Hairspray Film Grosses Over $40 Million to Date

New Line Cinema's musical comedy Hairspray continues to draw big crowds in theaters on the heels of its strong opening weekend, with the film grossing $4.5 million on Monday, $4.3 million on Tuesday and $3.8 million on Wednesday to bring its cumulative domestic gross to $40.1 million since its July 20th debut.  The film's $27.4 million opening made it the highest opening movie musical in film history.

"We got off to a great start with Hairspray last weekend, and the film's performance in these first midweek showings is very strong -- we only dropped off 4 percent last night," says David Tuckerman, New Line's President of Theatrical Distribution. "Audiences are enjoying the film and spreading the word. That's a recipe for a long and successful run."

Internationally, Hairspray is also off to a strong start as the film had the highest grossing stage-to-screen musical debut of all time in the UK with a $4.2 million bow (approximately a $12,000 per-screen average) last weekend despite the fact that the Hairspray stage show has yet to open outside the United States (it will debut in the UK this Fall). The film will open in France on August 22 and in Australia on Sept. 13.

As the film continues to draw big crowds in theaters, its official soundtrack is finding equal success. The soundtrack from New Line Records sold 71,625 units this week, boosting the album to #4 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, #1 on the Billboard Independent Label chart, #2 on the Billboard Soundtrack chart, and #2 on the Billboard Digital Album chart.   It is also ranking #1 at retailers across the country.

Sixteen years after the release of the original film, New Line Cinema has brought the feature film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Hairspray to life. Featuring new and original material based on John Waters' 1988 cult classic about star-struck teenagers on a local Baltimore dance show, the comedy features a remarkable collection of talent including John Travolta, Queen Latifah, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes, Allison Janney, Brittany Snow, Zac Efron, Elijah Kelley, producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Chicago), and director Adam Shankman (Bringing Down The House). The new screenplay for Hairspray was written by Leslie Dixon (Freaky Friday, Outrageous Fortune).

Visit www.hairspraymovie.com and www.newline.com for more information.