by David Poland

October 8 , 1999

Not much to write about this weekend. Two new movies. Three major movie stars. Three strong holdovers. Lots of controversy.

The biggest question mark of the weekend is clearly Fight Club. Fox came up with less than 2000 screens for the wide release, which means that it will have to grow legs to really do any business. The question is, will we see the film and all the controversy turn out to be a flash in the pan or will the same Gen Xers that older media types seem worried will blow up buildings go back to the film over and over? I honestly have no idea. I am quite sure that Fight Club will be one of the biggest DVD titles ever. But can you take a date? You can, but Fight Club is a Rorschach test that some people will not be happy to have taken. I would love to be able to say with assurance that Fight Club would be a $100 million. We'll only know for sure in a few weeks.

As for The Story of Us, it too is starting in a moderate number of venues and will look to build an audience. I'm sorry to have to tell you that I haven't seen the film yet. But given the talent involved, expect early sampling to be fairly strong.

Amongst the smaller openers, The Omega Code is a Christian-financed film about good vs. evil and the apocalypse. Interesting. Gay audiences will probably love Beefcake, which I caught about 30 minutes of at Sundance, during which I saw more penises than I had probably seen in my entire live to date. It's a docu-drama about '50s beefcake poster boys and seemed like fun. If you can see The Straight Story in limited release, so yourself a favor and do it.

WEEKEND GUESSTIMATES

1. Fight Club - 1963 venues - new - $15.5 million
2. The Story of Us - 2163 venues -new - $11.5 million
3. Double Jeopardy - 2936 venues - off 30 percent - $9.5 million
4. Three Kings - 2942 venues - off 30 percent - $8.4 million
5. American Beauty - 1350 venues - off 20 percent - $7.6 million
6. Random Hearts - 2697 venues - off 45 percent - $7.2 million
7. Superstar - 2016 venues - off 40 percent - $5.3 million
8. The Sixth Sense - 2682 venues - off 20 percent - $4.9 million
9. Blue Streak - 2353 venues - off 35 percent - $3.7 million
10. Drive Me Crazy- 2088 venues - off 40 percent - $2.4 million

Other Openers

• Same Old Song - 3 venues
• Joe The King - 5 venues
• Beefcake - 6 venues
• The Straight Story - 7 venues
• The Omega Code - 305 venues

E ME: You know the routine.