‘Tibet’ Can’t Top ‘Kiss’ for No. 1 at Box Office

It was Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd--not Brad Pitt and the Dalai Lama--that led the weekend movie box office, as Paramount’s “Kiss the Girls,” in its second week of release, grossed an estimated $11.1 million and Sony/TriStar’s highly anticipated “Seven Years in Tibet” opened to $10 million.

Referring to “Tibet’s” somewhat surprising second-place showing, insiders pointed to an evolving pattern: The American moviegoing public doesn’t usually respond to internal strife or civil war issues in other countries unless the U.S. has interests at stake.

“That doesn’t mean Americans don’t care--they just don’t relate,” said one exhibitor source. “Sad but true. In their free time, they don’t want to be preached to.”

Said one studio source: “It’s not about being prejudiced or xenophobic. It’s just about it being another world to the American audience.”

But all don’t see the $10-million opening as a negative.

“This is a movie about the spiritual transformation of a man in a foreign culture, and for it to do this well is a testament to the star, to the movie and to the public that turned out,” said John Jacobs of Mandalay Entertainment, which produced the film.

Said John Krier of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co.: “The public doesn’t tend to turn out for a lot of pictures about parts of the world they can’t relate to. People have too many problems close to home and already feel overwhelmed. . . . On the flip side, these movies are important. The industry is so often derided for what it hasn’t done. Why not give it credit . . . for taking a subject that’s not popular in the public vein and showing it to the world?”

Rounding out the Top 10: 20th Century Fox’s “Soul Food,” third, with $5.4 million; Paramount’s “In & Out,” $5.3 million; DreamWorks SKG’s “The Peacemaker,” $5.2 million; Buena Vista’s “RocketMan,” $4.4 million; Warner Bros.’ “L.A. Confidential,” $3.7 million; Fox’s “The Edge,” $3.3 million; New Line Cinema’s “Most Wanted,” $3 million; and MGM/UA’s “Gang Related,” $2.5 million.