A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : SUMMER, TAKE 1 : Turning Over an Old Beast

In the midst of “Lethal Weapon 3,” “Alien 3” and the other big summer movies playing in theaters Memorial Day weekend, a strange name popped up on the Top 10 chart: “Beauty and the Beast.”

The Oscar-winning animated feature, released last November, has already grossed more than $130 million at the box office and, by most gauges, the movie had been considered “played out.” So theater operators were as surprised as anyone when Walt Disney Studios decided to expand the number of screens from 400 or so still showing the movie throughout the country to just over 1,000.

The result “turned out great,” said Richard Cook, president of Disney’s Buena Vista Distribution arm. The movie took in $2.1 million for the Friday-through-Monday holiday period. That’s a good deal shy of the $27.5 million that “Lethal Weapon 3” grossed on 2,510 screens in the same number of days. But, as one source in the exhibition business noted, it’s a bonus when you get that kind of a gross for a seven-month-old movie. In this case, the income is all gravy, since the studio has no overhead to speak of, the prints were already made and there were no advertising costs.

Cook said the movie’s showing was more impressive given that it played in reduced-price theaters, where it takes more patrons to generate the gross of a first-run theater.

Some in the industry believe there is a growing audience for the second-run market these days, in a cost-conscious America. Most recently, the 20th Century Fox comedy “My Cousin Vinny,” starring Joe Pesci, fell off the Top 10 grossers after only a few weeks in first-run release, but then made a comeback to the chart by attracting good numbers in the bargain theaters.

Cook speculated the “Beauty and the Beast” audience was made up of people seeking a family film amid the adult and action pictures dominating the market, and fans who wanted to see the musical one last time on the big screen, for half price. He said “Beauty” will continue for a few more weeks. Then fans will have to wait for the video, due out Oct. 30.