Pocket Monster Ticket Sales

Date: Wednesday, November 17, 1999

The final totals for last weekend's box office fell just short of estimates, but POKEMON: THE FIRST MOVIE still remained a colossal success. The film made $31-million in its first weekend, for a total of $50.7-million (counting the first two days of release, which began on Wednesday). The film earned $10,200 apiece on over 3,000 screens.

DOGMA also had a strong debut, with $8.8-million on 1,269 screens, for a per screen average of $6,832. The film will easily outdistance previous efforts from writer-director Kevin Smith and from distributor Lions Gate, who took over after original distributor Miramax got cold feet when protests were threatened against the religious-themed film.

On the limited release front, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH expanded to 467 screens (up from 175 the previous week) and saw its weekend box office shoot up by 26% to $2.3-million. Its total so far: $6.1. Meanwhile, Miramax's low-key approach to PRINCESS MONONOKE hasn't helped the film much. Expanding from 38 to 47 theatres, the film saw its weekend box office dip to $243,000, a 37% fall off. The per screen average ($5,200) is still strong, but the box office total is barely approaching $1-million.

Here are the weekend results for the top genre films in release:

Pokemon: The First Movie (1) $31-million/$51-million
The Bone Collector (2) $12-million/$35.2-million
Dogma (3) $8.8-million/$8.8-million
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (4) $6.3-million/$6.3-million

House on Haunted Hill (8) $4.3-million/$34.7-million
The Sixth Sense (10) $2.6-million/$267.7-million
American Beauty (13) $2.4-million/$62.7-million
Being John Malkovich (14) $2.3-million/$6.1-million
The Omega Code (17) $1-million/$9.2-million
Fight Club (18) $997,000/$34-million
Bringing Out the Dead (19) $615,000/$16-million