Wide Audience Authorizes a ‘Mars’ Mission to No. 1

After the box office mid-winter freeze of the last few weeks, “Mission to Mars” provided somewhat of a thaw, debuting to a red-hot estimate of $23.1 million on 3,054 screens.

The critically excoriated Brian De Palma space adventure took advantage of its benign PG rating to target all demographics, doing best with males over age 25. But that was enough to outpace all its competitors and doing about 38% of the business for the top 10 films.

Second place fell to another newcomer, the satanic thriller “The Ninth Gate,” starring Johnny Depp. But hell wasn’t as hot as it should be for the Roman Polanski film, which debuted to a moderate $6.7 million in 1,586 theaters, arriving in the U.S. after having played most of the globe.

The surprise holdover of the weekend is the family film “My Dog Skip,” which had a moderately good debut last week but actually increased its business in weekend No. 2. Its take rose 2% to approximately $6 million in 2,331 theaters and an excellent 10-day total of $14.1 million for this low-budget ($7 million) movie, meaning it has already recouped its production costs.

“The Whole Nine Yards,” which beat back weak competition to land in first place for the past three weeks, slipped to fourth but continued to draw the comedy-hungry crowd to the tune of about $5.4 million in 2,672 theaters for a four-week total of just under $46 million.

It will be interesting to see if “Mars” can hold on to the adult audience with Julia Roberts’ “Erin Brockovich” debuting this Friday and already generating strong reviews and good reaction from preview audiences. “Brockovich” played in about 800 houses on Saturday night to 93% capacity crowds and through-the-roof positive exit polls, according to Universal Pictures, which is releasing the true-life drama.

With only one real standout performer in theaters, the top 12 films were down slightly from the same weekend last year, grossing approximately $67 million, according to the tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.

Making hay while Oscar fever is in the air, “American Beauty” and “The Cider House Rules” continued to bring in the curious, as well as repeat viewers who are getting ready to fill out their office-pool ballots. Both films had small drops of 10% or less. “Beauty” is still pretty with an estimated $3.65 million over the weekend in its reissue on 1,522 screens. With $98 million so far, “Beauty” will become last year’s 20th release to cross $100 million, probably by next weekend.

“Cider House,” which has doubled its pre-Oscar nomination gross to $42 million, grossed almost $3.6 million of that over the past weekend in 1,704 theaters and is right on course to top the $50-million mark.

The dark comedy “Drowning Mona” fell an expected 40% in its second weekend to an estimated $3.5 million on 1,961 screens for a so-so 10-day total of $10.5 million. The Madonna drama “The Next Best Thing” did even worse, dropping 42% in its second weekend to an estimated $3.35 million in 2,034 theaters. At this declining rate, the $10.6 million the film has collected so far should account for most of its take in theaters.

There was a dead heat for ninth place between “Pitch Black” and “Snow Day,” both of which got roughed up by the arrival of “Mission to Mars.” “Pitch” grossed approximately $3.1 million in 1,730 theaters in its fourth weekend for a sturdy $34.2 million in its first month. After five weeks, “Snow Day” keeps on rolling with $3.1 million in 2,672 houses.

In specialized runs, “Fantasia/2000” is very special indeed. On 54 IMAX screens, the Disney animated film grossed $1.5 million over the weekend, bringing its domestic total since New Year’s Day up to $31.1 million and its 75-theater worldwide total to $40.2 million.