New Line's Christmas satire, ELF (with vfx by Rhythm & Hues and Amalgamated Pixels) won the box office weekend ended Nov. 16, 2003. After two weeks, ELF has grabbed a tidy $70.3M. Fox's Oscar contender, MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD, debuted in second place with a respectable but certainly not commanding $25.1M. Hailed by some as the first David Lean-like epic of the millennium, Peter Weir's seafaring adventure with Russell Crowe boasts vfx by Asylum and ILM). THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS plummeted to third with $16.4M in its second weekend. REVOLUTIONS (with vfx by ESC FX, Animal Logic, BuF Compagnie, Giant Killer Robots, Tippett Studio and Tweak Films) now has $114.2M to its illustrious credit. Disney's BROTHER BEAR dipped to the fourth spot, earning $12M in its fourth weekend for a cume of $63M. Warner Bros.' live action/animated LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION had a tepid opening, drawing $9.3M to finish fifth. Universal's LOVE ACTUALLY (Framestore contributed vfx) held the sixth spot with $8.6M for a total of $18.8M. Dimension's SCARY MOVIE 3 dropped to seventh with $6.1M, good enough for $102.3M. Sony's heart-warming RADIO finished in eighth place with $4.8M and a total to date of $43.5M. Paramount's doc about slain rapper Tupac Shakur, TUPAC: RESURRECTION, debuted at number nine with $4.6M. Clint Eastwood's MYSTIC RIVER tallied $3.2M for the 10th spot. The Warner Bros. Oscar contender now has $45.5M to its credit. Box office information obtained from boxofficemojo.com.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
