It’s a Wonderful ‘Life’ Debut for Prison Comedy-Drama

Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence served “Life” over the weekend and sentenced “The Matrix” to second place while posting the second-best-ever opening for a film in April.

The prison comedy-drama escaped with generally good reviews and went over the wall at the weekend box office, making off with an estimated $20.7 million on 2,594 screens and bringing Universal Pictures its first ray of sunshine since “Patch Adams.”

The urban audience turned out in droves for “Life,” said Nikki Rocco, distribution head for Universal, and an encouraging Saturday night jump in business (about 28%) demonstrated that the R-rated prison comedy was also luring the over-18 suburban crowd, which augurs well for the film’s longevity. Once word gets out about the film’s dramatic content, it could expand the audience base further, especially among review-sensitive adults.

“The Matrix,” however, is still the big noise of the spring season. The third weekend brought a scant 20% drop, to an estimated $18 million in 2,903 theaters, indicating that the repeat-business pattern has taken hold. The Keanu Reeves sci-fi film is on track to become 1999’s first $100-million grosser sometime today or Tuesday.

Among the other new national releases, Robert Altman’s “Cookie’s Fortune” comedy fanned out to 559 screens and cracked the top 10 in the process with $1.8 million this weekend and $3.2 million to date.

But it’s farewell for “Goodbye Lover” before it even got started. Plagued by disastrous reviews, the black comedy debuted to barely $1 million on 865 screens, indicating a quick stop from the Warner Bros. shelf--where it had been sitting for a while--to the shelves of your local video retailer.

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April is usually a cool box-office month as studios mark time for summer. But this year it has been a real sizzler, thanks to the twin combo of the Murphy-Lawrence hit and a monster performer from writer-directors Larry and Andy Wachowski. “Life” and “Matrix” accounted for more than half the tickets sold by the top 12 films and lifted the weekend total to just more than $70 million, about 13% ahead of last year’s record take, according to the tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. The new year is finally getting out from under the shadow of “Titanic,” which alone accounted for about $500 million in ticket sales last year.

The second-weekend hold on the Drew Barrymore comedy “Never Been Kissed” was very good, with only a 26% drop to an estimated $8.7 million in 2,458 theaters and about $23 million in the first 10 days. Barrymore’s first producing effort is performing like many of her films, trotting out of the gate and then maintaining a steady pace to the finish line, which in this case appears to be north of $40 million.

Its closest rival was fifth-place “10 Things I Hate About You,” which was down about 25% to $3.7 million in 2,311 theaters and has just turned the $25-million corner. As for “Go,” it’s hitting the brakes already: Second-weekend receipts dropped 36% to $3 million in 1,563 theaters, for a two-week total of $9.3 million.

Sneaking in among all the teen comedies was the long-running “Analyze This,” which just topped $90 million, based on this weekend’s estimate of $4 million on 2,307 screens, off only 20%. “Analyze” should be the second film released in 1999 to top the $100-million mark.

“The Out of Towners,” however, is fading, with a 36% drop in its third weekend, taking in $3.2 million in 2,119 theaters for just over $20 million to date.

The romance with “Forces of Nature” continues unabated. After five weeks in theaters, the pairing of Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck sparked an estimated $2.6 million, elevating the film’s total to $46 million so far. Ardor for “Shakespeare in Love” still remains fast too, with an additional $1.9 million estimated in 1,443 theaters (down only 12%), taking this year’s Oscar winner to $90 million (with $100 million still a possibility). Fellow Oscar winner “Life Is Beautiful” was right on its heels with about $1.7 million, bringing it to the plateau of $50 million, virtually unheard of for a foreign language film.

Jackie Chan’s “Twin Dragons” plummeted over the weekend to $1.3 million and less than $5 million in its first two weeks, falling out of the top 10.

Among the first-run exclusives, the New York-L.A. debut of Kate Winslet’s latest, “Hideous Kinky,” got off to a good start with approximately $86,000 on 10 screens.