BEIJING, Jan. 20 -- Oscar winner Julia Roberts has proved her box-office bankability extends from screen to stage, by pulling in more than US$700 million in advance ticket sales for her coming Broadway debut.

    Tickets for the revival of Richard Greenberg's generational drama "Three Days of Rain" went on sale for the first time last Friday, and by Monday the production had taken in US$400 million in single-ticket sales.

    That figure would put Roberts on a par with comedian Billy Crystal, who pulled in US$10 million before the opening of his hugely successful one-man Broadway show "700 Sundays," and way ahead of Denzel Washington, who racked up more than US$3 million before the opening night of "Julius Caesar." But it would still leave her way short of Broadway's favorite duo, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, who opened in "The Odd Couple" last October with US$21 million in the bank ¡ª the largest advance sale in history for a nonmusical Broadway show.

    Roberts is the latest in a line of A-list Hollywood stars seeking a stint in the theatrical spotlight. The last Broadway season saw Washington's Brutus and Jessica Lange in "The Glass Menagerie" and Kathleen Turner in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". "Three Days of Rain" tells the story of a brother and a sister unravelling the truth behind their father¡¯s death and its connection with their childhood friend.

(Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)

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