Wraps Off, ‘Exorcist III’ Tops the Weekend Gate

“The Exorcist III,” which distributor 20th Century Fox kept from the hands of critics by not scheduling any screenings before Friday’s opening, wound up topping the national box office statistics for the weekend, according to preliminary estimates from industry sources today.

The third installment of the supernatural thriller series, that began with director William Friedkin’s enormously popular “The Exorcist” in 1973, summoned up a healthy $9.3 million at 1,288 screens over the Friday-Saturday-Sunday period.

But following hot on its heels was Paramount’s durable summer hit, “Ghost,” placing second for the second week in a row and closing in rapidly on the $100-million box office mark. The Whoopi Goldberg comedy brought in about $8.5 million in 1,766 theaters over the weekend, bringing its cumulative 38-day total to $99.1 million.

20th Century Fox’s strategy of opening “Exorcist III” without advance screenings was duplicated by Warner Bros., which similarly opened its Steve Martin-Rick Moranis comedy, “My Blue Heaven,” in a way to reduce the chance of critical notice before the weekend. The ploy is widely seen within the film industry as a way of avoiding negative reviews, thus permitting a film at least one weekend to ride on its own publicity at the box office.

The technique didn’t work quite that way, however, for “My Blue Heaven.” The early figures show the film came in a disappointing fourth with $6.4 million on 1,859 screens.

Meanwhile, in third place for the weekend was Columbia’s “Flatliners,” which led the previous week’s list, with about $7.5 million on 1,766 screens. The sci-fi adventure story about near-death experiences, starring Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and Keiffer Sutherland, did $10 million in business during its first weekend.

Warner Bros.’ “Presumed Innocent” continued strong in fifth place with approximately $6.1 million.

David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart,” which generated much advance publicity and won the top prize at last May’s Cannes Film Festival, came in at 10th place with an estimated $2.7 million in a much smaller release at 523 screens. The film stars Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage.

The much-anticipated sequel to “Chinatown,” Jack Nicholson’s “The Two Jakes,” dropped off the top 10 list in only its second week. In its first weekend, the film did a languid $3.7 million on 1,206 screens for a seventh-place finish, while the weekend just-ended saw it take in only about $1.8 million.