Monday, 5 January 1998

WEEKEND REVIEW

Ah, a fresh look at a weekend's box office. Seems like ages since I gotto gorge on grosses. In the top slot, Titanic steams ahead with numbersthat are still unbelievable. Titanic reported its biggest single dayto date with $12.7 million this Saturday. Accomplished in its third weekwith no increase in screens. Titanic reported a total of another $32.2million (down just 9 percent from last week) for a grand total of $156.4million in its first 17 days of release. Paramount's numbers on thispicture continue to defy all recent box office points of reference andhave to be seen as an even more shocking display than The Lost World's$90 million opening weekend.

Lost in the wake of the Big Boat is the new Bond, Tomorrow Never Dies,which, after a $14.1 million weekend, should pass the $100 million marklate in the week. As Good As It Gets is holding steady, dropping just two percent to add $12.3 million to its total. In fourth place is Mouse Hunt,which, since its soft $6 million opening, has picked up ($8.7 millionthis weekend) with good word of mouth and has blown past Amistad ($27million to date) to become DreamWorks' first real hit, passing the $40million mark this weekend and soon to put The Peacemaker's $41 milliontotal in its rearview mirror. My belated apologies to Alex for buyinginto negative pre-release buzz. This is a very dark, very funny movie.Too bad DreamWorks mismarketed it so badly. DreamWorks sold it as akids film and discounted the adults who grew up loving "Tom and Jerry."They'll find it on cable.

Of the rest of the Top Ten, there's Scream 2 in fifth place with $8million, heading toward final numbers a little better than theoriginal. More importantly (at least for Miramax), if the sequel canhit $120 million, it should match the original's enormousprofitability. Jackie Brown remains slow, adding another $7.7 millionfor sixth. The film's $14 million budget assures profitability andmaybe the quiet results will allow Tarantino to work without thepressure of being the culture-maker that Pulp Fiction made him. Disneyowned slots eight to 10 with a total of $14.5 million for An American Werewolf In Paris, Mr. Magoo and Flubber. Hey, it's better than The Postman!

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