'Sliver' sees B.O. lead
In third place and steady as they go was Warner Bros. hit comedy "Dave," which added 350 screens (now on 1,916) and held fairly even with its second weekend, taking in an additional $ 7.7 million to $ 8 million.
"I'm happy about it personally," says Fox distribution head Tom Sherak, about the "Hot Shots"$ 10.5 million to $ 10.7 million opening (depending on Sunday numbers) on 2,122 screens. "But personally I was hoping for more. Box office is down. Many people are going to the movies, but the question is, where are the rest of them?"
Audiences may like to watch, but more of them were expected to be viewing "Sliver" in its 2,100-screen opening break. Friday and Saturday numbers ($ 4.35 million and $ 4.9 million respectively) show that Paramount's selling of the film was strong enough to get bodies into seats. But the studio's Sunday prediction of $ 2.75 million is a rather precipitous fall-off from Friday and Saturday.
The studio's predicting a three-day total of $ 12 million, a good $ 5,700 or so per screen. Other sources were a bit more sanguine about Sunday and betting that Sharon Stone's first starring role after "Basic Instinct" would do maybe $ 12.5 million in its debut.
Whereas "Sliver" skewed heavily young and female, "Hot Shots" got the young men, with roughly 80% of them under 25. Sherak finds the 70% recommend encouraging and hopes to expand the film's base over Memorial Day to distaffers to offset the loss of guys flocking to "Cliffhanger" and "Super Mario Brothers."
Also likely to be hamstrung by the Memorial Day weekend arrivals are "Dragon" and "Posse." U's "Dragon" lost about half its business, declining to $ 3.6 million on 1,986 screens. Fortunately the film has a cushion of almost $ 25 million to date to help muffle the decline. Gramercy's "Posse" has collected $ 10.3 million in its first 10 days on 949 screens, about $ 3.3 million of that in its second weekend. The African-American Western doesn't appear to be attracting beyond its core urban audience and will thus end up with an only respectable total and probably make its real impact abroad and on video.
"Dave" seems to have the upscale filmgoer all to itself, and should continue to add handsomely to its $ 29 million total to date. That's good news for Warners, and bad, since the studio is introducing a new candidate in the romantic comedy "Made in America," which is likely to have the same constituency as "Dave."
And as "Indecent Proposal" is proving, the early bird catches the ticket buyer. Even with "Sliver" undercutting it, "Indecent's" spicy premise keeps pulling 'em in, with an additional $ 3 million on 1,922 screens for a total of $ 88.5 million.
The bottom quartet among the top films appear to be on the way out. Columbia's "Lost in Yonkers" won't make back its marketing costs based on the $ 5.7 million it has collected in 10 days on 1,190 screens, only $ 1.9 million in the second weekend. Triumph's "Sidekicks" has $ 12.6 million banked, with the help of $ 1.3 million over its fourth weekend. MGM's "Benny and Joon" grossed another $ 1.1 million on 1,300 screens for $ 19 million to date. And Fox's "The Sandlot" is courting $ 26 million with about $ 900,000 in the past three days.
Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing" is box office gold for Goldwyn. Third weekend on 21 screens was up to $ 500,000 -- almost $ 24,000 a theater and $ 1.2 million after 17 days.
