Ice Age Drifts to Second

An alien resurrection and another dose of sword-wielding vampires went up against last weekend’s box office behemoth ICE AGE, and the vamps of BLADE II tapped a vein with audiences to extract $33.1M for the top box office spot. ICE AGE slipped to second, but still earned $31.1M for a mammoth two-week total of $88.3M. The 20th Anniversary re-release of E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL, including updated visual effects by ILM, landed with a respectable $15M in third place, and last week’s number two film RESIDENT EVIL, with visual effects by AMX Studios Ltd. and MagicMove, dropped to fifth, losing over half its audience to earn $6.6M for a two-week cume of $28.8M. THE TIME MACHINE, with visual effects by Digital Domain and ILM, also saw its earnings cut in half from last weekend. Bringing in just $5.2M, the futuristic thriller fell to seventh with a total gross to date of $48M. THE LORD OF THE RINGS, with primary visual effects by Weta Digital, upped its take slightly over last weekend to $2.5M to stay in eleventh place with $297.6M to date. The film won four Academy Awards at Sunday’s ceremony (including a win for Best Visual Effects) which may bring people back to theaters to revisit the Middle Earth fantasy. Check back next week! Box office information obtained from yahoo.com.