B.O. gets Seuss goose
'Grinch' steals $55 mil, 'Rugrats' nips $23 mil
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"Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas," from Universal/Imagine, wowed with a $55.1 million weekend bow that could be an early sign year-end box office will be merry. And combined with the impressive $23 million debut of Paramount's kidpic sequel, "Rugrats in Paris: The Movie," there's also ample evidence that Hollywood can still attract the family dollar.
The "Grinch" B.O. was the biggest bow ever for the weekend before Thanksgiving. Piggybacking the "Rugrats" perf on top of that feat had insiders doubly impressed.
"It seems pretty unprecedented to have two family films this big," observed Tom Borys, prexy of the ACNielsen EDI box office service.
The total weekend B.O. -- at an estimated $157 million through Sunday -- beat the previous record for the weekend before Thanksgiving by about one-third. The previous record was set on the same weekend last year, when openings by James Bond pic "The World Is Not Enough" and Tim Burton's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" fueled an overall B.O. of $118.3 million.
The "Grinch" opening was the biggest ever for producer Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment, helmer and Imagine co-partner Ron Howard and hairy green topliner Jim Carrey. For U, it was the studio's biggest non-holiday opening ever and the industry's fifth-biggest weekend bow in history.
Meanwhile, TV-adaptation phenom "Charlie's Angels" from Sony stayed on track to hit $100 million by Turkey Day with a No. 3 weekend perf of $13.7 million in its third week of release.
"I think we held on well against the onslaught," said Sony distrib prexy Jeff Blake.
On the other hand, the studio's Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner, "The 6th Day," failed to share in the weekend merriment with a quiet $13.2 million opening. Blake said Sony hopes pic will find B.O. traction over the long holiday weekend, even though Disney will be adding two new films to the competitive landscape: family event pic "102 Dalmatians," and "Unbreakable," helmer M. Night Shyamalan's follow-up to "The Sixth Sense."
Unofficial estimates put the production budget on "The 6th Day" at $82 million, with Sony bearing the bigger part of a 60-40 split of those costs with co-prod partner Phoenix Pictures.
Meanwhile, Miramax felt that the $11.5 million weekend for its "Bounce" shows that the Gwyneth Paltrow/Ben Affleck romantic drama has some oomph.
Marketing prexy Dennis Rice called the opening "really, really good given the competition we had to face out there." Though in wide release, the 1,918-theater debut for "Bounce" was considerably smaller than the release count for any of the four pics outranking it over the weekend.
"We're going to try to get more screens, because we believe there's an audience our there for us," Rice said. "We're going to have a very solid second week."
Pic's ultimate gross will be measured against a negative cost of $35 million.
As for Fox's "Men of Honor," the studio pointed to an $8 million weekend showing against tough competish in its second week of release as evidence that the military drama will have strong holiday legs. Fox general sales manager Rick Myerson said the studio believes many adults took their kids to either "Grinch" or "Rugrats" during the day and then headed back to the theaters kidless for "Men of Honor."
"To make a commitment to go see two movies on a Saturday -- that's tough to do," Myerson said. "But there's no doubt some of that has gone on."
Surprise in U-ville
Even U execs claimed surprise over how well "Grinch" did.
"It exceeded my expectations, because I didn't think it was possible, given the weekend's potential economic pie," U distrib prexy Nikki Rocco said. "It blows our minds."
U marketing boss Marc Shmuger said polling of "Grinch" patrons this weekend showed pic is playing across all demos. "This is such an incredible high point for everybody at Universal and Imagine," he said.
Imagine's Graser was confident the pic would perform well overseas, too. "I think it will do well everywhere, because it plays as fantasy comedy and fantasies play really well overseas."
The production budget for "Grinch" is estimated to have reached north of $110 million.
For the "Rugrats" sequel, which continues to build on the TV following for the hit show on Nickelodeon, the negative cost was only about $30 million. And Par execs predict an ultimate U.S. gross approaching $100 million, the 1998-99 B.O. of the fledgling franchise's first pic.
"It's a really great thing that 'Rugrats' is continuing as a parent perennial," Paramount marketing chief Rob Friedman said. "And it's great that between ourselves and 'Grinch' there was almost $80 million in family business out there."
Closing in on 1999 B.O.
EDI's Borys said the boffo weekend means the year's $6.31 billion U.S. B.O. is now within $10 million of matching 1999 in year-to-date comparison -- even after a lackluster summer 2000. "It's as close as the presidential election," he quipped.
Among limited-engagement openings, Lions Gate's "What's Cooking?" debuted with a medium well-done $3,500 per screen average and $140,000 weekend B.O.
As for the weekend report card on individual thesps, Schwarzenegger's disappointing bow in "The 6th Day" will be measured against past high points including a 1991 personal best with Sony's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," which opened at $31.8 million. Last year's "End of Days" for U bowed at $20.5 million.
New Line's Adam Sandler laffer, "Little Nicky," which debuted the previous weekend with a disappointing $15.6 million in three-day B.O., was bedeviled by a 52% drop in its second weekend. Perhaps only Val Kilmer had a more miserable time of it, as "Red Planet" -- the sci-fi thriller he toplined for Warner Bros. --plunged 69% from the previous weekend's disappointing debut of under $9 million.
