Ninth ‘Star Trek’ Logs a Winning Debut

“Star Trek: Insurrection” preached to the choir in its opening weekend as Trekkers around the country helped launch it to an estimated $22.4-million start. The only other nationwide break, over what was a softer-than-usual pre-Christmas weekend, was the family Yule tale “Jack Frost,” which largely got frozen out, grossing only about $7 million in 2,152 theaters.

The ninth “Star Trek” installment clearly outdistanced the second-place “A Bug’s Life,” which kept on trucking with another $11 million in 2,748 theaters; it has already grossed more than $83 million. “Bug’s Life” also tucked an award under its belt over the weekend for best animated feature from the Los Angeles Film Critics.

“Trek” didn’t come anywhere near the heights of its predecessor, “Star Trek: First Contact,” which debuted with $31 million just before Thanksgiving in 1996. Yet it compares favorably with the pre-Christmas launch for 1991’s “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country,” which opened with a gross of $18 million and ended up at around $75 million. Paramount senior executive Rob Friedman says the feature, now on 2,620 screens, should do even better since there are few moviegoing alternatives for the male audience over the holidays.

Though the L.A. critics favored some earlier 1998 releases such as “Saving Private Ryan” (best picture, best director, best cinematography) and “High Art” (Ally Sheedy in a tie for best actress with Fernanda Montenegro of “Central Station”), some newer arrivals were around to take advantage of the year-end sweepstakes. “Shakespeare in Love,” which opened to glowing reviews, placed second in the L.A. critics’ vote for best screenplay (the winner was “Bulworth”). The period comedy-romance leaped to a buoyant opening of $220,000 on just eight screens ($27,500 a theater).

Paramount went out on only 31 screens with “A Simple Plan” and brought in around $400,000. The character drama should be helped by the L.A. critics’ nod to Billy Bob Thornton, who tied with Bill Murray (for “Rushmore” and “Wild Things”) as the critics’ choice for best supporting actor. The plan for “Plan” is to go wider in L.A. and New York next week, then across the country in mid-January. Though “Life Is Beautiful” was passed over in favor of “The Celebration” and “Central Station” for best foreign language film by the L.A. critics, it continues on track for Miramax as one of its strongest performers of the year, with $700,000 over the weekend on 145 screens and $7.2 million to date.

According to Exhibitor Relations, because there was no powerhouse grosser like “Scream 2,” which opened during the comparable weekend last year, totals for the top 12 movies were down 7% to around $66 million.

“Enemy of the State” continued to take advantage of the dearth of action films in theaters, coming in at about $6.6 million on 2,517 screens for $72 million in its first month. Its only competition between now and the end of the year will be the youth-skewing thriller “The Faculty,” debuting on Christmas Day.

The news for “Psycho” was bleak indeed. After an unspectacular debut of $10 million last weekend, the color remake of the Hitchcock classic took a nasty tumble to $3.8 million, down a whopping 62%. With less than $16 million in 10 days, “Psycho” now looks to gross little more than the $21 million Universal says the film cost.

Thanks to successful “Patch Adams” sneak previews on Saturday night, “Babe” sustained only a 28% drop from the previous week (down to $1.7 million on 2,240 screens). The total on “Babe” so far is less than $14 million.

“Meet Joe Black” sank to $1.6 million on 1,870 screens and has captured only $41 million in five weeks. Right behind “Joe” was “Elizabeth,” which in only 555 theaters grossed $1.3 million for a three-week total of $11.7 million.

Look for the short box-office drought to end as the holiday releases arrive and the year-end critical bouquets are tossed. This should particularly help business on some specialized films. The L.A. Film Critics cited John Boorman’s “The General” (runner-up for both best director and best cinematography), which arrives this week, and mentioned Nick Nolte for his performance in “Affliction,” which opens Dec. 30. Nolte came in right behind Sir Ian McKellen, who has now won two awards as best actor for “Gods and Monsters.” The New York Film Critics weigh in on Wednesday and the Golden Globe nominations will be announced Thursday.