‘Dance’ Dominates Holiday Weekend

“Save the Last Dance” wasn’t on anybody’s radar screens in Hollywood, but the teen-oriented film became the biggest opening film ever over the long Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, grossing $27.5 million over the four-day period.

“When you can attract the teen audience like that, you can have a huge hit,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. “I think that the marketing tie-in with MTV was key. They heavily saturated MTV with information about this film.”

Touchstone Pictures’ urban comedy “Double Take” debuted in fourth place with $11.7 million, while MGM’s suspense thriller, “Antitrust,” opened out of the top 10 with $5.5 million.

Dergarabedian said that this year’s King holiday had the best movie revenues ever, with box office for the 50 top films coming in around $170 million. The previous best was in 1998, the year of “Titanic,” which saw the weekend total hit $132 million.

Weekend Box Office

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Four-day gross/ Screens/ Weeks in Movie (Studio) Total (millions) Average Release 1. “Save the Last Dance” $27.5 2,230 1 (Paramount) $27.5 $12,344 2. “Cast Away” $19.8 3,048 4 (Fox) $167.8 $6,489 3. “Traffic” $13.4 1,527 3 (USA Films) $35.3 $8,800 4. “Double Take” $11.7 1,631 1 (Disney/Touchstone) $11.7 $7,196 5. “What Women Want” $11.6 3,092 5 (Paramount) $153.6 $3,762 6. “Thirteen Days” $11.3 2,029 3 (New Line) $11.9 $5,561 7. “Finding Forrester” $11.1 2,002 4 (Sony/Columbia) $20.5 $5,551 8. “Miss Congeniality” $10.6 2,668 4 (Warner Bros.) $79.4 $3,968 9. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” $10.3 693 6 (Sony Classics) $30.3 $14,908 10.”The Emperor’s New Groove” $7.8 2,237 5 (Disney) $71.5 $3,505 “Antitrust” $5.5 2,433 1 (MGM) $5.5 $2,255

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SOURCE: Exhibitor Relations Co.