'Stitch' and 'Minority' in Photo Finish
by Brandon Gray
June 23, 2002
HOLLYWOOD (Box Office Mojo) - Lilo & Stitch may have been ahead on Friday, but Minority Report eked out a victory for the weekend, according to studio estimates. However, their grosses were neck-and-neck down the line, prompting 20th Century Fox's head of distribution Bruce Snyder to label the weekend "too close to call" until actual numbers come in on Monday.
Though everybody didn't run to Minority Report, the critically-raved sci-fi thriller pulled in an estimated $36.9 million at 3,001 theaters, which would exceed the openings of director Steven Spielberg and star Tom Cruise's last pictures -- A.I. Artificial Intelligence ($29,352,630) and Vanilla Sky ($25,015,518) respectively.
Breaking the weekend down, Minority grabbed an estimated $11.9 million on Friday, jumped 13% to $13.4 million and Fox is projecting a 13% dip to $11.6 million 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.
Lilo & Stitch gobbled up an estimated $12.3 million on Friday at 3,191 venues to top the chart then, but Minority surged ahead on Saturday. For the weekend, Disney's latest traditionally animated event came in at an estimated $35.8 million, which would rank as the second biggest opening ever for a hand-drawn picture behind The Lion King.
Illustrating just how close these two pictures were, estimates from other studios had the movies flip-flopped. One had Lilo & Stitch at $34.8 million and Minority Report at $34.2 million.
Tackling the concept of family a.k.a. "ohana" amidst its kid-pleasing antics, Lilo marks a return to form for Disney after an overall decline -- typified by last summer's Atlantis: The Lost Empire -- as computer animation rose to dominance in recent years. Disney built a bridge to its early '90s heyday by having Stitch interrupt classic scenes from The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast among others.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/articles/news/?id=020623bor.htm
It's interesting to note that L&S opened at nearly 200 more screens, and lasts one hour less than MR. Budget was 20+ million less than MR and advertising costs were both about 35 million.
