Weekend Box Office : ‘Unforgiven’ at Top for Third Week

The weekend produced lazy but typical end-of-summer box-office action, yet still inched ahead of last summer at this time. Clint Eastwood’s dark and brooding Western, “Unforgiven,” led for a third weekend. Well-attended Saturday-night previews of the new James Caan and Nicolas Cage comedy “Honeymoon in Vegas” indicate a hit in the making for the coming weekend.

Among last Friday’s openings, the martial-arts genre film “Rapid Fire,” with Brandon Lee, did a fine $4.9 million for third place, but “Christopher Columbus--The Discovery” attracted little attention.

Two other new movies in major release were “The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag,” which misfired with only $1.2 million on nearly 700 screens, and Hemdale Pictures’ animated “Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland,” with a drowsy $407,695 on 579 screens. Among badly slumping continuing movies were “Stay Tuned,” which dropped 52%, and MGM’s “Diggstown,” which fell 37%, both in only their second weeks.

This languid period is often a good opportunity for smaller, arty films. Triton Pictures’ “A Brief History of Time,” a documentary about physicist Stephen Hawking, clocked a mighty $84,000 at only five theaters. The Rainbow/Tribeca release of the Hollywood satire “Mistress” did $92,518 on 16 screens, and Miramax Films’ romantic “Enchanted April” continued strongly with $679,000 on 125 screens.

Weekend Box Office

Weekend Gross/ Screens/ Weeks in Movie (Studio) Total (millions) Average Release 1. “Unforgiven” $7.7 2,087 3 (Warner Bros.) $46.1 $3,709 2. “Single White Female” $6.4 1,744 2 (Columbia) $21.4 $3,679 3. “Rapid Fire” $4.8 1,828 1 (Fox) $4.8 $2,634 4. “Death Becomes Her” $3.8 1,866 4 (Universal) $41.9 $2,040 5. “Columbus--The Discovery” $3.1 1,506 1 (Warner Bros.) $3.1 $2,059 6. “A League of Their Own” $2.7 1,715 8 (Columbia) $93.7 $1,580 7. “3 Ninjas” $2.5 1,910 3 (Touchstone) $19.1 $1,345 8. “Raising Cain” $1.8 1,515 3 (Universal) $16.1 $1,225 9. “Stay Tuned” $1.7 1,600 2 (Warner Bros.) $7 $1,048 10. “Sister Act” $1.7 1,172 13 (Touchstone) $123.8 $1,454

SOURCE: Exhibitor Relations Co.