When the competition is fierce-eight new pictures opened last weekend-brand names will clearly beat out movies that lack marquee drawing power. Take the two-week-old Demolition Man, which pits Sylvester Stallone against Wesley Snipes in a sci-fi slugfest, and The Beverly Hillbillies, the '90s film retread of the popular '60s sitcom. Both movies displayed strong name- recognition muscle, leaving those films with less stellar ensembles, such as the youth-oriented action flick Judgment Night and the romantic comedy Mr. Wonderful, to go begging for an audience. The familiarity rule works even in limited release: Despite mixed reviews, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas capitalized on the celebrated filmmaker's hip cachet, making $191,232 on only 2 screens and surpassing both venues' three-day-weekend records. Weekend Gross to Weeks in Gross* Top 20 Date Release
1 $10.3 Demolition Man $29.6 2 2 $9.5 The Beverly Hillbillies $9.5 1 20th Century Fox, Jim Varney 3 $7.0 Cool Runnings Walt Disney, Leon $26.6 3 4 $5.5 Malice Columbia, Alec Baldwin $27.2 3 5 $4.1 Judgment Night Universal, Emilio Estevez $4.1 1 6 $3.2 The Good Son $35.2 4 20th Century Fox, Macaulay Culkin 7 $3.0 The Joy Luck Club $14.9 6 Hollywood, Tamlyn Tomita 8 $2.7 The Age Of Innocence $22.3 5 Columbia, Michelle Pfeiffer 9 $2.0 The Fugitive $172.5 11 Warner Bros., Harrison Ford 10 $1.9 A Bronx tale $10.7 3 Savoy Pictures, Robert De Niro 11 $1.9 Mr. Jones TriStar, Richard Gere $6.0 2 12 $1.4 The Program Touchstone, James Caan $18.9 4 13 $1.2 Mr. Wonderful Warner Bros., Matt Dillon $1.2 1 14 $1.1 For Love or money $9.1 3 Universal, Michael J. Fox 15 $1.1 Free Willy $74.6 14 Warner Bros., Jason James Richter < 16 $0.9 Mr. Nanny New Line, Hulk Hogan $3.4 2 17 $0.9 Rudy TriStar, Sean Astin $1.0 1 18 $0.7 Gettysburg New Line, Jeff Daniels $2.1 2 19 $0.7 Jurassic Park Universal, Sam Neill $327.9 19 20 $0.5 Hocus Pocus Walt Disney, Bette Midler $37.7 14
Weekend Per-Screen No. of Average Top 10 / per screen Screens
1 $16,569 The Fugitive Warner Bros. 122 2 $7,532 Rudy TriStar 117 3 $6,262 The Joy Luck Club Touchstone 481 4 $5,891 Gettysburg New Line 127 5 $4,555 Demolition man Warner Bros. 2,258 6 $4,426 The Beverly Hillbillies 20th Century Fox 2,152 7 $3,853 Cool Runnings Touchstone 1,819 8 $3,626 Malice Columbia 1,519 9 $3,161 The Age of Innocence Columbia 839 10 $2,650 Judgment Night Universal 1,543 *Weekend of Oct 16-18 (Dollar Figures in Millions) Drawn from 20 Top-Grossing Films
