SHORT TAKES : ‘Red October’ Opens With Hot Weekend Sales of $17 Million

It was a hot opening weekend for the Cold War thriller, “The Hunt for Red October.” Paramount Pictures’ adaptation of Tom Clancy’s best-seller had ticket sales of an estimated $17 million--the biggest non-summer/non-Christmas opening of the past year, with a startling per-screen average of about $14,000.

The spectacular performance put to rest industry speculation that the $35-million film would be imperiled by its pre- glasnost scenario.

Starring Sean Connery as a renegade Soviet submarine commander--who mysteriously and ominously heads his sub toward America--”The Hunt for Red October” was originally slated for release in the fall. According to Barry London, president of Paramount’s motion picture group, the decision to open the picture earlier--at 1,225 theaters--was based on marketing strategies that took advantage of what has been a thus-far-uneventful new film year. (The same strategies paid off for the studio last year at this time when “Major League” and “Pet Sematary” had combined ticket sales of $108 million.)

Though the weekend belonged to “Red October,” there were also respectable ticket sales for “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Hard to Kill,” both from Warner Bros. The former had receipts of about $5.1 million--for grosses of about $58 million--while “Hard to Kill” had ticket sales of about $4.2 million, for grosses of about $31 million.

In fourth place was the Orion Pictures’ comedy, “Madhouse,” with ticket sales of about $3.1 million--for grosses of about $12 million. Universal Pictures’ “Born on the Fourth of July” was in fifth place, with receipts of about $2.1 million--bringing its grosses to about $58 million.