Waitress Buddy Movie Outdraws Gore Over Halloween There’s Something Mystical Indeed to ‘Pizza’s’ Business

While the rest of the country has been keeping the spirit of Allhallows Eve alive by making horror films the nation’s 1 box-office attractions in recent weeks, Orange County filmgoers have been flocking to a picture that even the releasing studio admits has a strange title and no stars.

According to the latest box-office figures, “Mystic Pizza,” a female buddy picture following the lives of three pizza waitresses in a small Connecticut town, landed the top gross in the county while ranking just seventh nationally after 2 weeks. “Halloween 4, The Return of Michael Myers,” meanwhile, scared up a chart-topping $4.1 million nationally over the Halloween weekend, but came in at sixth place in the county.

“Mystic Pizza” continued to build an audience in its third weekend of release, increasing its national box-office receipts 8% while staying in the No. 7 spot. Business for “Halloween 4,” meanwhile, dropped 48% under competition from director John Carpenter’s new horror film, “They Live,” which took the top spot. (County box-office figures with results from the weekend--including how “They Live” fared locally--will be released today.)

“It is a bit unusual” for regional figures to stray so far from the national numbers, according to John Krier, president of the company that puts together box-office totals for the film industry, Los Angeles-based Exhibitor Relations Inc.

Steve Rothenberg, vice president of theatrical distribution for the Samuel Goldwyn Company, explained the discrepancy by pointing out that while “Mystic Pizza” ranked just sixth nationally in gross box-office receipts, it came in first in per-screen average--$3,432 per screen; “Halloween 4” had $2,432.

“Halloween 4” outdistanced “Pizza” in total box-office gross because it played on 1,692 screens nationally; “Pizza” played on just 386.

But in Orange County, “Pizza” played on 15 screens, the most of any film, making it the top money-maker at local movie houses.

In marketing the film, Rothenberg said, the studio had “two things going against it”: an offbeat title and no star. Test marketing showed that the film played well in urban markets, so the studio made a big push in the Los Angeles and New York areas, while taking a more cautious approach in the Midwest and South.

“So far, it’s working,” Rothenberg said. Business actually increased in the second week of release, without adding screens, which the studio executive attributed to “terrific word of mouth.”

“It’s what we call a tough sell when you have a title like that and you don’t have any stars,” Krier said. “(Business for) the picture did go up the second week, which is a very good sign.”