Weekend Box Office : Holiday Sweepstakes Starts This Week

All the talk about box-office grosses not being what they “should be” for Steven Spielberg’s “Hook” and the movie business in general comes to a key test this weekend when the Christmas vacation period begins. Conventional wisdom suggests that grosses overall will accelerate beginning Friday and for the next two weeks until after New Year’s Day.

More titles enter the market this weekend, including Touchstone’s “Father of the Bride,” starring Steve Martin, which has drawn generous advance word of mouth. Meanwhile, for the weekend just ended, which is the typically the slow point between holidays, “Hook” wound up solidly in first place. The new Bruce Willis action movie, “The Last Boy Scout,” opened in second place, but its numbers weren’t considered anything special. The sheen dropped off “Star Trek VI” and “The Addams Family,” both of which opened to glossy numbers. “Star Trek” dropped about 56% and “The Addams Family” dropped about 43% from their preceding weekend totals.

* “Bugsy,” starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, debuted in four theaters in Los Angeles, New York and Toronto, to a very strong $35,089 per screen. The movie opens nationwide on Friday.

Weekend Gross/ Screens/ Weeks in Movie (Studio) Total (millions) Average Release 1. “Hook” $13.52 2,197 1 (TriStar) $17 $6,155 2. “The Last Boy Scout” $7.9 1,823 1 (Warner Bros.) $7.9 $4,346 3. “Star Trek VI” $7.8 1,804 2 (Paramount) $30.4 $4,319 4. “The Addams Family” $4.72 2,254 4 (Paramount) $73.6 $2,095 5. “Beauty and the Beast” $4.6 1,123 5 (Disney) $39.9 $4,074 6. “My Girl” $4 2,089 3 (Columbia) $31 $1,919 7. “Cape Fear” $2.94 1,659 5 (Universal) $50.4 $1,775 8. “For the Boys” $1.5 1,266 4 (Fox) $12 $1,166 9. “American Tail 2” $1.03 1,686 4 (Universal) $11.9 $615 10. “Curly Sue” $336,229 840 8 (Warner Bros.) $29.7 $400 * “Bugsy” $140,358 4 1 (TriStar) $140,358 $35,090

SOURCE: Exhibitor Relations Co.