Tough Sledding for Christmas Weekend at the Box Office

The cold chill that has gripped most of the nation during the holidays is having a similar numbing effect in Hollywood, despite Southern California’s balmy outdoor temperatures. For the second week in a row, business was dramatically down at American theaters, throwing an eleventh-hour wrench in the industry’s record box-office year.

Ticket sales for the Top-10 pictures over the four-day Christmas weekend dipped more than 20% over the same period a year ago, according to figures reported by Exhibitor Relations Co., and bad weather only accounted for part of it. The Christmas weekend numbers suggest that audiences have simply not warmed up to many of the movies on this year’s holiday menu.

Last year, people were lured out of the shopping malls by such films as “Rain Man,” “Twins,” “Working Girl” and “The Naked Gun,” all of which went on to record solid box-office grosses.

The “prestige” films of 1989 are doing well in limited release--Oliver Stone’s critically praised “Born on the Fourth of July” averaged a weighty $39,964 at four theaters during its initial weekend--but movies in broad release are playing to less than packed houses.

The No. 1 film over the weekend was Chevy Chase’s holiday spoof “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” which in its third week grossed $7 million on 1,950 screens. In comparison, last year’s box-office leader “Twins” took in $8.9 million at almost 400 fewer locations.

“Tango and Cash,” a big-budget cop-buddy movie starring Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell, took a beating from critics but still managed to finish second with $6.6 million, while Steven Spielberg’s “Always” disproved the notion that Spielberg movies always open big. The Richard Dreyfuss-Holly Hunter fantasy romantic adventure ranked fifth for the weekend and took in $3.7 million at 1,016 theaters.

“The War of the Roses” finished No. 3 in the box office with $5.5 million, followed by “Back to the Future, Part II” ($4 million). “The Little Mermaid” ($3.3 million) and “Steel Magnolias” ($2.6 million) added theaters and viewers and finished sixth and seventh, followed by “Blaze” ($2.6 million), “We’re No Angels” ($1.4 million) and “The Wizard” ($1.4 million).

In limited release, “Driving Miss Daisy” benefited from being named best picture of the year by the National Board of Review and grossed an estimated $439,000 on 32 screens. “Enemies, A Love Story” also got a critical boost, winning the best director nod for Paul Mazursky from the New York Film Critics Circle, and grossed $102,536 at five theaters.

“Roger & Me,” the documentary about the effects of auto plant closings in Flint, Mich., opened strongly on four screens, for a gross of $84,232.