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15 years ago - August 18, 2000

The Cell
Jennifer Lopez stars in this thriller as a psychologist who uses virtual reality to go into the mind of of a serial killer. This was the year she was coming off the success of her first pop album, dating Puff Daddy, and wearing next to nothing in that green dress at the Grammys. The Cell was her first big lead role. Critics weren’t thrilled about the movie, but audiences went to see its visual splendor. The Cell opened at #1, toppling the holdover Space Cowboys, with $17 million. It eventually earned $61 million. The movie was later nominated for a Best Makeup award at the Oscars.

The Original Kings of Comedy
Directed by Spike Lee, this documentary was filmed at the end of the Kings of Comedy tour with Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Bernie Mac. Reviews were good and The Original Kings of Comedy opened at #2 with $11 million on just 847 screens for a $13,050 site average. Earning $38 million in total, this was the best performing stand-up comedy film since Eddie Murphy Raw 13 years earlier and still holds that position 15 years later.

Godzilla 2000
Rebooting the series that had featured 23 films to that point, Godzilla 2000 was only the second Japanese-made Godzilla film to be released in the U.S. (Roland Emmerich’s 1998 Godzilla was made in the U.S.) Godzilla 2000 was a successful release in Japan before it opened at #11 in the U.S. with $4.4 million, eventually grossing $10 million here.

20 years ago - August 18, 1995

Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat is a live action adaption of the video game starring Robin Shou, Linden Ashby, and Bridgette Wilson. Mortal Kombat took down Dangerous Minds for the #1 spot with $23 million and held the top spot at the box office for three weeks. It went on to gross $70 million, easily surpassing the $33 million gross of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Street Fighter, released nine months earlier. Director Paul W.S. Anderson would go on to be best known for directing and writing the Resident Evil movie series. The sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, under a different director, was released two years later but only grossed half that of the first movie.

The Baby-Sitters Club
Based on the novels, this movie stars Schuyler Fisk, Bre Blair, Trica Joe, Rachael Leigh Cook, Larisa Oleynik, Stacey Linn, and Zelda Harris. Reviews were positive but The Baby-Sitters Club opened at #9 with $3.4 million and went on to gross $9.6 million.

The Usual Suspects
One of the 1990s most iconic films had fairly humble beginnings. Chazz Palminteri was perhaps the best known of the cast at the time and serves in a supporting role. This was the first theatrical release for director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie. Made for $6 million, it first appeared out at Sundance and of competition at Cannes. Released independently, it debuted at only 42 theaters and received only a one-and-a-half star rating from the likes of Roger Ebert. But audiences knew what this was, giving it $15,365 per-site-average on its opening weekend and a total gross of $23 million after peaking on only 876 screens. The bait was the villain you never saw, Keyser Soze. The line, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist” would help earn Oscars for Kevin Spacey and Christopher McQuarrie. Twenty years later, when people talk about movie plot twists, they talk about The Usual Suspects.

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