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

Scare Tactics Do I hear a franchise? Boogeyman provided the shock and awe in movie theaters this past weekend as it debuted to an estimated $20.2 million. While exhibitors and distributors were girding for the annual hard hit of Super Bowl Sunday, business was better than expected overall and also featured a very good bow for The Wedding Date that ranked third with $11.1 million and continuing strength for Oscar contenders. Listing toward the spooky rather than the graphic, Boogeyman carved out a sizeable niche of the youth audience in its opening frame. While its business will likely be sliced in half next weekend, the modestly produced chiller definitely got off to a fast start that bodes well for overseas prospects and hair raising response when it hits the DVD racks. And if there was any doubt about moving ahead on a follow up, those fears can be put aside. The span's other national debut was the high concept comedy The Wedding Date, with a nicely appointed $6,600 theater average. Developed by the same folk that bankrolled My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the film should attain the sort of mid-range box office that generates very good but not quite spectacular profits. The Ice Cube family comedy Are We There Yet? continued to stand up to the competition as its cume rose to $52 million while Hide and Seek took a sharp 60% drop following its potent opening. Overall business should ring in with roughly $107 million in sales to slip about 16% from the immediate prior weekend. It was also 6% off last year's pace when the bows of Barbershop 2 and Miracle were the top performers. However, movie going was projected to be up 9% from Super Bowl weekend 2004. Oscar continues to be a significant factor in the marketplace with Million Dollar Baby, The Aviator and Sideways among the hottest ticket sellers in multiplexes. Sideways became Fox Searchlight's biggest grosser over the weekend, usurping The Full Monty from 1997. Hotel Rwanda again added theaters to its run to excellent results and its current $11.5 million total has easily shattered early expectations. In regional and limited play, the weekend saw two Bollywood pictures going head to head and while both Black and Shabd had respectable bows, there's no denying that neither reached its full potential. Among a clutch of exclusive premieres only the award winning Japanese drama Nobody Knows displayed any real signs of niche box office potency. The saga of abandoned children was eyeing roughly $31,000 from two Manhattan screens. The rest of the limited newcomers generated tepid to poor results. The Australian true life period drama Swimming Upstream grossed about $24,000 from 17 engagements while the documentary The Nomi Song was headed toward $7,000 from two screens and the critically acclaimed Irish social drama about the disabled, Rory O'Shea was Here limped to $6,700 from three venues. - by Leonard Klady