HOLLYWOOD - An Easter parade of moviegoers kicked Panic Room off in style to $30.2 million, a new record for the holiday weekend.Ice Age remained frozen in second place with a still steaming $18.6 million. The Rookie opened on third base with a solid $15.8 million line drive.
Rounding out the top five were Blade 2, finishing fourth with a less sharp $13.2 million, and Clockstoppers, ticking slowly with a $10.1 million fifth place launch.
For the third consecutive weekend, key films--those grossing $500,000 or more--enjoyed summer size ticket sales. The Easter weekend's $126.3 million total was 37 percent ahead of $92 million for the comparable weekend last year. It also was up 48 percent from Easter 2001 (Apr. 13-15) when key films grossed $85.3 million.
THE TOP TEN
Columbia's opening of its R rated thriller Panic Room opened atop the chart to a record setting ESTIMATED $30.2 million at 3,053 theaters ($9,892 per theater).
Panic's average per theater was the highest for any film playing this weekend.
Directed by David Fincher, it stars Jodie Foster.
"It's the biggest Easter opening ever, beating Matrix, which isn't a bad one to beat," Sony Pictures Entertainment worldwide marketing & distribution president Jeff Blake said Sunday morning. "Matrix opened Apr. 2, 1999--Easter Weekend was Apr. 2-4 and it actually opened on Wednesday, Mar. 31. It did $27.8 million for the three-day portion [of the holiday weekend]. It went on to gross $171.4 million. I'd say that's a little ambitious, but it's obviously a great start when you're talking about the biggest Easter opening ever and beating a film of that high profile.
"It's also Jodie Foster's biggest [opening], beating Contact, which was July 11-13, 1997 at $20.6 million. Again, you're talking about somebody with a great portfolio of films, including Maverick and Silence of the Lambs, all $100 million-plus movies. So it's nice that this is her biggest opening."
Focusing on who went to see Panic, Blake noted, "What we got was a good mix of younger and older adults. I think it really appeared, as it is, to be a 'full meal movie' as opposed to something specifically for kids or something specifically for science fiction fans or some of the more segmented [audience] movies that have done very well but have been appealing to less of a broadly adult audience. I think we're really the first broadly adult film in a while that has had equal appeal to young adults as well as older adults and very equal between male and female.
"Our audience was largely 25 and older and was almost equally split between men and women. It clearly was a 'full meal movie' that several adult audiences would enjoy. It's a $48 million negative, so that puts us in a real nice position [to see profits and] especially for a picture of this quality."
