HOLLYWOOD - Jeepers Creepers did frightfully well at the box office, capturing first place with over $16 million and setting a new record for a Labor Day weekend opening. The R rated horror film from United Artists, released by MGM, opened atop the chart with an ESTIMATED $16.13 million at 2,944 theaters ($5,477 per theater). (For three days it did an ESTIMATED $13.13 million).
Previously, the biggest Labor Day opening was The Crow: City of Angels, which arrived the weekend of Aug. 30 - Sept. 2, 1996 to $9.79 million at 2,423 theaters ($4,038 per theater).
(NOTE: All of today's estimates are for the four-day holiday weekend from Friday through Monday. Percentage comparisons are not indicated today since last weekend was a normal three-day weekend.)
Driven by Jeepers, Labor Day ticket sales for key films -- those grossing $500,000 or more for the four-day period -- reached a new high of about $110.3 million. The previous key films record gross for Labor Day was 1999's total of $109.98 million.
Jeepers' average per theater was the highest for any film playing in wide release this weekend. It is MGM's fourth No. 1 opening this year, following Hannibal, Heartbreakers and Legally Blonde.
Jeepers' strong launch surprised insiders who said the film had been flying low on Hollywood's advance radar screen. As a result, expectations were that Jeepers would at best come in fourth or fifth for the four-day period.
Written and directed by Victor Salva, it stars Gina Phillips, Justin Long, Jonathan Breck and Eileen Brennan.
"In my experience the tendency is for (horror genre films) to undertrack," MGM worldwide theatrical marketing and distribution president Bob Levin said Sunday morning, focusing on Jeepers' surprisingly big opening weekend.
"A lot of the interest and demand for these (type of films) happen very late in the game. This audience is not setting dates, so it picks up very late. And I think that many, many times these movies are driven by genre people -- people who just like horror movies. So you get this burst of people who are very peculiar. They aren't regular moviegoers. They really like these kind of movies and they wait around for them. And you're just not going to pick them up on tracking."
As things turned out, MGM picked exactly the right date to launch Jeepers. "We thought that a four-day holiday (made sense)," Levin explained. "You know, everyone talks about Labor Day weekend being a not very good weekend, but if you really look at all of the weekends that follow here into early September, they aren't that much better. It isn't like it's dramatically historically not as good a weekend as everything else. But (with) four days and this kind of movie, I've got to figure this crowd isn't just spending all of their time toasting marshmallows."
Should Hollywood treat Labor Day better than it does and open more films and better product then?
"It's the biggest (Labor Day weekend) ever and I guess it just reemphasizes what so many people have said all along," Levin replied. "You get this expansion of theaters that can put movies out and there really isn't a bad weekend any more. There's wrong movies and wrong weekends, but there isn't a weekend that can't do business if the right movie is there."
New Line Cinema's PG-13 rated action comedy blockbuster sequel Rush Hour 2 held on to second place in its fifth week, still showing strong legs with an ESTIMATED $11.7 million at 2,825 theaters (-176 theaters; $4,142 per theater). (For three days it did an ESTIMATED $10.0 million). Its cume is approximately $198.8 million, heading for $210-215 million in domestic theaters.
