'House' Success No Surprise To Latifah

03/18/2003 7:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Sofia M. Fernandez

(3/18/03, 7 a.m. ET) -- Bringing Down The House has held on to the Number One box-office slot for the second week in a row. Despite competition from new releases like Agent Cody Banks and The Hunted, the Queen Latifah/Steve Martin collaboration took in more than $22 million this weekend, pushing its cumulative total to $60 million.

Chances are that Latifah is not surprised by the movie's success--she predicted early on that audiences would enjoy watching it. "We think that it's a comedy--it's meant to be laughed at, not taken too seriously, anyway," Latifah said. "You know, it's almost like you gotta give the audience permission to go to the movie and laugh. Just go watch it and laugh 'cause it's funny as hell, and I'm willing to bet on the fact that you will laugh if you do go see it."

-- Sofia Fernandez, Los Angeles

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