WATCHER Still #1

Auds eye psycho-thriller for second weekend, but most viewers stay home to watch the Olympics.

By Steve Biodrowski     September 18, 2000

Universal's psycho-thriller The Watcher dipped 37% in its sophomore weekend, earning only $5.7-million according to studio estimates, but that was still good enough for 1st place on a slow weekend that saw most potential viewers staying at home to watching the Olympics. With no new genre films in wide release, it was up to four holdovers to hold places in the Top Ten. DreamWorksWhat Lies Beneath, after dropping only 6% to $2.6-million, managed to climb up a notch from 6th to 5th place. Trading places with Beneath was Warners' Space Cowboys, which dropped from 5th to 6th place this weekend with $2.5-million, a 25% decline in revenue from the previous weekend. New Line's The Cell fell from 4th to 7th place, earning $2.4-million, down 33% from the previous frame. And Dimension's second-wave release of Scary Movie paid off to the tune of $2-million. Down to around 350 theaters the previous weekend, the film was placed in nearly 2000 engagements Friday, boosting its box office by 904%. The per screen average was only a dollar or two about $1,000, so this should be a brief flash. (Most films get a brief boost when they go into second run theatres, but Dimension seems to have perfected the technique of mount a major 're-release' before film has even completely left theatres in the first placea practice they used on the first two Scream movies.)

Here are studio estimates for the weekend's Top Ten Box Office hits. Final figures will be released tomorrow:

U.S. Box Office Top Ten 9/15 to 9/17/2000
1.	The Watcher	$5.7-million
2.	Bait	$5.5-million
3.	Bring It On	$5.1-million
4.	Nurse Betty	$4.7-million
5.	What Lies Beneath	$2.6-million
6.	Space Cowboys	$2.5-million
7.	The Cell	$2.4-million
8.	Almost Famous	$2.3-million
9.	Duets	$2.0-million
10.	Scary Movie	$2.0-million