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Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie No. 1 |
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"Mr. & Mrs. Smith," the film with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt playing married assassins rang up an impressive $51.1 million this weekend, according to studio estimates from box office tracker Nielsen EDI. Despite largely lukewarm reviews from critics, the debut is the best for Pitt and Jolie and was more than $10 million above most analysts' expectations reports USA Today. In the movie Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are assassins, secretly hopping the world and killing for hire. But their separate lives collide when each finds out their next target is their own spouse.
"Mr. and Mrs. Smith" debuted amid a tabloid fury about whether Pitt and Jolie were an item.
"I don't know if the tabloids helped," says Bruce Snyder, Fox's head of distribution. "But obviously they didn't do to us what they did to Gigli."
The other new wide releases, "The Honeymooners," "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D" and "High Tension," opened weakly, contributing to Hollywood's 16th-straight weekend of declining revenues compared to last year.
"Sharkboy and Lavagirl," a family action yarn from Robert Rodriguez ("Spy Kids"), had an estimated $12.5 million, coming in at No. 5.
Cedric the Entertainer's "The Honeymooners," an update of Jackie Gleason's 1950s sit-com, premiered at No. 7 with just about $5.8 million.
The previous weekend's top movie, "Madagascar," slipped to second place with an estimated $17.1 million.
"Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" was third with approximately $14.9 million, lifting its total to $332.1 million. At No. 4 was "The Longest Yard" with roughly $13.5 million.
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