Taking advantage of the Devil’s own day, 20th Century Fox’s remake of the 1976 supernatural classic thriller, “The Omen,” took in an estimated $12.5 million in box office receipts.
The film opening on a Tuesday (06-06-06) starred Liev Schreiber and Julia Stiles, and represented the story about the return of the Anti-Christ as a 6-year-old boy, set a new Tuesday opening record punching out the one-time champ “Ali” which starred Wil Smith as boxing icon Muhammad Ali.
Currently the other top two Tuesday grossers are Ben Stiller’s “Meet the Fockers” at $12.63 million and Peter Jackson’s mega hit “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” which brought in $12.48 million.
Execs were sure that all the pre-press for this remake would help, but even they were surprised at the number of ticket sales for a Tuesday and are looking forward to the film’s weekend showing.
Let’s hope they still take the time to give us a remastered DVD release of the original, and make it chock full of extras.
I know it’s not likely that there are many outtakes that survived since 1976, but the original deserves an “ultimate” DVD edition.