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By DON GROVES, February 22, 2000
"The Beach" may be all but washed up in the U.S., but Leonardo DiCaprio is still the Prince of Tides overseas, judging by the Fox meller’s openings and holding power in its initial foreign engagements.
Danny Boyle’s pic netted $13.3 million last weekend from handsome bows in eight markets — claiming pole position in each — and holdovers in six territories. Cume is $25.2 million.
The presence of Gallic thesps Guillame Canet and Virginie Ledoyen undoubtedly contributed to the film’s strapping $4.9 million bounty on 521 screens in France.
Next best opener was Germany’s solid $2.3 million on 616 (a 30% market share), followed by Brazil’s $681,000 on 256 and Belgium’s $673,000 on 68. Equally impressive were Switzerland’s $545,000 on 62, Austria’s $234,000 on 74 and South Africa’s $211,000 on 61 (commanding 35% of the market).
Indicating that word of mouth is a lot stronger abroad than at home, "The Beach" dipped by a reasonable 20% in the U.K., collaring $3.2 million on 329 prints for a 10-day cume of $9.7 million.
If it can sustain this kind of momentum, an eventual tally north of $100 million seems attainable.
Virginie Ledoyen: Kissing Leo Is Hard Work
February 20, 2000
NEW YORK (AP) - It's hard work kissing Leonardo DiCaprio. Really. That's what DiCaprio's co-star Virginie Ledoyen says about their underwater smooch in the film "The Beach."
"As you can imagine, you can't breathe. So you have to breathe before and then dive down. It's really work. It's hard to make people understand that you're kissing Leo but that it's a job," Ledoyen says in the Feb. 28 issue of People magazine.
The 23-year-old French actress says working with DiCaprio during the four-month shoot in Thailand was a "great time."
"He was very sweet to my family and friends."
Liz Smith
Feb 14, 2000
LEONARDO DiCAPRIO's slackers-in-paradise flick, "The Beach," will probably recoup his $20 million salary in its first week. After that, who knows? The film gives Leo plenty of opportunity to emote like mad, and to display himself as a less-than-heroic character. Wisely, he also chose a property that displays him physically, for all those out there who care about that sort of thing. Leo is slimmed-down, tan and buffer than he's been, and his naturally soft features and frame here are harder and sexier. He looks better than he ever has -- or probably ever will again! (I don't get the sense that DiCaprio is terribly vain about himself.)
The movie? 'Tis a puzzlement. Though it's definitely the sort of thing some people are going to love. Often, the nuttier, the more off-center and convoluted a movie is, the greater the cult attraction. The important thing, really, is that DiCaprio, a truly gifted actor, is back to acting again. He had to make a "comeback" movie after the crushing success of "Titanic." Now he has. This is it. Whether "The Beach" swims to box office gold or sinks like a gutted ocean liner, it's onward and upward to the resumption of a great career interrupted and an inevitable Oscar, someday.
"For a while we were untouchable in our happiness"..
"I thought we'd have to talk about our positive energies a lot, kiss the earth every morning and recycle our waste products by some unspeakable mechanism. Fortunately not, it really was some kind of paradise!"