Costner, Gibson Battle for First; Skies Are Blue for ‘October’

Kevin Costner’s “Message in a Bottle” and Mel Gibson’s “Payback” battled for No. 1 at the box office over the weekend, while “October Sky” opened to respectable business.

Two other new releases, the workplace comedy “Office Space” and the bad-girl teen flick “Jawbreaker,” were disappointments, while “My Favorite Martian” continued to do steady business after two weeks.

Oscar buzz continued to help two best-picture nominees. The costume romance “Shakespeare in Love” grossed $5.8 million for fourth place and the reissue of Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” took in $2.4 million for 10th place.

The new business for “Ryan,” in fact, pushed the World War II saga past last summer’s space rock adventure “Armageddon” to become the highest-grossing film released in 1998. “Ryan” now has grossed $203.2 million.

The other best-picture nominees for the March 21 awards, “Life Is Beautiful,” “The Thin Red Line” and “Elizabeth,” were out of the Top 10. Italy’s “Life Is Beautiful,” the tragicomic story set against the Holocaust, was 11th with $2.3 million.

Overall, the box office was down more than 11% from the same weekend last year, and so far 1999 can’t compete with the “Titanic”-powered 1998.

“Message in a Bottle,” a romance starring Costner as a widower who finds love again, and “Payback,” a violent revenge story with Gibson as a double-crossed criminal, both had estimated three-day grosses of $10.3 million. “Message,” playing on fewer screens, held a slightly higher per-location average.

Among the weekend’s new releases, the clear winner was “October Sky,” the story of a coal miner’s son with dreams of building rockets. It grossed a studio-estimated $6 million for fifth place.

That put it close to the Brendan Fraser fish-out-of-water comedy “Blast From the Past,” which had a gross estimated at $6.1 million, for fourth place, although several rivals disputed New Line’s estimate for “Blast” as too high.

Although “October Sky’s” per-location average of just over $4,000 was hardly stellar, it was still the second highest of the wide releases, just behind “Message in a Bottle,” an encouraging sign for a small movie that is tricky to market.

“This is a film that needs to find its place in the marketplace because of the importance of the word of the mouth,” said Nikki Rocco, president of Universal Pictures distribution. “I think it has that word of mouth.”

Other new releases stumbled. “Office Space,” from the creator of “Beavis and Butt-head,” opened with $4.3 million for eighth place, and “Jawbreaker”--trying to compete in the crowded teen movie market--couldn’t make the top 10 with its $1.6 million gross.

In contrast, another teen film, “She’s All That,” grossed $5.4 million in its fourth week for seventh place.

“My Favorite Martian,” the big-screen adaptation of the 1960s sitcom, lost just 24% of its business in the second week to collect $6.7 million for third place. “Rushmore,” the quirky love-triangle tale with Bill Murray, also maintained most of its audience, collecting $2.7 million for ninth place.