‘Dick Tracy’ Opening Collars a Disney Record

Warren Beatty’s square-jawed copper proved an arresting presence at the weekend box office. With ticket sales of $22.5 million, “Dick Tracy” rewrote the Walt Disney Studio record books to become its highest grossing opening film.

The “Tracy” opening blew away Warner Bros.’ “Gremlins 2: The New Batch,” which finished fourth at the box office with an estimated $9.8 million its first weekend out.

Second place went to Paramount Pictures’ “Another 48 HRS.,” which dropped an estimated 45% its second weekend, for ticket sales of about $11.1 million.

In third place, with ticket sales of about $10.2 million, was Tri-Star Pictures’ “Total Recall.”

Rounding out the weekend’s Top Five was Universal Pictures’ “Back to the Future III,” which continued its downward spiral with ticket sales of about $5 million.

Kicked off by a special midnight screening--where specially priced T-shirts, which sold for $12 to $20, served as the admission “ticket”--the “Tracy” raid failed to muscle in on the record of “Total Recall” for the year’s biggest opening weekend: $25.5 million. It also fell short of the startling spring opening weekend of New Line Cinema’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” which cracked $25.3 million.

But “Tracy” locked away more receipts than last summer’s “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” the Disney Studio’s previous three-day opening weekend record holder (with $14.2 million in grosses). It also topped the studio’s four-day opening record set by 1988’s “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (which earned $14.5 million).

Its performance also marked a heroic return for star / director Beatty, who hasn’t had a major commercial success since 1978’s “Heaven Can Wait,” and whose last performance was in the 1987 clinker, “Ishtar.”