Thanksgiving Is Biggest Ever at Box Office

The motion picture industry feasted on a record $130 million in box office grosses during the five-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend as people rushed to malls and multiplexes across the nation.

Although final box office figures will not be available until today, the estimated total for the long weekend is expected to easily surpass the previous Thanksgiving weekend high of $111.7 million in 1990. That would make the just-ended weekend the biggest Thanksgiving on record, according to John Krier of Exhibitor Relations Co., which tracks box office data.

It also would make it one of the biggest weekends of any kind. The last to do at least as well was the long July 4th weekend last year when “Terminator 2: Judgment Day� opened.

In all, an estimated 26 million tickets were sold in the Wednesday-through-Sunday period, with half the total gobbled up by two mass audience movies: 20th Century Fox’s comedy “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,� which collected about $40 million, and the Walt Disney Co.’s animated musical “Aladdin,� which drew about $25 million.

Film industry sources in Los Angeles and around the nation attributed the surge in theater admissions to a wave of optimism in the country since the presidential election, and to the variety and appeal of the films playing.

The upbeat news came on top of reports over the weekend suggesting that the Christmas retail shopping season, which began Friday, is off to a strong start.

As good as the Thanksgiving grosses were, however, they have to be judged against the rising cost of making movies, said Harold Vogel, entertainment industry analyst for Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York.

“The fact of the matter is that there are enormous production and marketing costs that have to be charged,� he said.

Still, most sources agreed that the film business was benefiting from the variety of movies and improving consumer confidence in the economy. “The economy seems to be a bit better and that encourages people to relax and spend a bit more,� Vogel said.

“There’s a changing of the guard with the election and people are starting to feel a little bit more at ease,� Fox Executive Vice President Tom Sherak said. “All this has a cumulative effect. Normally you might see two movies do really good business, but this weekend we had five which did incredibly good business.�

Richard Cook, distribution president at the Disney studios, said “the industry as a whole is looking for a record-breaking holiday season. For weeks there has been a real optimism in the air. Whether it’s post-election or whatever, there is a better feeling and that is translating to people going out.�

But Cook cited the films in the marketplace as the propelling force. As a measure of consumer interest, he said Disney’s “Aladdin� opened to twice the business of the previous two Disney animated hits combined--�Beauty and the Beast� (1991) and “The Little Mermaid� (1990).

“It’s the quality and the variety that’s driving the business right now,� said Bob Miller, vice president of film marketing in Los Angeles for the 1,420-screen Boston-based General Cinema Corp., citing the range of themes: from the comedy “Home Alone� to serious films such as “Bram Stoker’s Dracula� and “Malcolm X,� the story of the slain Muslim leader.

For the major Hollywood-based film companies, the news of the box office bonanza came as a further boost to an upturn that began in September.

After a so-so first eight months of the year, business had been trailing 1991 levels. But autumn business surged 14% with such hits as “The Last of the Mohicans,� “Sneakers,� “Under Siege� and “The Mighty Ducks,� according to Daily Variety box office authority A. D. Murphy, bringing the year-to-date total as of last week even with last year.

That leaves the Thanksgiving to New Year’s season--a period that typically accounts for about 14% of the entire year’s business--to measure up to or surpass the record year of 1989, when $5.03 billion in movie tickets were sold in the United States and Canada, Murphy said. The figure for 1991 was $4.8 billion.

In its first 10 days of national release, “Home Alone 2,� starring Macaulay Culkin in a reprise of his role as a boy on his own against two thugs (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), has sold about $75 million in tickets. By comparison, the original “Home Alone� in 1990 was in the market 23 days before it reached $75 million. It went on to earn $285 million and became the third-highest grossing movie in history.

Disney’s “Aladdin� has accumulated $27 million since opening in two exclusive Los Angeles and New York runs on Nov. 11 and then opening nationally Wednesday.

The Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston thriller, “The Bodyguard,� scored about $23 million to come in third for the holiday weekend. The Warner Bros. film opened Wednesday.

Francis Ford Coppola’s “Dracula� collected $14 million over the weekend. It has hit $70 million after 17 days of release.

In the fifth slot for the weekend was Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,� which generated a solid $12 million, bringing its 12-day total to about $26 million.

By most yardsticks, any film in national release grossing more than $10 million on a holiday weekend is performing exceptionally well.

This weekend there were five in that category. The next highest film was the thriller “Passenger 57� with an estimated $5.4 million gross. It was followed by Robert Redford’s nostalgic “A River Runs Through It� with $4.1 million, Steven Seagal’s “Under Siege� with $3.5 million, “The Last of the Mohicans� with $3 million, and “The Mighty Ducks� with $1.8 million.

“This kind of diversity is just terrific for exhibition,� said Travis Reid, vice president of film for the New Jersey-based Loews Theaters, which has 900 screens. “Every kind of theater we operate is doing business. And we still have a lot of important product to open between now and the end of the year.�