HOLLYWOOD - Fears about whether moviegoers were ready for a film involving nuclear terrorism proved ungrounded as The Sum of All Fears exploded with $31.2 million in ticket sales.Hollywood's customary post-Memorial Day slide saw many films down 50 percent or more versus the Friday-Sunday portion of the four day holiday. Besides the post-holiday let down, films playing to adult males suffered Friday from televised NBA playoff games that drew high ratings.
The Los Angeles Lakers' Game 6 victory Friday night over the Sacramento Kings received a 13.5 overnight rating and a 24 share, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was 82 percent better than last year's comparable game when Philadelphia played Milwaukee in the Eastern finals. It was NBC's best postseason overnight rating, excluding the NBA Finals, since Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference finals between the Lakers and Portland. On the East Coast, New Jersey's series win Friday over Boston drew an 8.7 overnight rating and a 16 share.
L.A. and Sacramento play Game 7 today (Sunday), starting at 4:30 p.m., Pacific time and 7:30 p.m., East Coast, which is expected to cut into ticket sales for adult male appeal films.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones took a 57 percent drop to second place with $20.7 million. Spider-Man fell only 49 percent, placing third with $14.5 million. Between them, the twin blockbusters have grossed over $586 million.
Undercover Brother kicked off in fourth place to a lively $12.1 million. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron had the best legs of all, off just 40 percent in fifth place with $10.7 million.
Key films -- those grossing $500,000 or more for the four days -- took in about $117 million, down a modest 3 percent from last year.
THE TOP TEN
Paramount's opening of its PG-13 rated thriller The Sum of All Fears captured first place with a nuclear powered ESTIMATED $31.2 million at 3,183 theaters ($9,802 per theater).
Sum's average per theater was the highest for any film playing this weekend.
Directed by Phil Alden Robinson and produced by Mace Newfeld, it stars Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman.
"It's the most successful opening of the films based on Tom Clancy books," Paramount distribution president Wayne Lewellen said Sunday morning. "It's on the high end of where we had hoped to be. It's a very successful opening and bodes well for the playability over the lifetime of the picture."
Clear and Present Danger opened to $20.35 million the weekend of Aug. 5-7, 1994. It went on to gross $122 million in domestic theaters. Patriot Games arrived to $18.5 million the weekend of June 5-7, 1992 and wound up grossing $83.3 million domestically. The Hunt For Red October was launched to $17.2 million the weekend of Mar. 2-4, 1990 and ended up doing $120.7 million domestically.
Given the much stronger opening for Fears, Lewellen noted, "So certainly we would expect this to be better (over the course of its) lifetime, as well. The playability of this is extraordinary, according to the exit polls that we did. 83 percent were (in the top two boxes) excellent and good. The audience was a little bit older. About two-thirds were over 25. The index (of how well they liked it) was an 83 versus a norm of 73. It was 50-50 male-female. And the definite recommend was very high at 71 percent versus a norm of 64 percent. The picture plays very well. We knew that from earlier screenings we had."
Asked about media concerns as to whether the public was ready to see a movie about nuclear terrorism, Lewellen replied, "I don't think that's the case, obviously. I think they were more (affected) by the basketball game than anything else. We definitely saw an impact on our Friday gross from the game. You could see it in the increase we realized yesterday (Saturday) over the Friday numbers. It was 33 percent better on Saturday than Friday and normally you won't get that kind of a jump on opening weekend."
Sunday's Game 7 between L.A. and Sacramento will also work against Fears. "That's something we've taken into consideration in our calculations here, too," Lewellen explained. "It won't help. The game is starting at 4:30 this afternoon (on the West Coast), so that's prime East Coast time and it will bite a little bit into prime time here. I'm sure there's a lot of interest there to see who New Jersey will be playing in the finals."