‘Die Hard 2’ Blazes on the 4th of July

“Die Hard 2,” 20th Century Fox’s entry in the summer ’90 Box Office Blockbuster Sweepstakes, grossed $5.9 million on July 4, a day that is traditionally low in attendance because of the outdoor celebrations associated with the holiday.

“It’s Christmas,” shouted a jubilant Tom Sherak, president of marketing and distribution at Fox. “If you’d told me we would do just under $6 million on July 4, I would have told you to go to the hospital for a mental checkup.”

Sherak said the studio would have been happy with a $4-million July 4; as it turned out, “Die Hard 2” grossed almost that much from its preview opening Tuesday. The $3.7-million Tuesday receipts will not be counted as opening-week figures, however.

“Tuesday is Tuesday, a preview day,” said Sherak, preparing some tangled logic. “We opened on Wednesday and Tuesday’s figure have nothing to do with the opening.”

The Fox executive declined to predict how well the film will do through Sunday, but other analysts said it could do as much as $30 million, which would make it the strongest-opening film of the year.

July 4 figures were not released by other studios.