Friday, 31 October 1997

WEEKEND PREVIEW

BOO-gie Nights is here! (Happy Halloween, kids!) Go now, before you get distracted by Starship Troopers and The Little Mermaid, 'cause it's gonna happen. I wish that I could say that Paul Thomas Anderson's feel-good, feel-all epic will take Number One with $20 million, but $10 - $11 million seems a lot more likely. (We'll have to wait for Tarantino's Jackie Brown to get a $20 million weekend out of a '70s flick).

The rest of the line-up should be pretty familiar by now, despite two other wide openings. IKWYDLS (I'm tired of all those words!), the summer slasher, should pass the $40 million mark with another $8.75 million this weekend. Al & Keanu look to scare up another $7.66 million in The Devil's Advocate. Last week, there was a $5 million gap between Devil's second place showing and Kiss The Girls's third place finish. This week, it should be about $4.3 million, with Morgan Freeman kissing $3.34 million for fifth, leaving a gaping hole for Paramount's grossly undersold Switchback to take fourth place with around $5 million.

All the talk about China may hurt Seven Years in Tibet by way of saturation, but look for a sixth place finish with a 30 percent drop-off to about $3.3 million. Richard Gere should be back-to-back with Brad with Red Corner, which is good for copy and bad for business. It's an oppressive seventh place open with about $3 million. Gattaca stays flat-aca with a 35 percent drop to about $2.8 million for eighth. Fairy Tale tails off 30 percent to $2.5 million for ninth . And In & Out is in one last time with $2.1 million, pushing the $60 million mark overall.

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