HOLLYWOOD - The sum of all grosses for The Sum Of All Fears was $18.7 million, enough to keep it in first place over a generally blah box office weekend.
Moviegoers said yeah-yeah to Ya-Ya, launching the summer's first chick flick, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, in second place to $16.4 million.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones slid 34 percent to third place with $13.9 million. Bad Company opened fourth to a not-so-good $10.5 million. Spider-Man dropped 30 percent to fifth with $10 million.
Hollywood suffered across the board from the combination of beautiful East Coast weather, major sports competition -- including Friday's NBA basketball finals and Saturday's Stanley Cup hockey finals, Belmont Stakes horse race and Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson heavyweight championship fight -- and the absence of any new high profile event movie openings.
But even with the weekend's lackluster grosses, ticket sales were still nearly 9 percent ahead of this weekend last year. Key films -- those grossing $500,000 or more -- took in about $103 million versus last year's $94.4 million.
THE TOP TEN
Paramount's PG-13 rated thriller The Sum Of All Fears held on to the top spot in its second weekend with a still powerful ESTIMATED $18.7 million (-40%) at 3,218 theaters (+35 theaters; $5,811 per theater). Its cume is approximately $61.8 million.
Directed by Phil Alden Robinson and produced by Mace Neufeld, it stars Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman.
"It didn't hold as well as I had hoped it would hold," Paramount distribution president Wayne Lewellen said Sunday morning, noting that the overall marketplace was "extremely soft yesterday."
Asked where Fears is heading, Lewellen replied, "I think it gets to $100 million and a little over, but we certainly had anticipated based on the opening level and the playability of the film that it would go far beyond that. So it's somewhat disappointing. But that's not to say that it can't come back."
What accounted for this weekend's softness across the board? "The quickest thing that jumps out is the fight last night," Lewellen said. "Then, of course, they had the hockey playoff that went into triple overtime. Do I believe that that's what all of this is (about)? No, I don't. I know that the East Coast had extraordinary weather yesterday. It was like 70 degrees and beautiful skies -- one of those '10' New York days, you know. And that always has an impact on you there. But I still find it difficult (to believe) the market is this far below where we had projected it even after we had the Friday figures."
Industry projections circulating Saturday morning had all of this weekend's top films doing considerably better than is reflected in their Sunday estimates. "I had us at $20.5 million yesterday," Lewellen explained, adding that he also had the other Top Five films doing better than they're reporting today.
Warner Bros. and Gaylord Films' PG-13 rated drama Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood kicked off in second place to a cheerful ESTIMATED $16.35 million at 2,507 theaters ($6,522 per theater).
Directed by Callie Khouri, it stars Sandra Bullock, Ellen Burstyn, Fionnula Flanagan, James Garner, Ashley Judd, Shirley Knight, Angus MacFadyen and Maggie Smith.
Ya-Ya's average per theater was the highest for any film playing this weekend.
"We're pleased with Ya-Ya. It's a solid opening," Warner Bros. Distribution president Dan Fellman said Sunday morning. "It performed better than we expected. We were looking at somewhere in the $15-16 million range."
Moviegoers liked the movie and, as a result, it should have favorable word of mouth. "Its CinemaScores and the exit polls that we conducted were great," Fellman said. "All the CinemaScores were A -- even for men. The audience was predominantly younger and older females, but the male response was very, very favorable. With good word of mouth, I think we'll be around for a long time.