October 1999

The Best Man made $9 million, enough to take the top spot over this slow weekend. This strong performance for the non-gangsta urban picture was not surprising. The fairly aggressive ad campaign featured rising stars Taye Diggs and Nia Long, and promised a good-natured romantic comedy. Similar pictures have performed well in the past. The Wood, which also starred Diggs and was also set around a wedding, opened to $8.5 million from 1,191 theaters this past July, and Soul Food opened in September 1997 with $11.2 million from 1,339 theaters.

Bringing Out the Dead didn't bring out many of the living, grossing $6.2 million from 1,936 theaters. I like to think some of its thunder was stolen by Mother, Jugs and Speed, the 1976 ambulance comedy-drama that starred Bill Cosby and Harvey Keitel. Well, that's what I was reminded of from the ad campaign. Anyway, this marks the first time Nicolas Cage failed to open a picture since he won the Oscar. Paramount has tried to mitigate the mediocre showing by claiming it as average for Martin Scorsese, citing Goodfellas as an example. Well, that picture opened in 1990 with $6.4 million from just 1,070 theaters and averaged $5,952, making it only similar to Bringing's opening in unadjusted gross alone.

Fledgling studio Destination turned out to be the only one to get sucked dry by Bats. The B-movie grossed $4.7 million from 2,540 theaters. Sure the picture cost $12 million to make, but an aggressive ad campaign was mounted for it on par with potential blockbusters. I've seen more ads for this thing than any other picture in months. Maybe that means that, god forbid, I was considered among the target audience for this thing. (Note to self: Lay off the WB network). It should finish its run with around $10 million, leaving behind a puddle of red ink.

Three to Tango stumbled as expected, grossing just $4.4 million from 2,234 theaters. The three stars can be seen in new episodes of their respective TV shows for free, so why would people pay to see them in a movie? Also, the ad campaign seemed like it was hiding how bad the movie was by not showing any jokes or even giving a clear sense of what it was about.

Crazy in Alabama grossed just $1 million from 1,214 theaters. It marks the latest bomb for Sony, who has been having a terrible year.

Double Jeopardy continued its baffling run, dropping just 25% to $7.6 million. Fight Club tumbled 43% to $6.3 million, despite the buzz and a strong showing during the week.

MGM finally dumped Molly starring Elizabeth Shue. The financially troubled studio took a write-off on it and wanted to release straight-to-video, but contract obligations forced them to give it some kind of theatrical release. So they put it at only 12 theaters and it bombed as it was destined to do, grossing just $9,683 for an $807 average.

Overall box office was down about 5% from last weekend, but was up about 6% from the comparable weekend last year, when Pleasantville topped the charts with just $8.9 million.

This past weekend saw two studios inflate their estimates in a photo finish bid to have their picture proclaimed #1. The media for the most part blindly followed. For example, Reuters proclaimed that "Double Jeopardy Wins Box Office Race Again." But when the actual numbers were tallied, Fight Club emerged as #1, just as its daily numbers suggested. Fox actually underestimated its gross by $700,000. Paramount and Universal, on the other hand, overestimated Double Jeopardy by $300,000 and The Story of Us by $700,000 respectively. Universal was the most egregious as it estimated a 25% drop on Sunday for Story, when the average for that kind of picture at this time of year is around 50%. What makes it all the more the ridiculous is that no picture made that much anyway. It reminds me most of the October 11, 1996 weekend, when there was a similar photo finish one-ups-manship between First Wives Club, The Ghost and the Darkness and The Long Kiss Goodnight, with each only making around $9 million.

Fight Club managed $11 million from 1,963 theaters, mediocre in relation to the hype and its $65 million budget. It didn't seem like it could lose. It had high awareness and little direct competition. The subject matter seemed to appeal strongly to young men as a sort of purging of their postmodern frustrations, and Brad Pitt has a strong following among women. But it turned out that men may have been more interested in the major sports events, and women seemed more interested in taking out their own aggressions with Double Jeopardy. Also, the controversy surrounding the violence may have resulted in stricter enforcement of the R rating. On the plus side, Pitt is huge overseas. His past five pictures made twice as much or more overseas than they did domestically.

The fall's biggest and most surprising success story, Double Jeopardy, continued its leggy run, grossing $10.2 million in its fourth weekend. That's a drop of just 24%, phenomenal for a picture performing at these levels.

The Story of Us, a.k.a. When Harry Divorced Sally, failed to reconcile its differences with audience's taste. Grossing $9.7 million from 2,164 theaters, not many were interested in seeing the oddly matched Michelle Pfeiffer and Bruce Willis with his bad hairpieces doing tired Rob Reiner schtick. By comparison, Willis' Sixth Sense opened to $26.7 million from about the same amount of theaters.

Story is just the latest star driven, adult-targeted picture to bomb this fall. Kevin Costner's much hyped return to baseball, For Love of the Game, fizzled out at around $35 million. Random Hearts plummeted 57% to $5.7 million in its second weekend. People just aren't interested in seeing Harrison Ford moping around in an overlong melodrama. The terrible poster and print ads that obscured Ford's face with sunglasses didn't help either. Nor did the tag line "In a perfect world, they would have never met." For many, such a negative line is tantamount to "In a perfect world, this movie would never have been made." The $64 million production will be lucky to hit $35 million domestically.

American Beauty's momentum cooled as it dropped 30% to $6.6 million after adding 124 theaters. This suggests that its growth in the past few weeks was primarily due to significant screen count increases, an intriguing marketing campaign, and the buzz, rather than exceptionally strong staying power and word-of-mouth in holdover markets. Still, the $15 million picture's total stands at $41.2 million after five weeks and is on track to peter out in at least the mid-60s.

Christian fundamentalists propelled B-movie The Omega Code to niche-market success, as it grossed $2.4 million from 304 theaters. Its $7,745 average was the highest of the top 20, and it didn't even play in New York City or Los Angeles. The $7.5 million picture didn't have traditional marketing such as TV ads, nor was it even screened for critics. Instead its producer, a Christian television network called TBN, simply hocked it to its apparently devoted followers. However, niche pictures generally have no legs, so it will most likely disappear soon.

Overall, box office was down 9% from last week and 1% from the same weekend last year.