9-Year-Old Boy KOs Rocky at Box Office : Movies: ‘Home Alone’ takes No. 1 even though it’s at fewer theaters than Stallone’s vehicle.

Call it a million-to-one shot: A 9-year-old kid KOd Rocky Balboa at the weekend box office.

“Home Alone,” 20th Century-Fox’s comedy about a youngster inadvertently left home alone during the holidays, brought in a purse of $17 million at the weekend box office, taking the No. 1 title spot.

With ticket sales of $14 million, MGM/UA’s much-hyped “Rocky V,” starring Sylvester Stallone, had to settle for second.

Making the victory sweeter was the fact that “Home Alone,” opened at 1,202 screens while “Rocky V” muscled its way into 2,053. As a result, “Home Alone” had a per-screen average of a startling $14,211, contrasted to an average of $6,855 for “Rocky.”

Meanwhile, Orion Pictures’ Western epic “Dances With Wolves,” directed by and starring Kevin Costner, continued its strong performance in limited release. It earned $565,083 on 14 screens, for an average of $40,363. The film, which to date has grossed $1.5 million, faces its toughest test Wednesday, when it opens on 900 to 1,000 screens.

According to Tom Sherak, executive vice president at Fox, “Home Alone” will pick up some 150 to 200 additional screens this week and then go wider in December.

“The weekend definitely got us ready for the holidays,” he waxed, revealing that the coming weeks will see an aggressive marketing campaign--with seasonal touches--for the PG-rated film. In fact, Fox sources have been bragging for weeks about “Home Alone,” which drew the biggest numbers for a non-sequel in the studio’s history.

But if “Home Alone” was the champ, executives at MGM/UA executives weren’t throwing in the towel.

To the contrary, they were touting the debut of “Rocky V” as the studio’s biggest non-holiday weekend ever and the studio’s second-biggest opening, following “Rocky IV” (which earned $19.9 million over the three-day 1985 Thanksgiving weekend.)

“We’re extremely pleased. We knew it was going to be a tough race. We had anticipated the films would go neck-to-neck,” said Barry Glaser, senior vice president of publicity.

Elsewhere at the box office: Universal Pictures’ “Child’s Play II”--which took the No. 1 spot last week--plummeted about 55% to take third place at the box office with receipts of about $4.8 million. In fourth place was Disney’s animated “The Rescuers Down Under,” which earned about $3.5 million. Rounding out the top five was Paramount Pictures’ “Ghost,” which earned another $3.0 million--bringing its grosses to a heavenly $190.3 million.