Entertainment

<i>Hannibal</i> Feasts On Competition

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

February 16, 2001 / 1:46 AM EST / CBS

For a second straight week, Hannibal dominated the box office at theaters nationwide, reports CBS News Entertainment Contributor Laurie Hibberd in Box Office Plus.

It has been an unbelievable ride for Hannibal which easily passed the $100 million mark in just its second week of release. Anthony Hopkins is reportedly thinking about doing another sequel.

Here's a look at the holiday weekend numbers according to
Hollywood.com.

Hannibal took in $36 million, bringing its two week total to a tremendous $100 million.
Chris Rock's comedy Down To Earth debuted in second place with just over $20 million.
Another debut, the animated movie Recess: School's Out snagged a surprising third place finish with $13.5 million.
The new Keanu Reeves movie Sweet November and the Oscar-nominated Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon rounded out the top five.

The movies that received Oscar nominations did very well this weekend, including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, said Hibberd. Traffic went up quite a bit as well.

Down To Earth is one of Chris Rock's first opportunities to be a real leading man. Hibberd thinks it remains to be seen if Rock will continue to be a leading man.

"I think his strength lies in his ability as a social commentator. I saw him on Regis the other day. He had buckets of material lined up, talking about Puffy, Tom and Nicole's breakup. This guy is a great social satirist. For him to give up his talk show to focus solely on movies-- I think it will be interesting to see if he ultimately regrets that decision," said Hibberd.

Recess: School's Out is based on the Nickelodeon show that's very, very popular.

"You never know what's going to happen when you take a TV show to film. But Rugrats was so popular, it's a pretty sure bet…they'll be out in droves to do it," said Hibberd.