate adventures: heroic hobbits Frodo and Sam on their way to Mordor to dispose of the one ring accompanied by the untrustworthy Gollum; Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli helping to defend the Rohan people from Saruman's invading horde of Uruk-hai; and Merry and Pippin meeting and recruiting the ancient Ents to battle the evil forces.
The Two Towers stars Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Cate Blanchett, and Liv Tyler.
Despite The Two Towers' huge tally, it's not close to the all-time champ, Spider-Man. The superhero owns the domestic box-office record, netting both the best opening-day gross ($39.4 million) and single-day gross ($43.6 million), notched during its first weekend last May. (One caveat: Spidey had the added benefit of opening on a Friday night, whereas Two Towers had a non-holiday, midweek debut. Only Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace has had a stronger Wednesday open, taking in $28.5 million in its debut in 1999.)
Still, we're guessing Frodo and pals aren't complaining.
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