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Coen brothers light up US box office with 'Burn' comedy
2008-09-16
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - The Coen brothers conquered the weekend box office in the United States and Canada with their farcical "Burn After Reading" only six months after winning an Oscar for a much darker film, industry figures showed Monday. Starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton, the spy comedy earned 19.1 million dollars from Friday to Sunday in its opening weekend. The successful debut of the latest film from sibling directors Ethan and Joel Coen comes after the two won Best Picture at the Oscars for the grim and violent "No Country for Old Men." The revenue for "Burn After Reading" marked the best commercial result at the box office for the directors since they started making movies more than 20 years ago. The film with its goofy, rapid-fire dialogue has won mainly rave reviews and praise in particular for Pitt, who plays a clueless gym trainer. The movie tells the story of a fired CIA analyst, played by Malkovich, whose memoir falls into the hands of Pitt and his cohorts at a fitness gym. "The Family that Preys" by playwright-turned-filmmaker Tyler Perry came in second place with earnings of 17.3 million in its weekend debut while another new release had a solid showing at third place, police thriller "Righteous Kill." Starring screen giants Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino as New York police detectives, the film earned 16.3 million dollars, showing the two can still draw a big audience in their sixties -- though the movie got mixed reviews. The modern update of George Cukor's 1939 classic film "The Women," featuring Meg Ryan, was in fourth place with 10.1 million over the weekend. The spoof "Tropic Thunder" -- Ben Stiller's movie-within-a-movie about filming a war flick in the middle of a real-life conflict zone -- fell to fifth place with a take of 4.2 million dollars, boosting its earnings beyond 100 million dollars over five weeks. "House Bunny," about an ousted Playboy bunny who becomes a college sorority house mother, was in sixth with 4.15 million, followed by "Batman" sequel "The Dark Knight." Still in the "Top Ten" after nine weeks, the latest Batman movie took in 4.12 million over the weekend for total earnings of 517.8 million, the second best box office showing after "Titanic" which earned 600.8 million. Last week's box office winner "Bangkok Dangerous," starring Nicolas Cage as a ruthless hitman on assignment in Thailand, fell all the way to eighth this week, with 2.6 million in earnings. "Traitor," a war-on-terror epic featuring Don Cheadle as a former US Special Ops officer and potential international conspirator, was ninth, with 2.1 million. In 10th place was "Death Race," an action-adventure flick about an ex-convict competing against prison inmates in a freedom-or-death car race, taking in two million.
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