It was the most surprising box office performance of the fall. In its opening weekend, Frankie & Johnny garnered rave reviews-and lackluster receipts. (In CinemaScore polling it earned a so-so B+.) Insiders stressed that the televised Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings had taken a bite out of Hollywood's weekend grosses. But that doesn't explain how Frankie, a romantic comedy directed by Pretty Woman's Garry Marshall and featuring the megastar matchup of Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer, could have opened at number three, behind the underpublicized Ricochet and the four-week-old The Fisher King. In truth, only one movie released during the last seven weeks even begins to qualify as a solid hit: Freddy's Dead, which has earned a cool $31.2 million. WEEKEND TOP TEN GROSS WEEKS IN GROSS* TO DATE RELEASE
1 $4.51 The Fisher King $22.39 4 TriStar (1,546 screens) 2 $4.41 Ricochet $10.67 2 Warner Bros. (1,560 screens) 3 $4.27 Frankie & Johnny $4.27 1 Paramount (1,150 screens) 4 $4.04 Ernest Scared Stupid $4.04 1 Walt Disney (1,782 screens) 5 $3.68 Deceived $15.89 3 Touchstone (1,198 screens) 6 $3.10 Shattered $3.10 1 MGM/Pathe (1,283 screens) 7 $2.93 Paradise $7.69 4 Touchstone (907 screens) 8 $2.88 Necessary Roughness $16.19 3 Paramount (1,651 screens) 9 $2.24 The Super $6.94 2 20th Century Fox (1,581 screens) 10 $1.21 Freddy's Dead $31.22 5 New Line (1,255 screens) *weekend of October 11-13 (all dollar figures in millions)
