'Gangster' takes early lead at U.S. box office

LOS ANGELES, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe squashed Jerry Seinfeld's bees at the weekend box office in North America, according to first-day sales data issued on Saturday.

The collaboration by Washington and Crowe in "American Gangster" made off with an estimated $16 million on Friday, distributor Universal Pictures said.

Seinfeld's "Bee Movie" animated feature flew away with about $10.2 million, according to Paramount Pictures, the distributor of the DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc (DWA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) production.

Based on their opening salvos, they should finish the weekend with about $46 million and $37 million, said their respective studios. Earlier in the week, they had circulated forecasts of $40 million and $35 million, respectively.

Critics were almost universal in their praise of "American Gangster," English director Ridley Scott's fact-based $100 million drama about a psychopathic drug lord (Washington) and the earnest cop who brings him down (Crowe).

Pundits quickly compared it to Martin Scorsese's mob picture "The Departed," which kicked off with $27 million last October and went on to win the best-picture Oscar. Universal is a unit of General Electric Co (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)'s NBC Universal.

"Bee Movie," divided critics almost evenly, according to the Web site Rotten Tomatoes (http://www.rottentomatoes.com), which aggregates reviews. The Fresno (California) Bee said the "comically limp" film "inspires ... boredom." Entertainment Weekly said it was "agreeably skewed fun."

Seinfeld originated the project and voices the lead character, a chatty bee who sues the human race for stealing honey.

Its weekend tally will fall short of DreamWorks' May release "Shrek the Third" ($121 million), but will be on par with its 2006 offering "Over the Hedge" ($38.5 million), which the studio has been using as a model. That film finished with $155 million domestically -- about what "Bee Movie" cost to make.