BlackTree TVThe Reel Thing: American Gangster
American Gangster is Number One At the Box Office
"American Gangster", starring Denzel Washington as New York drug kingpin Frank Lucas, took in $46.3 million to top Jerry Seinfeld's family cartoon "Bee Movie," which earned $39.1 million to place second. The movie was released Friday, November 2, 2007.
"American Gangster" was the biggest opening ever for Russell Crowe and Washington, the film's two stars. Crowe's previous best was $34.8 million for "Gladiator," also directed by Scott, while Washington's was $29 million for "Inside Man."
"These are two great actors telling this true story of Frank Lucas," said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution at Universal. "You couldn't have picked a better cast."
The following are estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released later today.
- "American Gangster", $46.3 million.
- "Bee Movie", $39.1 million.
- "Saw IV", $11 million.
- "Dan in Real Life", $8.1 million.
- "30 Days of Night", $4 million.
- "The Game Plan", $3.85 million.
- "Martian Child", $3.65 million.
- "Michael Clayton", $2.9 million.
- "Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?", $2.7 million.
- "Gone Baby Gone", $2.4 million
As Told by Frank Lucas
Frank Lucas, once the city's biggest, baddest heroin kingpin the original O.G. in chinchilla, now seems like just a very likable guy. But don't be fooled. * By Mark Jacobson * Published Aug 14, 2000
During the early seventies, when for a sable-coat-wearing, Superfly-strutting instant of urban time he was perhaps the biggest heroin dealer in Harlem, Frank Lucas would sit at the corner of 116th Street and Eighth Avenue in a beat-up Chevrolet he called Nellybelle. Then living in a suite at the Regency Hotel with 100 custom-made, multi-hued suits in the closet, Lucas owned several cars. He had a Rolls, a Mercedes, a Corvette Sting Ray, and a 427 muscle job he'd once topped out at 160 mph near Exit 16E of the Jersey Turnpike, scaring himself so silly that he gave the car to his brother's wife just to get it out of his sight.
But for "spying," Nellybelle was best.
"Who'd think I'd be in a shit $300 car like that?" asks Lucas, who claims he'd clear up to $1 million a day selling dope on 116th Street.
"One-sixteenth Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue was mine. I bought it. I ran it. I owned it,"Lucas says. "When something is yours, you've got to be Johnny-on-the-spot, ready to take it to the top. So I'd sit in Nellybelle by the Roman Garden Bar, cap pulled down, with a fake beard, dark glasses, long wig... I'd be up beside people dealing my stuff, and no one knew who I was..."
It was a matter of control and trust. As the leader of the heroin-dealing ring called the Country Boys, Lucas, older brother to Ezell, Vernon Lee, John Paul, Larry, and Leevan Lucas, was known for restricting his operation to blood relatives and others from his rural North Carolina area hometown. This was because, Lucas says, in his down-home creak of a voice, "a country boy, he ain't hip... he's not used to big cars, fancy ladies, and diamond rings. He'll be loyal to you. A country boy, you can give him any amount of money. His wife and kids might be hungry, and he'll never touch your stuff until he checks with you. City boys ain't like that. A city boy will take your last dime, look you in the face, and swear he ain't got it... You don't want a city boy — the sonofabitch is just no good."
Back in the early seventies, there were many "brands" of dope in Harlem. Tru Blu, Mean Machine, Could Be Fatal, Dick Down, Boody, Cooley High, Capone, Ding Dong, Fuck Me, Fuck You, Nice, Nice to Be Nice, Oh — Can't Get Enough of That Funky Stuff, Tragic Magic, Gerber, The Judge, 32, 32-20, O.D., Correct, Official Correct, Past Due, Payback, Revenge, Green Tape, Red Tape, Rush, Swear to God, PraisePraisePraise, KillKillKill, Killer 1, Killer 2, KKK, Good Pussy, Taster's Choice, Harlem Hijack, Joint, Insured for Life, and Insured for Death were only a few of the brand names rubber-stamped onto cellophane bags. But none sold like Frank Lucas's Blue Magic.
"That's because with Blue Magic, you could get 10 percent purity," Lucas asserts. "Any other, if you got 5 percent, you were doing good. We put it out there at four in the afternoon, when the cops changed shifts. That gave you a couple of hours before those lazy bastards got down there. My buyers, though, you could set your watch by them. By four o'clock, we had enough niggers in the street to make a Tarzan movie. They had to reroute the bus on Eighth Avenue. Call the Transit Department if it's not so. By nine o'clock, I ain't got a fucking gram. Everything is gone. Sold... and I got myself a million dollars."
"I'd sit there in Nellybelle and watch the money roll in," says Frank Lucas of those near-forgotten days when Abe Beame lay his pint-size head upon the pillow at Gracie Mansion. "And no one even knew it was me. I was a shadow. A ghost... what we call down home a haint... That was me, the Haint of Harlem."
The Hollywood Premier
The Hollywood Premier of American Gangster at the World Famous Arc Light Theatre was on Monday, October 29, 2007. The Red Carpet featured Damon Wayans, Brian Grazer, Jon Singleton, Russell Crowe, Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington and many more. American Gangster in theaters November 2.
A BlackTree Media Production
Produced by: Jamaal Finkley
Hosted by: Ms. Brooke Christopher
AMERICAN GANGSTER
- Genre: Drama
- Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Carla Gugino, John Hawkes, Ted Levine, RZA, T.I., Yul Vazquez, Common
- Directed by: Ridley Scott
- Writer: Steve Zaillian
- Produced by: Brian Grazer
- Executive Producers: Nick Pileggi, Steve Zaillian, Branko Lustig, Karen Kehela Sherwood, James Whitaker, Michael Costigan
- Official site: http://www.americangangster.net
Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Brian Grazer, Steve Zaillian and Ridley Scott team to tell the true juggernaut success story of a cult hero from the streets of 1970s Harlem in American Gangster.
Nobody used to notice Frank Lucas (Oscar® winner Washington), the quiet driver to one of the inner city’s leading black crime bosses. But when his boss suddenly dies, Frank exploits the opening in the power structure to build his own empire and create his own version of the American Dream. Through ingenuity and a strict business ethic, he comes to rule the inner-city drug trade, flooding the streets with a purer product at a better price. Lucas outplays all of the leading crime syndicates and becomes not only one of the city’s mainline corrupters, but part of its circle of legit civic superstars.
Richie Roberts (Oscar® winner Crowe) is an outcast cop close enough to the streets to feel a shift of control in the drug underworld. Roberts believes someone is climbing the rungs above the known Mafia families and starts to suspect that a black power player has come from nowhere to dominate the scene. Both Lucas and Roberts share a rigorous ethical code that sets them apart from their own colleagues, making them lone figures on opposite sides of the law. The destinies of these two men will become intertwined as they approach a confrontation where only one of them can come out on top.
Washington (Training Day) and Crowe (Gladiator) lead a spectacular cast of accomplished and rising stars — including Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Carla Gugino, T.I., RZA and John Ortiz — in this blistering tale of a true American entrepreneur directed by Oscar® nominee Ridley Scott (Gladiator) and produced by Academy Award® winner Brian Grazer (A Beautiful Mind) from a screenplay by Academy Award® winner Steve Zaillian (Schindler’s List).
