Weekend Box Office

For the first time in a while, box office was down from the comparative frame last year. Overall business waas $99.8 million, up 23% over last week but down 33% from last Christmas when Patch Adams topped the chart with $25.3 million. Christmas eve falling on a Friday contributed to this, but the lack of any breakout openers was the main reason.

Another odd occurrence was how the studios, for the most part, overestimated the grosses by wide margins. True, Christmas falling on a Saturday did warp the weekend and make it more difficult for them, but some estimates were ridiculous. For instance, Disney's $12.5 million estimate for Toy Story 2 was $2.1 million off from the $10.4 million actual. Warner Bros. with The Green Mile was the only one to underestimate (9 vs. 9.3 actual).

The money shot of Any Given Sunday's ad campaign? A slow-motion close-up of Al Pacino's crinkled face, yelling in his trademark fashion with heavy metal music playing over it. It apparently worked as the flashy football picture racked up $13.6 million from 2,505 over the weekend, finishing in first place. It was also the biggest opening of Oliver Stone's career, beating the $11.2 million of Natural Born Killers.

The Talented Mr. Ripley took advantage of the dearth of thrillers lately and grossed $12.7 million from 2,307 theaters over two days. Its $5,522 average was the highest of the top 20. This also marks Matt Damon's first strong opening since his Good Will Hunting success.

The biggest news of the week, though, was the failure of Man on the Moon. It opened to just $7.5 million ($12.3 million since Wednesday). Stunning considering that the lowest a Jim Carrey picture has opened to was the $12.1 million of his first starring role, Ace Ventura. Man marks his first bomb. Even The Cable Guy opened ($19.8 million) and made some decent money. This demonstrates that not even Carrey can overcome unappealing material. The ad campaign featured some Andy Kaufman humor, but was still rather unfunny and was mostly clips with R.E.M.'s song playing over it. This was also Carrey's first R-rated picture, which may have limited much of his young fan base.

Usually, the last family movie to enter the holiday fray doesn't gross terribly much, as families are busy seeing the holdovers. Last year, Mighty Joe Young bowed on this weekend to $10.6 million. What's more, sci-fi parodies have tended to not do well, such as last summer's Mystery Men ($29.8 million) and 1997's Mars Attacks! ($37.8 million). Galaxy Quest didn't break with history on both fronts, as it grossed a so-so $7 million from 2,412 theaters from two days.