'Shark Tale' sets October box office record!

[News Writer]

LOS ANGELES, Oct 3 (Reuters) -- The hip-hop underwater animated flick "Shark Tale" opened this weekend as the highest October box office draw in history, studio executives said on Sunday.

The Dreamworks Animation film raked in a record $49.1 million in its first weekend, surpassing the record set by Dimension Films' "Scary Movie 3," which reaped $48 million in its October 2003 opening weekend.

"Shark Tale's" sales also helped restore a particularly lackluster box office draw made worse by the aftermath of East Coast hurricanes, studio executives said.

"It's an incredible opening for any movie -- not just for an animated movie," Jeff Tharp, Dreamworks' head of distribution, told Reuters on Sunday.

The film, narrated by the voices of such stars as Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renee Zellweger and Angelina Jolie, also features the hip-hop sounds of Missy Elliott, Ludacris and Christina Aguilera.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/...eut/index.html