After two months on release, Ridley Scott's stirring Gladiator last weekend passed the £2.5 million mark at the Irish box-office and joined the list of the 10 highest grossing films ever released here. While the epic film had been expected to fare very well with male audiences, the general perception in the film business was that women would be unlikely to turn out in huge numbers for a swords-and-sandals action movie. But they did not bargain on the appeal of the movie's star, Russell Crowe, who is regarded as the primary factor in attracting so many women to the movie. Ironically, the movie displaced on the top 10 by Gladiator is last summer's Notting Hill (£2.48m), which was targeted primarily at women audiences.
However, Gladiator is not the biggest hit of the year to date in Ireland. Having taken £3.15 million at the box-office here, Toy Story 2 now ranks fifth on the all-time hit list. The only other 2000 releases in Ireland which have passed the £2m mark to date are the Oscar-winning American Beauty (£2.40m) and Alan Parker's Angela's Ashes (£2.22m), both of which go on video release here this month.
The all-time Irish box-office top 10 now reads as follows:
1. Titanic (James Cameron) £7.54m.
2. Michael Collins (Neil Jordan) £4.04m.
3. Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (George Lucas) £3.52m.
4. The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo) £3.26m.
5. Toy Story 2 (John Lasseter) £3.15m.
6. Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg) £3.12m.
7. Independence Day (Roland Emmerich) £2.91m.
8. The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shayamalan) £2.64m.
9. There's Something About Mary (Peter and Bobby Farrelly) £2.55
10. Gladiator (Ridley Scott) £2.50m.
IN a move that will be welcomed by European cinema-goers who often have to wait months to see movies after they open in the US, Columbia TriStar Films has announced that it is narrowing the gap between the release of its key films in the US and the rest of the world. "This is now our policy and we are committed to giving international territories more simultaneous release dates," the company's executive vice-president of international marketing and distribution, Tony Manne, told delegates at the exhibitors convention, CinemaExpo in Amsterdam last week.
The first film to be released under the new stratgey is the Mel Gibson epic, The Patriot, which arrives here next Friday, 16 days after its US opening. Columbia TriStar will give a similarly speedy international release to its upcoming releases of Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man, featuring Kevin Bacon; the cinema version of Charlie's An- gels, starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu; the new Arnold Schwarzenegger film, Sixth Day; and Martin Campbell's Vertical Limit with Chris O'Donnell, Bill Paxton and Robin Tunney.
Meanwhile, Columbia has set Woody Allen's long-delayed Sweet and Lowdown for release at 10 Irish cinemas on August 4th, while Clarence Pictures will open the latest Allen comedy, Small Time Crooks, here in November.
THE governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) have decreed that a film cannot appear on the Internet before its cinema release and be eligible for an Oscar. An AMPAS statement says that the Internet ruling emphasises the academy's "long-standing principle that its province is theatrical motion pictures as distinct from pictures experienced as lone viewing".
The academy has marked February 13th 2001 as the date for the announcement of Oscar nominations for the year 2000. The 73rd Academy Awards ceremony is set for March 25th at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
To avoid being overshadowed by the Oscars, the BAFTA film awards, which traditionally have been presented in April, are being re-positioned to give the event a higher profile, and the ceremony will take place on February 25th next year.
theatre director Stephen Daldry's charming first film, Dancer, which was warmly received at Cannes, has been re-titled to avoid confusion with Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, which took the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Both films are due to open here on September 29th. The new title of Dancer is Billy Elliott, named after its principal character, an 11-year-old schoolboy who switches from boxing to ballet lessons.
Meanwhile, the Australian movie, Me, Myself I, featuring Rachel Griffiths, which is due here on August 18th, ought not be confused with the new Jim Carrey comedy, Me, Myself & Irene, which opens on September 22nd.