REEL DEAL: "AMERICAN SNIPER" Shatters Multiple Records - Storms US Box Office

The Oscar-nominated film, starring Bradley Cooper, made history—becoming the best-ever opening for director Clint Eastwood, winning both the weekend and the hearts of audiences with an A+ Cinemascore.

Burbank, CA, January 19, 2015 – Surpassing all targets, Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Village Roadshow Pictures’ multiple Oscar-nominated drama “American Sniper” smashed virtually every available record as it opened across the US on the heels of its already record-breaking limited release.

REEL DEAL: “AMERICAN SNIPER” Gets 6 Oscar Nominations Set For IMAX Theaters January 21

IMAX Corporation, Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures have just announced that “American Sniper,” the newest film from legendary director Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller, will be digitally re-mastered into the immersive IMAX® format and released into all IMAX® theatres in the Philippines on Wednesday, Jan.21, 2015.

“American Sniper” has just earned six major Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Editing. It also got Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing nods.

REEL DEAL: Bradley Cooper Hits The Mark In “AMERICAN SNIPER”

Two-time Oscar-nominee Bradley Cooper (“American Hustle,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”) stars in Clint Eastwood's “American Sniper” as real-life Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, whose skills as a sniper made him a hero on the battlefield. But there was much more to him than his skill as a sharpshooter.

“In some ways, it’s a universal story about what most veterans have to go through,” explains the actor, “dealing with the seesaw of being in a war zone and then suddenly coming home to a ‘normal’ life. That was very moving to me. I liked the fact that it wasn’t as much of a war movie as it was a character study. And if you look at Clint Eastwood’s films, like ‘Unforgiven,’ ‘Gran Torino,’ ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’…they are all complex character studies, albeit with very different backdrops. So he was absolutely the right director to tell this story in a very raw, truthful way.”

The actor goes on to observe that “American Sniper” and the human drama at its center fit the Eastwood canon: exploring the nature of men for whom violence and justice become inexorably intertwined. “Chris was not a violent man—in fact, far from it—but when called upon, he did not shrink from his duty because he believed the cause is just. His heroism wasn’t just in the number of ‘kills’ he had in war; it was also in how he was ultimately able to confront the intangible wounds of war, not only within himself but on his family.”

REEL DEAL: Patriotic Film On Most Lethan "SNIPER" In US History

Chris Kyle might have been just one of the million of veterans who have served were it not for a statistic. He emerged from the war in Iraq as the most lethal sniper in the history of the U.S. military, but the filmmakers of Warner Bros. Pictures' “American Sniper” knew it was equally if not more important to explore the man behind the numbers.