‘Spy Kids 3-D,’ ‘Seabiscuit’ do well

“If you build it, they will come.” The ghostly directive from “Field of Dreams” applied doubly this weekend to family entertainment and movies for adults as “Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” confounded predictions and shot to the top of the box office, and “Seabiscuit” was off and running at a solid clip in fifth position.

“Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over” performed significantly ahead of expectations with an estimated $32.5 million, a better opening weekend than either of the first two movies in the series.

Establishing “Spy Kids” as a “brand name has worked well for us,” said Bob Weinstein, Miramax/Dimension’s co-chair. “We gave them something new as a sequel; the 3-D gimmick really worked and hit their imagination.” Director Robert Rodriguez used the same new digital 3-D process on his modestly budgeted $40-million film that James Cameron employed for “Ghosts of the Abyss,” his Imax documentary on the Titanic.

“Seabiscuit,” based on Laura Hillenbrand’s book about the race horce, debuted solidly in fifth place with an estimated $21.5 million. Universal’s distribution president, Nikki Rocco, said the studio decided to open the film on “1,400 fewer locations than the other wide releases ... and the strategy worked.”

Indicating that the horse is in the race for the long haul, the roughly $87-million budgeted movie had a very good per-theater average of $10,820 in 1,989 locations, higher than any other wide release.

By a wide margin, the largest share of the audience for “Seabiscuit” was adults. A Universal spokesman reported that audience exit surveys showed that 79% of the audience was 30 and older, and that 59% was female. Of those surveyed, 97% gave “Seabiscuit” an “excellent” rating, and 88% said they would definitely recommend the film, notably more than the 55% that is the norm. Word-of-mouth potential doesn’t get much better, noted Rocco.

In a disappointing opening for an expensive sequel, “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life” brought in an estimated $21.8 million to open in the No. 4 spot. The first film opened with $47.7 million in June 2001. A Paramount executive said exit survey results on the sequel were “better than the original.” Some observers estimate the cost of “Cradle of Life” was in the neighborhood of $100 million, although others say it was much higher.

Among returning films, Disney’s and Jerry Bruckheimer’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” held on to the No. 2 spot in its third weekend with $22.4 million. Bruckheimer’s other big movie, Sony’s “Bad Boys II,” slipped from first to third place with an estimated $22 million.

Disney-Pixar’s “Finding Nemo,” the summer’s and year’s highest grossing movie, today will become the highest grossing animated film of all time. “Nemo” grossed just under $4 million over the weekend, bringing its total to $312.7 million. Disney’s “The Lion King” grossed $312.9 million in its original release.

The weekend was notable in that for the first time, five films grossed more than $20 million. Dan Marks of box office tracker Nielsen EDI said estimated totals for the top 10 films were 5% ahead of last week and 9% of the comparable weekend last year.

The estimated weekend total of $155 million for all films in release pushes the summer total to $2.757 billion.

For the year-to-date, total estimated box office of $5.22 billion is still running slightly behind last year’s comparable total of $5.35 billion, Marks said.

Among films opening in limited release, IFC’s “Camp” debuted solidly with $53,579 at three locations in New York and Los Angeles, averaging $17,859.

Sony Pictures Classics’ Larry Charles-Bob Dylan movie, “Masked and Anonymous,” opened with about $32,167 at four theaters in New York and L.A., or $8,042 per venue.

Fox Searchlight’s novel experiment of adding an alternate ending to “28 Days Later” appeared to give the film a boost. The film grossed about $2.29 million in 916 theaters, 394 fewer than last week. As the weekend gross was down only 10%, the additional ending added after the credits seemed to generate enough curiosity to maintain the modestly budgeted film’s momentum, said Steve Gilula, president of distribution at Fox Searchlight.

Fox Searchlight’s “Lucia, Lucia” opened in 49 theaters with an uninspiring $66,302, or $1,352 per venue. Gilula said Searchlight tried to market the film to Latino communities “but were not able to attract the numbers that we had hoped.”