Miramax had gambled on two big end-of-year movies, Gangs of New York and Chicago. Gangs will just about break even. Chicago, a risky musical to which Miramax gave a deliberately limited release, is surviving too. Miramax broadened the release from 77 to 304 theaters this weekend, and the movie took in $2.1m last night. Harvey Weinstein lives.
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Box Office Mojo

New York's hosted more big movie premieres than usual this month, partly because local studios such as New Line and Miramax are releasing bigger movies, partly because December is seens as the best time to release an Oscar contender. But I'm getting off the point: Tracie Martyn's Fifth Avenue skin-care salon is backed up with visiting Hollywood actresses, nervous about their red-carpet close-ups. Ren e Zellweger will be delighted to know she's touted as a customer. The hot treatment: a resculpturing facial.

The Friday opening numbers for Gangs of New York aren't out yet, but the movie's a bust. Mediocre reviews, and the movie's expected US gross has slumped in trading on the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Insiders, the main participants in the exchange, are now betting the movie will make only $35.6m in the first four weeks of its US release. Harvey Weinstein of Miramax had said the studio needed a US gross of $55m to make money on Gangs, which seemed just about possible before word-of-mouth turned bad. Now, for Weinstein, it's all riding on Chicago, a musical, of all things.
GANGS [HSX]

Having seen Harvey Weinstein's temper lavishly documented in The New Yorker this week, Gawker doesn't particularly want to elicit the big man's rage. But it has to be said: Gangs of New York is, by all indications, a dud, and the usual round of pre-release press hype seems more contrived than usual. Item one: the guerrilla reviewers at Ain't It Cool News say it's not terrible, just not very good. Early critic reviews are similarly lukewarm. And insider internet trading on HSX forecasts a four-week US box office of only $50m, not enough to cover Miramax's costs. No wonder the Miramax press machine, while going through the motions on Gangs of New York, is also discreetly transferring its affections to Chicago.
· Gangs of New York press coverage [Google News]
· Early critic reviews [Rotten Tomatoes]
· Spoiler reviews [Ain't It Cool News]
· MovieStocks: GANGS [Hollywood Stock Exchange]

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