Justin Chambers

The independently made PG-13 rated action adventure, whose acquisition costs were shared by Universal and Miramax, is being distributed in North America by Universal and in the U.K. by Miramax. The Universal and Miramax presentation is a production from D'Artagnan Productions Ltd., Apollomedia, Q&Q Media and Carousel Picture Company.

Musketeer topped the chart with an ESTIMATED $10.7 million at 2,438 theaters ($4,390 per theater), an energetic showing for the traditionally quiet first weekend after Labor Day and the end of summer.

Directed by Peter Hyams, it stars Catherine Deneuve, Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea, Tim Roth and Justin Chambers. The film was produced by Moshe Diamant and executive produced by Mark Damon, Steven Paul, Rudy Cohen, Frank Hubner and Romain Schroeder.

Driven by Musketeer, ticket sales for key films--those grossing $500,000 or more for the weekend--were approximately $69.8 million, up nearly 29 percent from last year's post-Labor Day weekend total of $54.1 million.

"We're pleased," Universal distribution president Nikki Rocco said Sunday morning. "Strategically, when we made the deal with Miramax as a partner on Musketeer--they're going to release it in the U.K. and we have North American rights--knowing that we were successful with The Watcher last year on the same weekend we saw an opportunity here believing that Rock Star and Two Can Play That Game were (aimed) at different targets.

"We had a magnificent trailer on Musketeer that made it look very different from all the (other movies about the Musketeers). Taking the opportunity to play this incredible trailer with American Pie 2 gave it a lot of visibility. This is the end result. American Pie 2 has done over $131 million worth of business."

Focusing on the acquisition of Musketeer, Rocco pointed out, "Universal's share was $3.75 million. It's a very profitable thing for us. We were very strategic about how we did it. We wanted to be away from all of the high profile (summer) films. This is the weekend last year that we opened another acquisition, The Watcher, to $9.1 million. It was the number one film and made money for us, grossing (about) $29 million (in domestic theaters)."

Sony's Screen Gems label opened its R rated urban appeal romantic comedy Two Can Play That Game to a sexy ESTIMATED $8.3 million at 1,297 theaters ($6,400 per theater).

Game's average per theater was the highest for any film playing in wide release this weekend.

Written and directed by Mark Brown, it stars Vivica Fox and Anthony Anderson.

"It's a $6 million negative (in terms of Sony's cost) and we certainly hope we're headed to at least the mid-$20 millions," Sony Pictures Entertainment worldwide marketing & distribution president Jeff Blake said Sunday morning.

"A very profitable Screen Gems release. Another low cost, highly focused entertaining release that I think really was handled very nicely by the team at Screen Gems--similar to The Brothers, which came out earlier this year and opened to $10.3 million (the weekend of Mar. 23-25 at 1,378 theaters, averaging $7,477 per theater), but was in a tougher period and dropped off pretty dramatically. This one in the fall, hopefully, will hold on a little bit and end up with similar results. Brothers ended up with about $28 million."

Blake added that he feels Screen Gems is "doing a very nice job with highly focused pictures that have great appeal to a segment of the audience. And they're doing a nice job getting the word out to them at a pretty reasonable price."