In fact, looking back at this weekend last year, the top grossing film then was Columbia's Urban Legends: Final Cut, which opened to only $8.5 million, very much in line with this year's first place Hardball gross of $8.2 million.
Dimension Films' PG-13 thriller The Others rose three pegs to second place in its seventh week, still showing great legs with an ESTIMATED $5.2 million (+13%) at 2,801 theaters (-42 theaters; $1,856 per theater). Others, which cost only $17 million to make, has a cume of approximately $80.2 million, heading for $90 million or more in domestic theaters.
Directed by Alejandro Amenabar, it stars Nicole Kidman.
"In its seventh week it's the highest it's ever been in the Top Ten," David Kaminow, senior vice president, marketing for Dimension's parent company Miramax, said. "We're sneaking Serendipity next weekend both Friday and Saturday and, obviously, we'll sneak [in theaters playing] The Others. So that will help (boost the thriller's cume). $85 million seems ridiculous (as a projection now and $90 million-plus seems more likely)."
Asked about the film's recently increased television advertising, Kaminow explained, "That was kind of always the plan just in terms of looking at the competitive landscape. We came in on Aug. 10 and we knew that if we could get it into the fall we would still have a couple of solid weeks into September before [the arrival of strong new competition]. This [coming] weekend will be the first time it's really going to face [major competition] between the Michael Douglas movie (20th Century Fox and Regency's thriller Don't Say a Word) and Zoolander [from Paramount, directed by and starring Ben Stiller] and Hearts in Atlantis. In the planning process, this was always on course. It, of course, exceeded expectations. But our goal was to keep it going. The way we released it, starting on 1,600 screens and adding 400 more [the next weekend] was really sort of building and building and building. I think it's a nice model [to use but] you have to have the movie to do it with, though, so it doesn't burn itself out."
Kaminow also pointed out that Others' success adds strength to Nicole Kidman's prospects as an Oscar and Golden Globes best actress contender. "It's great for Nicole," he said. "We definitely think she has a campaign ahead of her."
Columbia's PG-13 rated suspense thriller The Glass House fell one rung to third place in its second week with a slower ESTIMATED $4.4 million (-23%) at 1,591 theaters (theater count unchanged; $2,766 per theater). Its cume is approximately $11.7 million.
Directed by Daniel Sackheim, it stars Leelee Sobieski, Diane Lane and Stellan Skarsgard.