US Box Gripped By Ice Age 2
Animated sequel Ice Age: The Meltdown froze out rivals to take the number one spot at the US box office at the weekend with a $70.5m (£40.8m) haul, but there was considerably less chart heat for Sharon Stone's Basic Instinct 2. The return of Ray Romano, Denis Leary and John Leguizamo as a gang of pre-historic animals facing environmental disaster saw the biggest opening of the year so far. In contrast, the 2002 original, simply entitled Ice Age, took only $46m on opening.
Despite Stone's best efforts, there was little appetite for the return of femme fatale Catherine Tramell. Basic Instinct 2 opened in 10th place with just $3.2m in receipts.
The 1992 original, co-starring Michael Douglas, made $15m on opening and went on to gross more than $110m in the US alone. At the time it was something of a high point for the erotic thriller, though not as profitable as the $156m made by 1987's Fatal Attraction.
The poor performance of the sequel predictably led to widespread declarations of a death knell for the subgenre given the current conservative political climate in America.
"Anything that is erotic has been banned in the United States," Paul Verhoeven, director of the first Basic Instinct, told the Hollywood Reporter. "Look at the people at the top. We are living under a government that is constantly hammering out Christian values. And Christianity and sex have never been good friends."
Ice Age: The Meltdown's excellent performance, on the other hand, meant a second sequel is now a virtual certainty, although studio Fox said it had not yet locked its stars into a return.
The previous weekend's number one, the Spike Lee heist thriller Inside Man, dropped to second place with a more than respectable $15.7m in its second week on release.
Third place went to ATL, a drama about four Atlanta friends preparing for life after high school. Based on a tale by Antwone Fisher, whose life story was told in 2002's eponymous Denzel Washington-starring movie, it stars Outkast rapper Big Boi in his big screen debut and took $12.5m on opening. The only other new film in the top 10 was the horror movie Slither, which bucked the trend of box office success for low-budget thrillers by opening at eighth place with a disappointing $3.7m.