Gladiator: Special Anniversary Edition, a two-CD pack containing both the above-mentioned releases. Some of the music from the film was featured in the NFL playoffs in January 2003 before commercial breaks and before and after half-time. In 2003, Luciano Pavarotti released a recording of himself singing a song from the film and said he regretted turning down an offer to perform on the soundtrack. Release Context The theatrical year of 1999 achieved a record $7.3 billion at the domestic box office, thanks largely to the success of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace and The Sixth Sense. However, industry executives did not expect 2000 to replicate that success to have its slate of films lacking the commercial appeal to 1999's slate. A lack of femme-driven pictures were notably absent from the action-orientated blockbusters were predicted to see the biggest success. Rises in production costs and a lack of merchandising forced studios to concentrate their marketing on the appeal of popular actors such as Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Eddie Murphy, Harrison Ford, Jim Carrey, and Bruce Willis to help boost ticket sales and draw in potential female audiences for their slates. The action sequel Mission: Impossible 2 was expected to have the biggest success, while anticipated films such as Dinosaur, Gladiator, The Patriot, and X-Men were also expected to perform well. Films such as Battlefield Earth, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Kid, Me, Myself & Irene, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, The Perfect Storm, and What Lies Beneath were heavily marketed and promoted with the appeal of their leading actors that already had a built-in audience. Gladiator was expected to perform well following successful test screenings that DreamWorks conducted between October 1999 and February 2000 that were overwhelmingly positive, but some analysts predicted the film could be impacted by the lack of a build in audience Crowe had at the time. Box office Gladiator was released in the United States and Canada on May 5, 2000. During its opening weekend, Gladiator earned $34.8 million across 2,2938 theaters—an average of $11,851 per theater—making it the number one film of the weekend, ahead of U-571 ($7.8 million), in its third weekend, and The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas ($7.6 million), in its second weekend. The film not only crossed over Scream 3 to have the year's highest opening weekend, but also achieved the third-highest opening weekend for any R-rated film, trailing