Weekend Box Office

The nation's love affair with all things Jurassic continued as Dinosaur dominated the weekend. Playing at 3,257 theaters, Disney's dinos devoured a dino-mite $38.9 million, the third best opening for an animated picture of all time behind Toy Story 2's $57.4 million and The Lion King's $40.9 million, though those two benefited from Thanksgiving and summer respectively. Dinosaur achieved this height by being not merely a significant draw for kids, but teens and couples as well, which comprised 31% of its audience. Furthermore, its opening surpassed Gladiator's to become the biggest of the year thus far, though its reign will likely be short-lived with the advent of Mission: Impossible 2 this week.

Contrary to what many sensationalistic headlines suggest, Dinosaur did not slay, chew up, bitch-slap or do anything else to Gladiator other than dethrone it. In fact, Gladiator held up exceptionally well, losing just 19% to take in $19.7 million. Its cume reached $103.1 million, making it the second picture of the year to reach the century mark, Erin Brockovich being the first.

Road Trip got off to a $15.5 million start, matching its $15 million production budget, something that is rarely done during an opening weekend. It's not quite the next American Pie though, which opened to $18.7 million last July en route to $101.8 million.

Small Time Crooks snatched $3.9 million from 865 venues, giving Woody Allen his best opening ever. Dreamworks wisely marketed it as a screwball comedy, something Woody hasn't done in some time.

Battlefield Earth took a stunning nosedive in its second weekend, plunging 66% to $3.9 million. That's even more than such recent stinkers as Batman and Robin (63% drop), Godzilla (59%) and The Avengers (64%). With just $18.3 million to date, the $73 million butt-of-many-a-joke will likely peter out at around $23 million. International prospects don't appear promising either, as there are even fewer Scientologists and John Travolta fans abroad, not to mention the word-of-mouth spreading over the internet.

On the other hand, two holdovers held up remarkably well. U-571 submerged by just 19% to $4.6 million and $64.4 million to date. Frequency enjoyed the smallest decline of wide releases, down a mere 11% to $4.3 million, bringing the sleeper hit's cume to $30.4 million.

Overall box office totaled $115.9 million, up 35% over last weekend and up 5% over the same frame last year when The Phantom Menace topped the chart with $64.8 million en route to $431.1 million total.