To quote The Way I Am, Eminem is "whatever you say I am." And those who vote with their wallets say he's the biggest double threat since The Beatles.
Technically, Eminem is only the second artist -- behind Jennifer Lopez -- ever to hold #1 in the movie and record charts in the same week. But his numbers blow J-Lo's away.
Whether or not he is essentially playing himself in Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile, pretty much everyone agrees he did a good job of it. That consensus by fans and critics alike amounted to some $54.5 million worth of box office on the weekend -- more than double the take of runner-up The Santa Clause 2. His 8 Mile soundtrack topped Billboard and other charts. At Sunrise Records, where the Sun conducted its consumer poll this week, the soundtrack and The Eminem Show racked up two of the top five spots.
By comparison, when J-Lo made history, The Wedding Planner was No. 1 with $13.5 million. Her self-titled album J-Lo had just debuted at No. 1 on Billboard.
In fact, the magnitude of this one probably hasn't been matched since 1964, when The Beatles opened the movie A Hard Day's Night as the album topped every chart in the world. Undoubtedly, A Hard Day's Night was an "event" movie, but it was a different world. Newspapers didn't run box office charts as news stories, and studios typically used a "staggered" release schedule. A Hard Day's Night opened in selected big cities to great furor, and slowly made its way to the hinterlands.
You might have to go all the way back to 1956 to properly compare Eminem's feat with that of a fellow solo artist. That was when Love Me Tender, Elvis Presley's movie debut, opened. The movie took in nearly $5 million (five times its budget, and about $45 million in today's dollars according to boxofficemojo.com) and the title song hit No. 1 on the singles charts immediately (anyone remember singles?). It was dwarfed, however, by that year's blockbuster, Around The World In 80 Days, which took in $42 mil.
If apples and oranges make comparisons difficult, the lack of realistic candidates for the title of multimedia champ makes it easier. Though it sometimes seems like every rock star gets a movie and every actor gets to record an album, artists still tend to stay in their slots.
Tim Allen and Howard Stern have both been triple threats -- Allen with the No. 1 TV series, movie and book simultaneously (Home Improvement, The Santa Clause and Don't Stand Too Close To A Naked Man), and Stern with the top movie, syndicated radio show and book (Private Parts, The Howard Stern Show and Miss America).
But Eminem's category has few contenders. Whitney Houston? Nice try-yee-yi-yee-yi. The Bodyguard soundtrack was No. 1 for 13 straight weeks, but the movie opened third behind Home Alone and Aladdin, and ahead of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Actually, Olivia Newton John could make the list with Eminem and J-Lo, since Grease debuted at No. 1 at the box office with a $9.3-million weekend, and the simultaneous album release hit No. 1 with three top-10 Newton John singles and stayed there for 12 weeks.
She technically shared vocal chores with John Travolta, Frankie Valli and Stockard Channing, so it wasn't a one-woman show. Still, it's worth putting her in just to see Sandy and Slim Shady mentioned in the same breath.
THE (R)EAL SLIM SHADY
On a parental note, you may have noticed 8 Mile is rated R in U.S. commercials and AA here -- meaning you are bound to encounter barely pubescent kids accompanied by adults to a movie with fairly raw sex scenes and language.
No, the Americans haven't cracked down on Eminem. The U.S. "R" rating is actually equivalent to our AA. Our "R" -- which prohibits those under 18 -- is the rough equivalent of the U.S. NC-17 rating.
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