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20 years ago - September 1, 1995

The Prophecy
This horror-thriller from writer Gregory Widen (whose first movie was Highlander in 1986) features a war between the angels with humans caught in the middle. Christopher Walken plays the Archangel Gabriel, with Eric Stoltz, Elias Koteas, Virginia Madsen, and Viggo Mortensen in the cast. Reviews were fairly good and I remember being fairly impressed by the movie, especially by Mortensen as Lucifer. The Prophecy opened behind holdovers Mortal Kombat and Dangerous Minds at #3 with $7.5 million over the Labor Day weekend on 1,663 screens. Though it only grossed $16 million, the movie’s success brought back Walken for two more sequels, and another two sequels were released in 2005.

Magic in the Water
This family-friendly fantasy stars Sarah Wayne and Joshua Jackson as kids who try to save a Nessie-like creature in a Canadian lake. Mark Harmon plays their father. Reviews weren’t great, and Magic in the Water opened at #16 with $1.4 million on 890 screens.

25 years ago - August 31, 1990

The Lemon Sisters
This weekend’s only new release stars Diane Keaton, Carol Kane, and Kathryn Grody as singers in Atlantic City in the 1980s. Elliott Gould, Ruben Blades, Aidan Quinn, and Nathan Lane also appear. Miramax had enjoyed successes with Sex, Lies, and Videotape, My Left Foot, and Cinema Paradiso recently, but this production had been delayed by rewrites and the critics were not kind to the end result. The Lemon Sisters opened at #12 with $2.1 million over Labor Day weekend on 598 screens. Audiences instead went to see Ghost, which reclaimed the #1 spot in its eighth weekend in theaters.

30 years ago - August 30, 1985

American Ninja
Back in the '80s ninjas were everywhere, dropping out of trees, throwing stuff, and being a general public nuisance. I remember buying a Ninja magazine but I never learned their secrets. In American Ninja, Michael Dudikoff plays an American G.I. with a secret past. (SPOILER: he’s a former child ninja). Embroiled in a stolen-Army-weapons plot, Dudikoff fights ninjas in the Philippines. He was pretty good at beating them, so he starred in two (out of three) sequels that made it to theaters. American Ninja opened at #4 with $3.2 million over the Labor Day weekend on 672 screens (vs the 1,550 screens occupied by continued box office leader Back to the Future) and eventually earned $10.5 million in America.

Compromising Positions
Susan Sarandon stars in this mystery based on the 1978 novel by Susan Isaacs. She plays a former journalist who tries to get back in the business with the investigation of a murdered philandering dentist. Raul Julia, Joe Mantegna, Mary Beth Hurt, Edward Herrmann, and Judith Ivey costar, and Joan Allen makes her first movie appearance.. Reviews were fairly good, especially of Sarandon. Compromising Positions opened at #6 with $ 3.0 million on 570 screens - actually a better average than American Ninja. The movie eventually earned $12.5 million.

First released in 1984, Gremlins was reissued this weekend on 1,174 screens and managed to grab the #8 spot with $2.3 million. Eventually the movie earned a combined $153 million. Similarly, Ghostbusters, which had also premiered in 1984, was in its second week of re-issue and came in just behind Gremlins at #9 with $1.9 million


Come back next week for another installment of Marquee History!

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