), the film is based on Sebastian Junger's best-selling book about an ill-fated fishing boat caught up in a freak storm pattern off the coast of Massachusetts in 1991.Playing the ship's skipper, former ``ER'' heartthrob Clooney proved a major draw for female moviegoers, who accounted for 53 percent of the audience, said Warner Bros. distribution president Dan Fellman. Also helping the movie were its PG-13 rating and the special effects, he added.
With many businesses closed on Monday ahead of the Independence Day holiday on Tuesday, Fellman predicted ``Storm'' would end the long holiday weekend with about $64 million in the till, ``which is going to be a spectacular number.''
``Storm'' averaged $12,440 from 3,407 theaters, and ``The Patriot'' $7,089 from 3,061 theaters.
``The Patriot,'' starring Gibson as a vengeful father who takes up arms against the English in 1776, has grossed $31 million since opening on Wednesday. A Columbia Pictures spokesman predicted the R-rated film's tally would rise to about $42 million after the holiday.
``This is great,'' producer Dean Devlin told Reuters. ``My fear has always been ... that our competition here was much more of a standard summer movie and was just going to wipe us out.''
Exit polls indicated the ``Patriot'' audience was predominantly over 25 and that they loved the movie. Devlin hoped that by the third weekend, the movie would attract younger audiences drawn to budding Australian hunk Heath Ledger.
The last time the July 4 holiday fell on a Tuesday was in 1995, when ``Apollo 13'' ruled the box office with a $25 million lift-off. It went on to gross about $172 million, said Devlin, clearly hoping his movie would follow the same trajectory.
Devlin's producing partner Roland Emmerich directed the film. Together, the pair made ``Independence Day'' and ''Godzilla.''The live action/animated ``Rocky and Bullwinkle'' failed to overcome critical brickbats and audiences' unfamiliarity with the source material, late animator Jay Ward's 1960s television cartoon series about a flying squirrel and a moose.
``We all knew that it was going to be a challenge making the material relevant,'' said a spokesman for Universal Pictures. The film stars Robert De Niro, who also served as a producer. It averaged just $2,685 from 2,458 theaters.
After 12 days in release, ``Chicken Run'' (DreamWorks) has grossed $41.1 million. The film, from the British creators of the ``Wallace and Gromit'' cartoons, fell just 27 percent from last weekend, the best hold in the top 10. It averaged $4,490 from 2,851 theaters.
Conversely, the 50 percent slide for Carrey's ``Irene'' marked the steepest in the top 10. After 10 days, the comedy has tallied $47.6 million, said a spokesman for Twentieth Century Fox. Its average was $3,919 from 3,062 outlets.
New releases next weekend include ``Disney's The Kid,'' a comedy starring Bruce Willis; and ``Scary Movie,'' a raunchy horror spoof directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans.
Warner Bros. is a unit of Time Warner Inc. Columbia Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp. . Universal is a unit of Seagram Co. Ltd.. Fox is a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc.. Reuters
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