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'Gladiator' crushes rivals
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May 7, 2000: 7:15 p.m. ET
Summer box office season begins with a roar from 'Gladiator' of DreamWorks
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The summer movie season officially kicked off with a bang this weekend when "Gladiator" vanquished its rivals with a $32.7 million opening.
The Roman epic stars New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe as a general who fell into slavery but used his combat skills to rise to a hero at the Colosseum.
 Hollywood's first Roman epic since the 1960's, the movie, directed by Ridley Scott, used digital effects to recreate Roman pageantry in the big screen genre, which has not been seen since "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus."
The $103 million film is a co-production between the privately held DreamWorks SKG and Universal Pictures of Seagram Co. (VO: Research, Estimates).
"Gladiator," as the first blockbuster release, marked the official start of the summer box office season, which boasts a lineup including Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible 2," and "Dinosaur" of Disney (DIS: Research, Estimates).
"U-571," the No.1 movie for the past two weekends, dropped to second place with $7.6 million. The sci-fi thriller "Frequency" remained firm at No. 3 in its second weekend with $6.5 million, while "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas" slipped two spots to No. 4 with $6.3 million.
The weekend's biggest disappointment was Columbia Pictures' "I Dreamed of Africa," starring Kim Basinger, which opened in eighth place with $2.5 million in ticket sales.
"Kim got a very good reviews, but unfortunately, the film as a whole did not," said Ed Russell, executive vice president for publicity at Sony (SNE: Research, Estimates), the parent company of Columbia Pictures.
The top 12 films this weekend earned a combined $75.4 million, up nine percent from last weekend, but down three percent from the same period last year, when "The Mummy" opened at No. 1 with $43.4 million. 
- compiled by staff writer Joseph Lee
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