Just a few weeks ago, it seemed Disney had lost confidence in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: By releasing it a month earlier than planned, the studio signaled that Nightmare might be too quirky for the Christmas-season crowd. So Disney opened the animated fantasy slowly during October, winding up wide on Halloween weekend. One marketing maven estimates that Disney's delay cost the studio $3 million. But the No. 1 hit may make up for lost time by acquiring cult status: L.A. moviegoers have been spotted dressing up as the film's characters, Rocky Horror Picture Show-style. Such repeat business from the 8-to-28 crowd could bring Nightmare closer to $100 million than anyone ever expected. Weekend Gross to Weeks in Gross* Top 20 Date Release
1 $8.2 Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas Touchstone, Animated $16.5 3 2 $4.9 The Beverly Hillbillies 20th Century Fox, Jim Varney $25.4 3 3 $4.2 Demolition Man Warner Bros., Sylvester Stallone. $45.6 4 4 $3.7 Cool Runnings Walt Disney, Leon $38.2 5 5 $3.6 Rudy TriStar, Sean Astin $11.3 3 6 $3.5 Fatal Instinct MGM, Armand Assante $3.5 1 7 $2.9 Malice Columbia, Alec Baldwin $36.7 5 8 $2.0 The Joy Luck Club Hollywood, Tamlyn Tomita $21.6 8 9 $1.6 The Age of Innocence Columbia, Michelle Pfeiffer $27.2 7 10 $1.4 Judgment Night Universal, Emilio Estevez $10.0 3 11 $1.2 The Good Son 20th Century Fox, Macaulay Culkin $39.8 6 12 $1.1 The Fugitive Warner Bros., Harrison Ford $176.1 13 13 $1.0 Fearless Warner Bros., Jeff Bridges $1.5 3 14 $0.9 Gettysburg New Line, Jeff Daniels $4.8 4 15 $0.5 Free Willy Warner Bros., Jason James Richter $76.3 16 16 $0.5 Dazed and Confused Gramercy, Jason London $5.2 6 17 $0.5 The Program Touchstone, James Caan $21.2 6 18 $0.5 Jurassic Park Universal, Sam Neill $329.4 21 19 $0.4 Farewell My Concubine Miramax, Leslie Cheung $0.8 3 20 $0.4 Hocus Pocus Touchstone, Bette Midler $38.7 16
Weekend Per-Screen No. of Average Top 10 / Per Screen Screens
1 $8,145 Fearless Warner Bros. 124 2 $7,223 Farewell My ConcubinE Miramax 54 3 $4,965 Tim Burton's Nightmare Touchstone 1,654 4 $3,937 Gettysburg New Line 239 5 $3,414 The Joy Luck Club Hollywood 600 6 $2,460 Rudy TriStar 1,465 7 $2,292 The Beverly Hillbillies 20th Century Fox 2,148 8 $2,017 Cool Runnings Walt Disney 1,832 9 $1,963 Demolition Man Warner Bros. 2,141 10 $1,912 Malice Columbia 1,519 *Weekend of Oct.29-31 (Dollar Figures in Millions) Drawn from 20 top-grossing films
