‘Deep Impact’ Scores Direct Box-Office Hit

The summer box-office sweepstakes got off to a rousing start over the weekend, with “Deep Impact” crashing into more than 3,100 theaters and having a significant impact of $41.9 million. The Friday-to-Sunday estimates topped even the best industry prognostications.

If final tallies hold up, “Deep Impact” will beat out “Twister” as the best May opener ever (excluding Memorial Day), according to the box-office tracking service, Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.

The heavily promoted Paramount and DreamWorks’ co-production, starring Morgan Freeman and Tea Leoni, proved that disaster still sells. It is the first of two asteroids-threaten-the-Earth movies (the other, “Armageddon,” starring Bruce Willis, opens July 1).

The only other wide release was New Line’s “Woo,” starring Jada Pinkett Smith, which appeared on 617 screens and took in a modest $2.5 million, tying for sixth place with DreamWorks’ parrot movie, “Paulie.”

Having the field pretty much to itself, “Deep Impact” sold more tickets than all the other movies in the top 10 combined, accounting for 62% of the tickets sold by the top-grossing films. Its nearest competitor was “City of Angels,” the angelic romance that still flew high with an estimated $4.6 million in its fifth weekend. The Nicolas Cage-Meg Ryan date movie has collected nearly $62 million since it opened five weeks ago.

Disney’s Spike Lee drama “He Got Game” lost half its opening-weekend business, slipping to third place with $3.8 million on 1,322 screens and an estimated $13.4 million in 10 days. An even bigger disappointment was the period drama “Les Miserables,” which sank 44% in its second weekend to $2.8 million and has about $9 million in earnings so far.

The audience’s taste for a “Deep Impact” kind of disaster apparently was even strong enough to draw “Titanic” back into the top 5. With $3 million in receipts for the weekend, the biggest-grossing movie of all time continued to chip its way toward $600 million at the domestic box office; it has taken in $570 million over the past five months.

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The rest of the top 10 included “The Big Hit,” which took one, dropping 58% in its third weekend to $2.4 million ($23.3 million to date); “Black Dog,” which also declined precipitously to $2.1 million ($8 million in two weeks); and “The Object of My Affection,” also grossing $2.1 million ($25 million in its first month).

Though word-of-mouth reaction from the first weekend could decide the ultimate fate of “Deep Impact,” the disaster film has the action audience to itself until May 20, when “Godzilla” stomps through Manhattan. Robert Redford’s “The Horse Whisperer” enters the race Friday--aiming squarely at women--the same time the animated Warner Bros. film “The Quest for Camelot” will seek to conquer the youngsters. Warren Beatty’s “Bulworth” also opens next weekend, but only in limited release before breaking out over Memorial Day.

Among art house films, David Mamet’s “The Spanish Prisoner” broke the $1-million mark on 295 screens for the weekend; the cryptic drama has grossed $4 million to date. Miramax’s romantic comedy-drama “Sliding Doors” also did moderately well with $1.4 million on 519 screens and $4.7 million so far. Miramax’s European import “Artemisia” opened on four screens to a passable $32,000.