Monday, 13 October 1997

WEEKEND REVIEW

Kiss The Girls was the surprise of the weekend, holding onto the top spot with $11.1 million. Dropping just 16 percent is an extraordinary accomplishment for any wide release, much less a thriller. Then again, it's clearly Adult Time at the box office, with Seven Years In Tibet (second place: $10 million), Soul Food (third: $5.4 million) and In & Out (fourth: $5.3 million) topping the chart. The only true kids' film out there, Rocket Man, opened weakly, in sixth place with just $4.4 million.

Seven Years (Do you think it was Eight Years before Pitt got involved?) had a per-screen average of just $4,755, which doesn't bode well for the future of Time Magazine's Sexiest Film Alive. I've been touting Soul Food as a possible ethnic crossover film for weeks, but Fox has now decided to go the other way, launching a "You go, girl!" campaign, assuring that Soul Food will be a happy cable surprise to the bulk of white audiences. And In & Out will have to wait until next weekend to pass the magic (for the fall season, at least) $50 million mark.

Rounding out the Top 10 were: The Peacemaker in fifth with $5.2 million; L.A. Confidential dropping to seventh with $3.7; The Edge in eighth with $3.3; Most Wanted -- my one dead-on estimate -- grossing $3 for ninth spot; and Gang Related, proving to be the made-for-cable movie it was meant to be (and should have stayed, out of respect to Tupac), taking 10 with just $2.5 million.

Strong competition on the top of the charts this Friday, with The Devil's Advocate and I Know What You Did Last Summer hitting tons of screens. More about that on Friday.

Reader RJW2000 emailed to challenge my box office predictions. His Top 5: Most Wanted ($10m), Soul Food ($6m), Kiss The Girls ($5m), L.A. Confidential ($3.5m) and Seven Years In Tibet ($2m), He added, "I bet a million dollars Seven Years does not come in first, let alone take in double digits!" You owe Morgan Freeman big time, since he saved you a million bucks. Keenen!

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