Originally posted by Sierra Disc
from www.boxofficemojo.com, the weekend estimates:

1. Big Fish $14,500,000/$24,100,000 total
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King $14,125,000/$312,237,000 total

HOLLYWOOD (Box Office Mojo) - Tom Cruise learned that the system isn't perfect not just as part of the plotline for Minority Report but in the real world as well. The Pre-Cogs had predicted that the Steven Spielberg-helmed sci-fi thriller would make a box office killing, handily topping the chart this weekend.

But when estimates were issued Sunday, a certain mischievous alien mutant named Stitch had shown the Pre-Cogs were wrong -- at least in terms of by how much Minority would win -- prompting 20th Century Fox's head of distribution Bruce Snyder to label the weekend "too close to call" until actual numbers came in on Monday.

The actual numbers have since been tabulated, and though Lilo & Stitch was ahead on Friday, Minority Report did eke out a victory for the weekend, but only by a mere $416,913.

Though everybody didn't run to Minority Report, the critically-raved picture pulled in $35,677,125 at 3,001 theaters -- about $1.2 million than what Fox estimated. That would exceed the openings of Spielberg and Cruise's last pictures -- A.I. Artificial Intelligence ($29,352,630) and Vanilla Sky ($25,015,518) respectively. In fact, Minority marks Cruise's biggest opening for a picture not based on well known source material like the Mission: Impossible and Interview with the Vampire movies were, and it's his ninth consecutive No. 1 bow in a leading role in 10 years.

The Minority Report marketing campaign emphasized Cruise's running man aspect of his persona, as his biggest hits often include obligatory shots of him mid-sprint, even for movies one wouldn't expect it such as Jerry Maguire. The production budget came in at $102 million, however as much as $25 million of it was offset by product placements from 15 different companies including Lexus, Nokia and USA Today. To further keep costs down, Spielberg and Cruise waived their usual fees, each opting instead to take a 15% cut of all revenue.

Breaking the weekend down, Minority grabbed $11,663,742 on Friday, jumped 14% to $13,295,050 on Saturday and then dipped 19% to $10,718,333 for Sunday. Demographically, the audience skewed only slightly male at 52% but played mostly to those over the age of 25 (64%), according to Snyder. Snyder also noted that moviegoer response in the studio's exit polling was excellent.

Lilo & Stitch gobbled up $12,335,579 on Friday at 3,191 venues to top the chart then, but lagged behind Minority on Saturday and Sunday with $12,806,637 and $10,117,996 respectively. That brought its weekend tally to $35,260,212, or about $500,000 less than what Disney estimated. Still, it ranks as the second biggest opening ever for a hand-drawn picture behind The Lion King's $40,888,194.

Illustrating just how close these two pictures were, Sunday estimates from other studios had the movies flip-flopped. One even had Lilo & Stitch at $34.8 million and Minority Report at $34.2 million.

Originally posted by Sierra Disc

...... but the surprise for me is how well "Something's Gotta Give" has done -- must be getting that mysterious adult audience.

Originally posted by rushmore223
I have no problem with BIG FISH winning the wqeekend, but when the figures are this close, I would wait til the actuals are released on Monday. How many times have the estimates been off a million or more? Quite often actually. In a case where these films are sepearated by a few hundred thousand dollars, the actual weekend grosses may tell a much different story.

Originally posted by Daytripper
Mysterious adult audience!? Not exactly sure what that means.

Originally posted by UWSarge
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movi...eut/index.html

Looks like New Line feels it still has ROTK as the #1 movie this week...

'Big Fish' in Controversial Splash at Box Office
Sunday January 11 3:06 PM ET

Something smelled fishy at the North American box office this weekend.

In a claim disputed by several studios, director Tim Burton's family fable "Big Fish" reeled in the No. 1 spot in its first weekend of wide release by selling $14.5 million worth of tickets, according to estimates issued on Sunday by its distributor, Columbia Pictures.

But that sounded like a whopper to others in Hollywood, particularly New Line Cinema, which said its reigning champ, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" earned more. The studio reported a $14.1 million tally for its hobbit tale, and calculated that "Big Fish" earned about $13.7 million.

"They seem a little high," New Line distribution President David Tuckerman said of Columbia's estimate.

Executives from two other studios, who declined to be identified, agreed with New Line's assessment, with one saying Columbia was "a little too aggressive."

Columbia's distribution president, Rory Bruer, defended his numbers for "Big Fish," calling them "reasonable estimates."

Time will tell. The studios will issue more accurate data on Monday. Columbia Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp . New Line Cinema is a unit of Time Warner Inc .

'FISH' LURES FANS

What was not in doubt was the successful expansion of "Big Fish," which had been playing in limited release for the previous four weekends.

With a cast featuring Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney and Billy Crudup, the film revolves around a son's attempts to reconcile with his ailing father by getting to the bottom of the colorful tales he frequently spun.

"Tim Burton delivered a visually stunning movie with a strong emotional core," said Bruer.

The audience for the $70 million movie was split evenly between males and females, and between those aged over and under 30 years, he noted.

Now playing in 2,406 theaters, up from 125 last week when it ranked No. 12, the film has grossed $24.1 million to date.

As for "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," it has now earned $312 million after four weekends. It passed the $300 million mark on Friday, outpacing its 2002 predecessor, "The Two Towers," by 10 days. However, the new film lost 50 percent of its audience from last week, a steeper drop than suffered by either "The Two Towers" or "Fellowship of the Ring."

Originally posted by rushmore223
I have no problem with BIG FISH winning the wqeekend, but when the figures are this close, I would wait til the actuals are released on Monday. How many times have the estimates been off a million or more? Quite often actually. In a case where these films are sepearated by a few hundred thousand dollars, the actual weekend grosses may tell a much different story.