Audiences Get Caught in the Trap

The lesson to be learned from this past weekend? Never underestimate the power of the booty shot. Spandex-clad Catherine Zeta-Jones slunk her way underneath that laser beam and the trap was set. Audiences fell for it like mice to cheese.

Of course, Entrapment had the weekend to itself, but this is a traditionally slow time at the box office, the calm before the summer storm. Nobody makes money on this weekend. Ah, but this was the first adult date picture in a long time. The star power of Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones promised audiences a sexy battle of the wits and was enough to overcome the shortcomings of the cheesy ad campaign and of the picture itself. Hell, this picture looked like a relic of the early 80's with its soft focus camera and tired plot.

Entrapment snared $20.1 million over the weekend. However, that's $600,000 less than Fox's lofty estimate, and the picture can hardly be called successful yet. Fox invested around $100 million in production and marketing costs, so it should take a while for them to break even.

Meanwhile, things got back to normal in the teeny bopper genre as Idle Hands tanked just like this sort of picture used to. Oh, those were the days! I would like this picture's pathetic $1.8 million take to be a definite sign that the teeny bopper fad is just about over, but this movie did look incredibly awful.

Pushing Tin went down in flames, plunging 65%. Fox is bathing in red ink on this one as the picture cost around $45 million to produce and market and will wind up with around $7 million domestic. International prospects look bleak as well. To be fair, Fox did abandon it shortly before it opened. Also, Entrapment was more dominant than expected in the adult demographic.

Election had another strong performance in limited release, taking in $245,582 after expanding to 14 theaters. That's a $17,542 per theater average. The picture finally goes wide this Friday.