Disney’s Pixar animated feature “Ratatouille” and the Bruce Willis thrill ride known as “Live Free or Die Hard” are in a virtual nose-to-nose, photo finish for the top spot for this weekend’s box office.
The lovable rat with a taste for cooking the finest cuisine has racked up a cool $47.2 million so far and the Willis crash-boom fest has landed $48.2 million to this point — with another 9 hours of open box office left for the weekend.
The critics have been two-thumbs up for both of these films that are not really in competition because their audience demographic is not the same, although there is some crossover. “Ratatouille” tells the tale of a rat who loves to cook fine foods and teams up with a young chef (residing under his chef’s hat), whispering fabulous recipes into his ear.
“Live Free or Die Hard” (which premiered last week) is the fourth, and quite possibly the second best John McClane romp with Bruce Willis, now 52, still showing age is not a factor and he can still beat the bad guys in the most extreme ways. The best of the Die Hard films is, in my opinion, the very first one, “Die Hard,” but this fourth film (and probably final one in the franchise with Willis as the lead) comes pretty close.
Now here is some other phenomenal news. If the box office numbers continue in the direction they are going until they close tonight, then the Top 5 grossing films for this weekend will all be genre-related movies. Here is where we stand at this hour:
In the U.S. only, “Live Free or Die Hard” is at number one with $48.2 million (week in a half total). “Ratatouille” is in a hairs-width second with $47.2 million (but first for a one weekend total). Following in third is “Evan Almighty” adding another $15.1 million to its $60.6 million from last week. In fourth is the Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack horror/thriller “1408” and staying in the Top 5 is “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.”
We will have the full Top Ten films for the U.S. box office later in the week.
given the choice I let the wife & kids go to the Rat while I enjoyed Die Hard.
Almost want to call it an ‘action comedy’ they almost flat out poked fun at themselves quite a bit. Very entertaining. Next up, Transformers.