Chapter 263: The Biggest Dark Horse
Chapter 263: The Biggest Dark Horse
Although the reviews for Home Alone 2 were sharply polarized, it did nothing to stop the sequel’s overwhelming momentum at the box office.
During its opening weekend, Home Alone 2 earned 31 million dollars across more than 2,200 theaters in North America. By the end of its first week, the film’s total box office had surpassed 46 million dollars, far exceeding the first movie’s opening-week performance of just over 27 million. The other Hollywood film companies were all trembling with anxiety, afraid that Home Alone 2 might break the box office record created by the first film.
The movie ranked second that week was Warner’s Lethal Weapon 2. Despite opening in more than 1,900 theaters, it earned only a little over 25 million dollars, barely more than half of Home Alone 2’s earnings.
Paramount’s Black comedy Harlem Nights ranked third, earning 22 million dollars at the box office.
Although Home Alone 2 earned 46 million dollars, it was not actually that surprising. The film that truly shocked people during the first week of the Thanksgiving season was instead the previously overlooked Steel Magnolias.
Strictly speaking, calling it “overlooked” was somewhat exaggerated. After all, this was the first movie Julia took on following the massive success of Pretty Woman, so it still received a fair amount of attention. However, compared to the overwhelming promotional campaigns for holiday-season films such as Home Alone 2, Lethal Weapon 2, and Back to the Future 2, this drama starring Julia about the ordinary lives of several women in a Southern town received far weaker publicity.
As a result, although Steel Magnolias earned only 17 million dollars during its opening week and ranked fourth on the box office chart, the film was undoubtedly the biggest dark horse of the holiday season. Relative to its 1,000 opening screens, Steel Magnolias achieved a shocking per-screen average of 17,000 dollars, with attendance rates terrifyingly high.
Aside from Home Alone 2, whose per-screen average of 20,000 dollars was slightly higher than Steel Magnolias, Lethal Weapon 2 averaged only 13,000 dollars, while Harlem Nights earned just over 10,000 dollars, barely reaching the standard for a major hit.
Meanwhile, under the impact of the wave of newly released films, The Others saw its weekly box office drop by 41% this week. It earned 14.75 million dollars and barely squeezed into the top five.
As for Universal’s Back to the Future 2, it earned only a little over 13 million dollars. It was not that the film had suffered a disastrous box office failure, but rather that Universal, for reasons unknown, had neither scheduled the movie for November 17 nor the following week on November 24. Instead, they awkwardly chose November 22, the day before Thanksgiving, for its release.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, Eric could not help but get a headache.
While receiving delightful box office reports every day, Eric’s Beverly Hills villa had also descended into complete chaos. As the most important American holiday after Christmas, Thanksgiving was a time for family reunions.
Naturally, Drew had no intention of returning to Culver to spend Thanksgiving with her mother.
As for Aniston, after her parents divorced, both remarried and formed new families. There were older half-brothers from the same mother, younger half-brothers from the same father, and all sorts of complicated relationships. On top of that, the little girl had already become an adult. No matter which side she spent Thanksgiving with, she felt uncomfortable. After unintentionally—or perhaps intentionally—complaining a few times to Eric, he invited her to spend Thanksgiving at his house. He originally assumed Aniston would refuse, but unexpectedly, she agreed this time.
Thus, sitting in front of the computer in his study with absolutely no mood to work, Eric felt a strong sense of having brought this upon himself.
If one of the two little girls had been gentle like water while the other burned like fire, things might have balanced out somewhat. Unfortunately, both little darlings were fire-type personalities. The only thing comforting Eric was that the two girls no longer physically fought.
After staring at the document for half an hour without typing a single word, Eric boredly shut down the computer and walked out of the study. From downstairs, voices immediately drifted up.
“Hey, fatso, how many times have I told you already? That cushion is for my personal use only. Don’t touch it!”
“You little bitch, try calling me fat one more time. I’ll touch it all I want.”
…
After a brief pause, Aniston’s horrified and disgusted voice immediately rang out:
“Ugh, that’s disgusting! You actually rubbed your drool all over the cushion!”
“If you’ve got the guts, keep using it then!”
“Get lost and stay away from me. Hey, stop changing the channel! Give me back the remote! I’m learning how to make pumpkin pie!”
“Who would dare eat anything you make? The salmon omelet you made yesterday tasted awful.”
“If it tasted awful, why did you eat so much? Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“My stomach hurt all night.”
“You’re lying. Eric and I were both fine!”
Eric hesitated for a few steps, sighed, turned around, and returned to the study. Picking up the phone, he randomly dialed numbers one after another.
Virginia had gone home to spend the holiday with her parents.
Nicole was in Chicago doing promotional tours for Sleepless in Seattle.
Even Julia was not in Los Angeles.
Finally, out of boredom, Eric dialed Jeffrey’s home number.
“Hello, this is the Hansen residence.”
After the call connected, Eric froze briefly, because the voice that answered was not Jeffrey’s but a young man’s. He quickly realized the other party was probably Jeffrey’s son, Chris Hansen.
“This is Eric Williams. May I ask who’s speaking?” Although he was already eighty percent certain, Eric still asked.
There was a brief pause on the other end before the voice replied, “I’m Chris Hansen, Mr. Williams. Are you looking for my father? I’ll go get him right away.”
Eric did not know the other party, so he said nothing more. After a while, Jeffrey’s voice finally came through from the other side.
“Eric, tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. Why are you calling at a time like this? Let me say this first—Chris rarely comes home, and he even brought his girlfriend with him, so no matter how huge the issue is, I’m not dealing with it. If it’s company business, go find Robert.”
Eric froze momentarily, then laughed. “Nothing’s wrong. I was just bored at home and randomly dialed your number because I wanted to chat with you.”
Jeffrey asked strangely, “Shouldn’t that little girl Drew be at your place right now? With that mischievous little troublemaker around, how could you possibly be bored?”
“How should I put this… Jennie’s at my house too. So, you understand.”
Of course Jeffrey knew what Eric meant. Back then, he had personally witnessed the two little girls scratching each other while lying in hospital beds.
After a brief pause, Jeffrey burst into loud laughter.
“Hahaha, Eric, why did you put those two together again?”