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Tom Hanks Alone At The Top With $41M

Tom Hanks' latest offering remained stranded at number one this holiday weekend.

The strong showing helped wrap up another big year at the box office for Hollywood.

Us magazine's Thelma Adams said it's no surprise that Cast Away, is number one for two weeks in a row.

The Week's Top 5 Movies
1. Cast Away, $41.5 million.

2. What Women Want, $25 million.

3. Miss Congeniality, $18.2 million.

4. The Family Man, nearly $16.8 million.

5. The Emperor's New Groove, $14.5 million.

"First of all, because it...reunites the Forrest Gump team," said Adams. "People love that movie and flock to that and love Tom Hanks when he plays an everyman hero."

Besides Hanks and Mel Gibson, another big star this weekend was Helen Hunt, because she's in the top two movies. In Cast Away she plays Tom Hanks' girlfriend and in What Women Want she plays the boss - and the love interest.

With winners come losers. Adams says that Matt Damon was a loser last weekend because "his movie All The Pretty Horses came up lame." It made $4 million over the weekend, and a total of $8 million in its first week.

That's on top of Legend of Bagger Vance which also didn't do well.

He is a star and has other projects in the pipeline, but he's "not someone who can open a movie," said Adams.

She said there's a difference between being a movie star and a movie opener.

"You can be both if you're Tom Hanks or Mel Gibson. And I would have to say Helen Hunt did great but she does not open most movies," Adams said.

On the other hand, Adams thinks Sandra Bullock is an opener and a movie star.

"Miss Congeniality did fabulously well and that's because she produced the movie," Adams said. "She created a character she was perfectly suited to play," the goofy girl next door who turns into a beauty.

"It's funny and plays on all her strengths, her comic strengths and her beauty."

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon got a lot of buzz before it hit theaters.

Adams predicts that the movie will be a sleeper hit. "Michele Yo is fabulous, Chow Yun Fat -- the Chinese Clark Gable -- is great...it's a lot of female power."

Adams points out that female power is a theme of thiyear, between Crouching Tiger, Miss Congeniality and Charlie's Angels.

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