Little to Cheer About Except ‘Bring It On’

The teen cheerleader comedy “Bring It On” remained atop the box-office chart for the second consecutive week, pulling in $14.2 million over the four-day Labor Day weekend.

Films making their debut had lackluster to dismal ticket sales. “Highlander: Endgame” grossed $6.2 million to open in fifth place, while the poorly reviewed “Whipped,” with $2.7 million, couldn’t break into the top 10.

Labor Day marked the sixth consecutive weekend that box-office figures were off compared to last year.

Overall, the summer season fell short of last year’s record-breaking box office. From Memorial Day through Labor Day, the total box-office take was $2.73 billion, a decline of about 9% from the previous summer, when ticket sales hit $2.9 billion.

Meanwhile, attendance was off about 12%, according to the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co., which estimated that 520 million tickets were sold this summer compared to 588 million in the summer of 1999.

The reason? Perhaps audiences just weren’t as jazzed over the movies Hollywood had to offer this summer.

“This year, the talk around the water cooler was all about the TV show ‘Survivor,’ ” said Exhibitor Relations President Paul Dergarabedian. “Last summer, it was all about movies like ‘Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace,’ ‘Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,’ ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘The Blair Witch Project.’ ”

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Four-day gross/ Screens/ Weeks in Movie (Studio) Total (millions) Average Release 1. “Bring It On” $14.2 2,410 2 (Universal) $36.6 $5,880 2. “The Cell” $8.9 2,444 3 (New Line) $46.3 $3,654 3. “Space Cowboys” $8.6 2,795 5 (Warner Bros.) $74.5 $3,092 4. “The Art of War” $7.7 2,630 2 (Warner Bros.) $21.5 $2,922 5. “Highlander: Endgame” $6.2 1,543 1 (Dimension) $6.2 $4,033 6. “What Lies Beneath” $6.0 2,407 7 (DreamWorks) $138.8 $2,473 7. “Original Kings of Comedy” $5.8 952 3 (Paramount) $28.8 $6,096 8. “The Replacements” $4.5 2,485 4 (Warner Bros.) $36.9 $1,801 9. “Nutty Professor II” $3.9 2,133 6 (Universal) $115.0 $1,820 10. “The Crew” $3.7 1,515 2 (Disney/Touchstone) $9.2 $2,452 *”Whipped” $2.7 1,561 1 (Destination) $2.7 $1,749

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SOURCE: Exhibitor Relations Co.