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20 YEARS AGO

January 3, 1997
No new opening films this weekend;  Michael held #1 with $12.1 million, followed by Jerry Maguire in its fourth week and Scream in its third week.

January 10, 1997
The Relic became the year’s first new #1 film at the box office. Penelope Ann Miller and Tom Sizemore star in this museum thriller, which earned $9 million from 2,065 theaters and went on to gross $33.9 million. Coming in at #6 with $5.7 million was Jackie Chan’s First Strike (aka Police Story 4).  First Strike didn’t strike big at the U.S. box office, grossing less than half of 1996’s Rumble in the Bronx.  Turbulence, an airplane thriller starring Ray Liotta and Lauren Holly, opened at #8 with $4.4 million.

January 17, 1997
Two new openers topped the box office this Martin Luther King Jr. weekend:  Chris Farley’s comedy Beverly Hills Ninja opened at #1 with $12.2 million over four days from 2,112 theaters and became his third success in a row with a $31.4 million gross.  Sadly, Farley died the following December at age 33.  Eddie Murphy’s non-Beverly-Hills cop comedy Metro opened at #2 with $11.4 million and underperformed even Beverly Hills Cop III with a $32 million gross.

January 24, 1997
Reuniting the cast of A Fish Called Wanda didn’t help Fierce Creatures this weekend; the comedy starring John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin only earned $3.7 million from 1,593 theaters to land at #8.  Steve Guttenberg’s former stardom was no help either for Zeus and Roxanne, a family-friendly adventure featuring a dog and a dolphin, which opened at #10 with $2.7 million.

January 31, 1997
The big story this weekend was the re-release of 1977's Star Wars as a Special Edition, with modern special effects, previously deleted scenes featuring Jabba and Biggs, and the notorious George Lucas revision of the cantina sequence now showing Greedo (mis)firing before Han Solo kills him. I was among the many in long lines that boosted the Star Wars Special Edition to a record January opening weekend tally of $35.9 million, a record it held until 2008's Cloverfield $40 million opening. The Special Edition grossed $138 million in 1997, bringing Episode IV's lifetime gross to over $460 million. Leading true new releases this weekend, Tupac Shakur and Tim Roth starred in Gridlock'd at #10 with $2.6 million, Rodney Dangerfield's Meet Wally Sparks was at #13 with $2.1 million, and Charlie Sheen's White House thriller Shadow Conspiracy was down at $16 with $1.3 million.

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