The Indie Top 10 : 5.8.98 - 5.10.98

Edited by Mark Rabinowitz

Wayne Wang's Trimark release, "Chinese Box" hurdled Artisan's slumping
"Suicide Kings" by more-than-doubling the latter film's gross on 84
fewer screens and holding on to a respectable 75% of its per screen
average over the prior week. First Look's "Mrs. Dalloway" is holding
strong in third position, with its box office actually growing by 2%
even while losing 5 screens. Legacy's "Little Men" opened with little
grosses, placing fourth in the top ten, but averaging only slightly more
than 700 smackers per sheet. Among the newcomers or returnees to the
list, "Junk Mail," "Taste of Cherry" and "Ayn Rand" all had massive
increases in grosses and posted o.k.-to-good per screen numbers, as
well, with "Cherry" posting 8th overall (including Specialty Division
films) in this last statistic.

In Specialty Division product, Sony Pictures Classics' "Wilde" posted
strong numbers in its second frame, garnering almost $10,000 per screen
and gaining 15% in gross numbers over the previous weekend while adding
only one screen. Among bows, New Line's "Woo" pulled in the top grosses,
but finished behind Miramax's "Artemisia" ($8,235) and October's "The
Kingdom 2" ($4,147) in per screen averages, nabbing slightly over four
grand. SPC's "The Spanish Prisoner" continues to look like the odds-on
favorite to become the sleeper of the Spring, coming in fourth among
Specialty Division pix by nabbing just under a million semolians for an
overall gross of close to a million clams, in it's sixth week of
release.

++ THE INDIE TOP 10 ++

CHINESE BOX (Trimark): $236,930 (+75%) -- Total: $678,762

Week #4 -- 68 Screens (+37) -- $3,484 average per screen

SUICIDE KINGS (Artisan): $101,081 (-29%) -- Total: $1,409,880

Week #4 -- 152 Screens (+2) -- $665 average per screen

MRS. DALLOWAY (First Look): $86,071 (+2%) -- Total: $2,878,910

Week #12 -- 71 Screens (-5) -- $1,212 average per screen

LITTLE MEN (Legacy): $77,924 -- Total: $77,924

*Premiere -- 111 Screens -- $702 average per screen

DEJA VU (Rainbow): $63,090 (+21%) -- Total: $186,723

Week #3 -- 34 Screens (+14) -- $1,856 average per screen

LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND (LGF): $62,923 (-4%) -- Total: $2,317,239

Week #10 -- 76 Screens (+1) -- $864 average per screen

I THINK I DO (Strand): $19,086 (-4%) -- Total: $197,854

Week #5 -- 6 Screens (no change) -- $3,181 average per screen

JUNK MAIL (Lions Gate Films): $15,480 (+93%) -- Total: $49,767

Week #5 -- 7 Screens (+4) -- $2,211 average per screen

TASTE OF CHERRY (Zeitgeist): $13,762 (+74%) -- Total: $163,720

Week #8 -- 3 Screens (no change) -- $4,587 average per screen

AYN RAND: A SENSE OF LIFE (Strand): $9,391 (+74%) -- Total: $156,124

Week #13 -- 4 Screens (+2) -- $2,348 average per screen