Rock Runs Down Box-Office Competition

By Stephen M. Silverman

Monday September 29, 2003 11:36 AM EDT

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Though it was no "The Scorpion King," the Rock's new action comedy "The Rundown," debuted at No. 1 at the weekend box office, way ahead of second-place "Under the Tuscan Sun," a new romance starring Diane Lane as an American innocent abroad.

Lane's tale, in limited release, managed to outperform the previous weekend's top draw, the horror flick "Underworld," and actually did better on a theater-by-theater basis than the Rock movie, which also stars Seann William Scott. "Rundown" averaged $5,869 per screen in 3,152 theaters, while "Tuscan Sun" pulled in $7,672 at 1,226 sites.

"You couldn't have two movies at the top of the chart that are more different," Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations, tells AP. "It just shows there's an audience for every kind of movie."

The weekend's other new wide release, the Drew Barrymore-Ben Stiller comedy "Duplex," directed by Danny DeVito, debuted weakly, pulling in $4.6 million.

The Top 10 movies, according to studio estimates, were as follows:

1. "The Rundown," $18.5 million
2. "Under the Tuscan Sun," $9.41 million
3. "Underworld," $9.4 million
4. "Secondhand Lions," $8.25 million
5. "The Fighting Temptations," $6.5 million
6. "Once Upon a Time in Mexico," $5.1 million
7. "Duplex," $4.6 million
8. "Cold Creek Manor," $4.3 million
9. "Matchstick Men," $4.29 million
10. "Lost in Translation," $3.5 million