Leonardo Dicaprio, Thriller | featured news

“Shutter Island,” yanked from the fall release schedule by a cost-cutting Paramount Pictures, was a strong No. 1 at the North American box office.

Paramount's delay of Shutter Island's release, once widely questioned, now looks shrewdly strategic. Sources tell me this 4th film collaboration between Marty Scorsese and Leo DiCaprio is shaping up tonight as the highest-grossing debut ever, bigger than 2002's Gangs Of New York, 2004's The Aviator, and 2006's The Departed (which posted their previous biggest opening ever of $26.8M).

This week at the movies brings just one new wide release: Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, a psychological thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley. It's inevitable that a new Martin Scorsese movie will be greeted rapturously by film buffs -- and will inevitably be compared, fairly or not, to his past triumphs. Critics say Shutter Island is unquestionably the work of a cinematic maestro, but it's also a second-tier effort in the man's career. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a U.S.