Not Quite a Jolly Holiday at the Film Box Office : Movies: ‘The Pelican Brief’ and ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ have respectable showings over the Christmas weekend, but other films didn’t fare so well.

With box-office receipts already plunging dramatically compared to this time last year, the movie industry had little reason to cheer the Christmas weekend--although the low turnout was primarily blamed on the fact that the holiday fell on a Saturday.

Still, “The Pelican Brief,” based on the John Grisham thriller and starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington, continued to do strong business in its second weekend, with grosses for the Friday-to-Sunday period estimated at $9.8 million in 2,008 theaters. “Mrs. Doubtfire,” the comedy starring Robin Williams, was holding up well in its fifth weekend, with an expected $7.9 million in revenue on 2,305 screens.

Despite these bright spots, box-office tracker John Krier, president of Exhibitor Relations Co., estimated that Christmas business may be off as much as 40% compared to last year. Other industry sources gauge the drop-off as even higher.

Estimates this weekend are even more tentative than usual because of the calendar. Christmas Eve business was predictably poor, thereby putting a big dent in what normally might be expected on a Friday night. Since the biggest crowds of the weekend were anticipated for Sunday, the grosses disseminated by studio representatives on Sunday were largely based on estimates that could be drastically altered by such factors as bad weather in the Eastern part of the country.

There were scattered reasons for optimism. Although still in limited release, the much-lauded Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List” was expected to wind up in ninth place for the weekend, with $3 million in ticket sales. The 3 1/4-hour film expanded from 25 to 74 screens on Saturday.

Another good performer was “Philadelphia,” Hollywood’s first major studio AIDS drama. Playing on only four screens, the film, starring Tom Hanks as a lawyer with the disease, was expected to gross $142,000 on its first weekend, giving it a high per-theater average of $35,000.

Faring less well in selected theaters was Oliver Stone’s “Heaven and Earth,” one of four pictures that opened Christmas Day. The third part in Stone’s Vietnam trilogy was expected to bring in less than $400,000 on 63 screens.

Of the new releases, “Tombstone,” a Western featuring Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp, was expected to perform best, with an estimated $7.5 million take over two days on 1,504 screens, putting it in third place. Estimates for “Grumpy Old Men,” a new comedy once again pairing Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, gave it a sixth-place berth with $3.6 million from 1,244 screens.

Tied for 10th place with “The Piano,” the romantic drama from New Zealand director Jane Campion playing in 516 theaters, was another new release, “Batman: The Mask of Phantasm,” an animated movie that debuted on 1,506 screens. (See review on F4.) Both films were expected to bring in $1.2 million.

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The Christmas weekend usually provides a big boost for the movie industry. “We usually have the advantage of three to four days for a holiday weekend,” Krier said Sunday. “Having Christmas on a Saturday materially affected receipts.”

Some industry sources wondered whether the public would be too busy returning gifts Sunday to go to the movies.

With New Year’s Day also falling on a Saturday, some forecasters also are grim about next weekend’s prospects.

Nevertheless, studio executives acknowledged that the calendar is not the only culprit in this year’s disappointing holiday. With the exception of “Doubtfire” and possibly “The Pelican Brief,” there are almost no sure hits fueling the year-end box office. At the end of 1992, by comparison, movie-goers flocked to “Home Alone 2,” “Aladdin,” “The Bodyguard” and “A Few Good Men.”

In fourth place this Christmas was “Beethoven 2,” the family comedy. Universal Pictures predicted that the film would buck the trend for recent sequels by taking in $5.5 million in 2,042 theaters for a total $16.2 million after two weekends. That would put it ahead of the original “Beethoven,” which grossed $15.5 million in its initial two weekends.

The other sequels continued to slide, with “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit” pegged at $5.2 million from 2,178 screens and “Wayne’s World 2” expected to sell $3.1 million worth of tickets at 2,320 theaters.

The epic Western “Geronimo: An American Legend” also posted disappointing results, finishing in eighth place with an estimated $1.7 million in revenues from 1,636 theaters.