New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Welcome to Marquee History, the weekly column that takes you back to a time when you - or your parents - were younger. Prepare to become nostalgic (and shocked) at how much time has passed when you recall what was new in theaters 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years ago.

This week’s batch of films opened around Valentine’s Day and the four-day President’s Day holiday weekend. The highlight is the 25th anniversary of The Silence of the Lambs.

Here are the movies that premiered on theater marquees this week...

10 years ago - February 17, 2006

Eight Below
Eight Below is a family-friendly adventure from Disney about survival in Antarctica when a dog sled team is caught in a storm. Paul Walker stars as a wilderness guide, and Bruce Greenwood plays a scientist who is injured and evacuated, leaving Walker’s dog team behind. The story then follows the dogs themselves as they make their way home through treacherous conditions. Reviews were good and audiences made Eight Below the #1 movie for the weekend with $24.9 million from 3,066 theaters. It went on to gross $81.6 million.

Date Movie
Spoofing dozens of romantic comedy movies like Bridget Jones’s Diary, Hitch, and Meet the Parents, Date Movie stars Alyson Hannigan and Adam Campbell in a date-to-marriage plot that is there more to serve the sight gags. Reviews predictably slammed the movie for its juvenile humor, but audiences who wanted to see the gags were going to go anyway. Date Movie opened at #2 with $21 million from 2,896 theaters. It grossed $48 million overall, which was not a lot compared to the Austin Powers/Scary Movie/Naked Gun franchises, but was better than similar genre spoofs like Epic Movie, Not Another Teen Movie, and Superhero Movie.

Freedomland
Samuel L. Jackson stars in this crime thriller based on the Richard Price novel as a detective who has seen it all until he investigates a carjacking and child kidnapping that leads to a community torn by racial issues. Julianne Moore plays the mother of the missing child, and Edie Falco plays the head of an organization that finds lost children. Critics saw the movie as trying too hard. Freedomland opened at #7 with $6.7 million from 2,361 theaters.

Continued:       1       2       3