Weekend Box Office
No, Hollow Man isn't the Jerry Bruckheimer story, but it did keep the uber-producer's latest edition of Short Attention Span Theater Coyote Ugly at bay, while Clint Eastwood kicked it old school with a solid debut.
For the ninth weekend in a row, a new release topped the chart as the invisible man thriller scored a conspicuous $26.4 million from 2,956 theaters. The $26.8 million estimate did not hold, so The Sixth Sense's $26.7 million remains the best August debut ever. Nonetheless, Hollow Man marks a career bests for Kevin Bacon in a leading role and director Paul Verhoeven, though Total Recall would still be tops in ticket sales. Mixed word-of-mouth and the front loaded nature of its horror genre could cause audiences to disappear at a rate similar to the director's own Starship Troopers though.
The Nutty Professor II deflated by a stunning 57% to $18.2 million and $76.7 million to date. A precipitous drop was in store for the saturation sequel, but this was far greater than anyone expected, slipping on par with X-Men to be the steepest of the season among major releases. Even fellow low brow comedy Scary Movie fell a comparably leggy 38% in its second frame. At this rate, The Klumps will have trouble surpassing the original's $128.8 million total.
Space Cowboys rocketed to third place on the strength of its John Glenn inspired high concept and prodigious star power despite a soft ad campaign seemingly hell bent on squelching it before take-off. With a rousing $18.1 million from 2,805 theaters, it's the best opening gross of Eastwood's career, though Unforgiven and In the Line of Fire sold more tickets. An older skewing audience and favorable word of mouth should allow Cowboys to orbit in the top ten for some time.
Coyote Ugly shaked that moneymaker to $17.3 million from 2,653 theaters. A reported 55% of the audience was female, and half was under 21. Other than part of the trailer, what aspect of the ad campaign appealed to women anyway? The commercials were simply hot chicks getting ogled. Then again, teen girls did contribute to making such scantily clad ditzes as Britney Spears multi-platinum sellers.
Not boding well for Bruckheimer's buxom barmaids' longevity was a 19% drop on a Saturday instead of the usual bump up, especially ominous for a picture that doesn't exclusively appeal to teens. Furthermore, its production budget was a reported $45 million, rather high considering the lack of stars or special effects other than airbrushing. Throw in the massive marketing costs from an incessant ad campaign, and profitability could elude the uber-producer this time around.
What Lies Beneath slipped 39% to $13.8 million, apparently losing some of the date crowd to Hollow Man and Coyote Ugly and the older audience to Space Cowboys. With $95.1 million amassed so far though, it should creep past the $100 million mark no later than Thursday, making it the tenth picture of the year to do so.
In general, instead of the marketplace expanding, holdovers suffered massive declines, greater than they have been accustomed to. In addition to the Nutty drop, Scary Movie, The Perfect Storm and The Patriot each lost approximately half their audiences, while the rest of the wide releases took hits in the 40% range.
The three strong debuts weren't enough to boost overall business. The top 12 pictures totaled $118.3 million, down 3% from last weekend and down 14% from the same frame last year when The Sixth Sense led an expanding marketplace with $26.7 million. On the other hand, the total from the three new releases this weekend was greater than the five new releases from that frame, $61.8 million vs. $59.2 million.
Next weekend again finds three demographically compatible pictures entering the marketplace. MGM hopes to appeal to adult women in the same way that they did with The Thomas Crown Affair last August. Too bad it's the soppily titled Autumn in New York, which could beat Scary Movie in grossness, not grosses, with its Richard Gere/Winona Ryder coupling. Chosen one thriller Bless the Child hopes to capitalize on its similarities to The Sixth Sense. Meanwhile, Keanu Reeves hopes to "whoa" audiences with the football comedy The Replacements and prove that he's worth his $15 million paycheck outside of Matrix sequels.
