Paramount's opening of its PG-13 rated urban appeal drama-comedy Hardball hit first place with an energetic ESTIMATED $10.1 million at 2,137 theaters ($4,726 per theater).

Hardball's average per theater was the highest for any film playing in wide release this weekend.

Directed by Brian Robbins, it stars Keanu Reeves.

"I expect a strong Sunday," Paramount distribution president Wayne Lewellen said Sunday morning. "We were hurt on Friday. The big urban theaters didn't kick in until Saturday night. We expect a very strong Sunday with the kind of ethnic appeal we have with the film. But it's also playing very well (in general).

"The exit polls went through the roof. It scored a 91 on the index. It's the overall score for the picture after you compile all the information. Anything over 80 is through the roof and a 90 is basically unheard of."

Lewellen noted that Paramount did its "exit polls yesterday and I haven't seen the (details yet). When we did the sneaks last week, 96 percent were in the Top Two Boxes (excellent and very good). There's no reason to believe that it would change."

Asked if people looked to movie theaters as a means to escape from reality this weekend, Lewellen replied, "I think so. It seemed that they were somewhat preoccupied on Friday because of the Day of Mourning. There were candlelight vigils Friday night. I think there was a lot of participation in that. Everything in the market had a tremendous bump Saturday from Friday. I think you're going to see a continuation of that today -- obviously, unless (there is) some kind of breaking news activity."

Lewellen pointed out that, "The last time we experienced anything like this was the Kennedy assassination. Really, there aren't any records we can refer to. We simply had conversations with people who were around then (in 1963) and remembered the business. Everybody pulled all the movies out of that weekend except for one film. It was a Jayne Mansfield film called Promises! Promises! (a sex comedy starring Mansfield, who was seen naked on the screen for the first time in this film, which was directed by King Donovan and also starred Marie McDonald, Tommy Noonan and Mickey Hargitay). It was the only film that opened (via NTD, an independent distributor at the time) and it set house records. People were looking for escapism and, obviously, the networks as they did now were only broadcasting newscasts. Of course, it does become redundant when there's no new news and they just say the same thing over and over.

"In addition, I think that the fact that the Memorial was held on Friday -- it's not closure, but it sort of said that it's OK to go out (and start trying to get back to normal). And that's why I think we're going to have an extraordinary Sunday (at the box office)."