For once it was the turn of the US public to give the critics “two thumbs down” as they ignored the faultfinders' negative barbs and voted with their wallets to make The Island of Dr. Moreau the top grossing film in the US over the last weekend. Showing that Marlon Brando is still a box office heavyweight, Island grossed US$9.1 million from 2,035 screens for a respectable US$4,473 screen average.
The success of Island allows New Line executives arriving in Venice for Last Man Standing to breath a collective sigh of relief following disappointing US returns this year from Faithful, Lawnmower Man II, Heaven's Prisoner and The Adventures of Pinocchio, which has seen the company's market share fall from 6.6% at this time last year to just 3.4% today.
In another snub to the critics, audiences ignored generally positive reviews for A Very Brady Sequel which came in third with a US$7 million gross, which is only about half of what the original Brady Bunch film grossed last year.
The romantic-golf-comedy Tin Cup showed that it wasn't only actress Rene Russo who had good legs, as it dropped just 15% over its second weekend and has now grossed nearly US$24 million in its first 10 days. Among the openers the best screen average was for the Sundance Festival winner, The Spitfire Grill, which averaged US$8,836 across 17 screens in its opening weekend. Edward Burn's follow-up to The Brother's McMullen, She's The One, got its campaign off to a satisfactory start, grossing just over US$2 million from 459 screens, just US$200,000 short of Norberto Barba's Solo which debuted at nearly triple the number of screens.
Independence Day will pass the US$275 million domestic gross mark in the US this week as Phenomenon and Eraser both try to reach the magic US$100 million mark in the coming weeks. Christopher Pickard
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