January 22, 2001 -

The top 3 films remain unchanged from last week as Julia Stiles kept on shaking her money maker, this time to the tune of $16 million. Her Save the Last Dance held on to the top spot for the second week in a row, dropping off about 30% from the previous week. Tom Hanks' Cast Away is seemingly stranded in the second spot, bringing in $11.3 million in its 5th week of release. The drug-trade drama Traffic stood firmly in 3rd place, pushing $8.2 million in ticket sales.

Guy Ritchie's Snatch debuted in 4th with an approximate gross of $7.6 million. Snatch was closely followed by Mel Gibson's What Women What, a film that still managed to pull in $7 million despite being in its 6th week of release.

Finding Forrester found its audience this week and rose one slot to 6th. Forrester had a Tiger on its tail however, as Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon finished the weekend with its highest placement yet. The film rose from 9th to 7th in its 7th week of release. Still in just 837 theaters, the film pulled in $6.4 million.

The Kevin Costner Cuban Missle Crisis film Thirteen Days fell one spot to 8th this week. The fact-based drama has accumulated $20 million since its release.

Sandra Bullock's Miss Congeniality also fell a single spot to 9th this week, followed by the week's other new release The Pledge. The $5.8 million opening sounds a bit mediocre, especially for a film starring Jack Nicholson, but it marks the highest ever debut for director Sean Penn.

So where was Sam Raimi's The Gift in all this? Well, the Paramount Classic film only opened in 805 theaters, and brought in a respectable $3.5 million. Paramount Classics co-president David Dinerstein told The Hollywood Reporter, "We got an adult audience but also received strong marks from younger moviegoers." Translation: "Adults like it, but a bunch of guys still came to try and catch a glimpse at Katie Holmes."

¿ Brian Linder