Weekend Box Office : It’s a Bull’s-Eye for ‘Broken Arrow’

“Broken Arrow,” the John Woo action thriller about nuclear extortion, captured first place at the box office but the race for runner-up over the four-day Presidents Day holiday movie-going period was almost too close to call.

Second-place honors went to “Muppet Treasure Island,” by the slimmest of margins. The children’s comedy grossed $10,112,833, barely beating out “Happy Gilmore,” the golf comedy starring Adam Sandler, which came in at $10,112,005.

Among the Oscar-nominated films, “Braveheart” garnered $1.8 million in re-release, while “Babe” and “The Postman” brought in $838,365 and $607,606 respectively.

“The marketplace is schizophrenic,” said Tom Sherak, Fox’s distribution chief. “We are seeing lousy Fridays followed by great Saturdays and then the marketplace seems to flatten out on Sunday and the midweek is not good for anything.”

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Weekend Gross/ Screens/ Weeks in Movie (Studio) Total (millions) Average Release 1. “Broken Arrow” $13.5 2,392 2 (Fox) $33.8 $5,627 2. “Muppet Treasure Island” $10.1 2,070 1 (Disney) $10.1 $4,885 3. “Happy Gilmore” $10.1 2,022 1 (Universal) $10.1 $5,001 4. “City Hall” $8 1,815 1 (Columbia) $8 $4,415 5. “Mr. Holland’s Opus” $7.5 1,629 5 (Hollywood) $50 $4,591 6. “Mr. Wrong” $5.9 1,487 1 (Touchstone) $5.9 $3,958 7. “Black Sheep” $4.8 2,092 3 (Paramount) $25.6 $2,305 8. “Leaving Las Vegas” $3.62 1,310 17 (MGM/UA) $20.5 $2,768 9. “Sense and Sensibility” $3.61 1,054 10 (Columbia) $29.2 $3,430 10. “Dead Man Walking” $3.4 816 8 (Gramercy) $18.2 $4,129

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SOURCE: Exhibitor Relations Co.