‘Fugitive’ Busts Out Big at the Box Office : Movies: The Harrison Ford starrer escapes with $23.4 million. It’s the biggest August weekend take ever.

“The Fugitive,” starring Harrison Ford, captured a smashing opening weekend box-office gross of $23.4 million--the biggest ever for what is normally the slow moviegoing month of August. The debut is the icing on the cake for a summer that has seen film-industry grosses go through the roof.

Based on the 1960s TV series “The Fugitive,” the movie casts Ford as the escaped convict Dr. Richard Kimble, who attempts to prove he is innocent of the murder of his wife. Tommy Lee Jones is cast as his pursuer, Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard. The film opened on Friday to a wave of positive reviews from critics, and, according to its distributor Warner Bros., very favorable audience exit polls from men and woman.

No one was happier or more surprised by the reaction to the film than its director, Andrew Davis, who on Sunday said: “It’s incredible what I’ve been hearing that audiences are actually cheering the movie . . . you’re always surprised by this kind of success because this is such a risky business.”

Davis and his cast and crew began shooting Feb. 3 and only turned in a final copy of the movie at the end of July. He was hired on the project by producer Arnold Kopelson only days after “Under Siege,” a popular action film starring Steven Segal and Jones, opened last October.

“If Richard Kimble is on the run, we were on the run too,” he said in describing the rush to complete the movie.

Asked about a sequel to “The Fugitive,” Davis said, “The door is open. It would be a challenge. During the filming we discussed it, and it seems there are ways to do it. But, foremost, it was important to us for this film to have a strong final resolution, which it does.”

Warner Bros. distribution president Barry Reardon on Sunday said the arrival of “The Fugitive” on 2,340 screens provided another lift for summer moviegoing. Depending on who’s counting, the summer to date is between 6% and 11% ahead of the record “Batman” summer of 1989, in terms of gross dollars. Whether this translates to more tickets sold, however, is debatable, because the price of tickets has gone up roughly 12% in four years.

The weekend’s No. 2 movie was “Rising Sun,” the thriller starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes. From Friday to Sunday, it’s estimated gross was $9.2 million, down from its big first weekend gross of $15.2 million. For its first 10 days, “Rising Sun” has taken in $31.2 million.

The Clint Eastwood film “In the Line of Fire” came in No. 3, with $6 million, bringing its total to $77.5 million after five weekends.

“Free Willy,” the whale tale for families, continued to show staying power from good word of mouth. It snared $5.6 million, taking the No. 4 position, for a total of $45.5 million after four weekends.

The year’s box-office champ, “Jurassic Park,” added another $5.5 million to its gigantic $292 million total after only nine weekends in theaters and was No. 5 for the weekend. The Steven Spielberg film is now the No. 2 highest-grossing film in the United States and Canada, surpassed by Spielberg’s own “E.T.--The Extraterrestrial,” which grossed $359 million in its first-run release in 1982. George Lucas’ original “Star Wars,” released in 1977, formerly held No. 2, with $286 million in its initial theatrical run.

The comedy “Robin Hood: Men in Tights,” came in No. 6, with $4.7 million or a total of $18.5 million after two weekends.

After six weekends, “The Firm,” billing Tom Cruise, has grossed $133 million and took seventh place, selling $4.5 million in tickets for the most recent Friday-through-Sunday period.

In eighth place was “Sleepless in Seattle,” with $3.7 million and $96.5 million accumulated after seven weekends.

The first weekend for “Meteor Man,” with Robert Townsend as an inner-city teacher who has superpowers, was not especially super: The film sold $2.8 million in tickets at 1,060 theaters and placed No. 9. Continuing its rapid fade-out, business for “Poetic Justice,” with Janet Jackson, dropped about 50% from the preceding weekend, to about $2.1 million, taking 10th place for the just-completed weekend. A week earlier, the film dropped 57% from its opening on July 23.