HOLLYWOOD - Collateral Damage captured first place this weekend, inflicting about $15 million in box office damage. It was, however, a far cry from a year ago when Hannibal bit off $58 million in ticket sales. Also driving this weekend were slimmer launches for Big Fat Liar with nearly $12 million and Rollerball with $9 million.
Although Hollywood faced competition this weekend from television coverage of the Olympics starting with Friday's opening ceremonies, most distributors felt it didn't hurt business as much as the lack of powerhouse new product did. Together, this weekend's top six films grossed about $57 million compared to the $58 million Hannibal did on its own last year.
Key films--those grossing $500,000 or more--did nearly $98 million, down nearly 20 percent from last year's $122.8 million. Business was up just over 2 percent from last weekend of this year when key films grossed $95.6 million.
THE TOP TEN
Warner Bros. and Bel-Air Entertainment's R rated terrorist action adventure Collateral Damage kicked off to a chart topping ESTIMATED $15.18 million at 2,824 theaters ($5,375 per theater).
Collateral had been set to opening last October, but its release was delayed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks amid concerns about how the public would react to a film about terrorism. Its first place opening now to a combative although not blockbuster sized gross of just over $15 million suggests Warners picked the right time to bring Collateral into the marketplace and that it took the right approach in its marketing. Given its story, the film could easily have wound up sitting on the shelf for many more months and having much less of a theatrical impact.
Collateral's average per theater was the highest for any film playing in wide release this weekend.
Directed by Andrew Davis, it stars Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"We had a terrific weekend," Warner Bros. Distribution president Dan Fellman said Sunday morning. "It's obviously good to be Number One. We had a solid box office accompanied by encouraging data. The exits were good. It drew mostly males. Sixty-two percent of the audience was male and of the four (demographic) quadrants, 39 percent were over 25 and 25 percent were females over 25. What was interesting was that women liked the movie as much as men did.
"We've got a holiday weekend coming up next week, so we'll get a little extra bump (in ticket sales over four days). Hopefully, we'll hang in there and based on the exits I think we probably have a good shot."
Applauding Collateral's marketing launch, Fellman emphasized that, "(Warner Bros. theatrical marketing president) Dawn Taubin and her marketing team did a great job in preparing the materials and opening the movie in the Number One position."
As for the Olympics' impact, Fellman said, "I think the Olympics definitely hurt everybody on Friday and a little bit on Saturday. You can just look at the numbers Friday night and see how much it dropped. The industry was 41 percent down last Friday on the 18 pictures that I tracked.
"It was not a great weekend. I think there's no question that we have a little bit of an Olympics situation there. But we'll make it up during the week. That seems to be what happens generally. I think that based on the tracking it looked like it was going to be a more competitive weekend for us."