..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

Time Out … Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star ascended to the top of the weekend box office charts with a less than awe inspiring $6.7 million estimated debut. It just nosed ahead of Jeepers Creepers 2 which tumbled 58% to $6.5 million. The weekend also saw the launch of The Order - a thriller with faint echoes of The Exorcist that had been shifted from the summer. However, even in the absence of competition it fared poorly with a roughly $4.3 million debut. Essentially the industry took a pass on the weekend, bowing films in which there was little confidence and the public responded accordingly. Overall business should translate to about $65 million and the segue from summer resulted in a 36% drop from the immediate prior frame. It was also off 9% from 2002 when Swimfan bowed to $11.3 million and City by the Sea ranked third with $8.9 million. The box office blow was soften largely as a result of many pictures continuing to play modestly in continued runs and by a couple of niche titles holding ground in limited exposure. Disney surpassed its annual box office record of $1.24 billion Saturday and, with close to three months left in 2003, should considerably raise the bar for future years. Among the limited openers, only Strand's Party Monster, a true life saga of success starring Macauley Culkin, displayed any strength. The film expanded from a single screen to eight venues and grossed approximately $130,000. New Yorker had good response to the wartime drama Taking Sides with a $22,600 box office at two Manhattan sites but Innovation's Home Room, a controversial drama, sputtered with just $3,700 at three theaters. Also disappointing was the Indo-American Where's the Party Yaar? that was eyeing $41,000 from 11 screens. The weekend's most potent performers proved to be two Sundance award winners, Thirteen and American Splendor. Thirteen added 34 playdates and grossed about $670,000 from 108 theaters while Splendor maintained 88 runs (it expands to about 200 next weekend) and returned roughly $610,000 for the three-day span. Next weekend's openings of Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Matchstick Men are expected to provide some fire following close to a month of the box office doldrums. Certainly, on reflection, had either one of those films pushed up a week, the current frame and the season would have demonstrated considerably greater dynamism. In fact, one distributor voiced a disappointment on not having a commercial title to release this past weekend, noting that as with summer the only way to expand the season is to open popular movies during what are viewed as non-prime time movie going periods. - by Leonard Klady