Blue Streak racked up a $19.2 million opening, nearly matching Martin Lawrence's last picture, Life, which opened to $20.4 million with the help of Eddie Murphy. This opening is rather remarkable given that this picture looked like a retread of the pictures Murphy used to make and that it had no laughs in the ad campaign. Perhaps it was a result of people wanting to laugh after the glut of horror, the dearth of urban appeal pictures, and all the free publicity it got due to Lawrence being in a coma recently.

For Love of the Game struck out, grossing $13 million. That's mediocre considering its very wide 2,829 theater release, the lack of significant competition for its demographic, and that it was Kevin Costner's return to baseball. Universal made the mistake of focusing a bit too much on the romance part, alienating men. What's more, Costner made a big stink about his frontal nudity being edited out, alienating everyone.

American Beauty made a stunning $861,531 from just 16 theaters, averaging $53,846. Many reports have compared its average to Blue Streak's $7,023 average. This is ridiculous, because if Beauty had opened at 2,735 theaters too, its average would have been much less than Streak's.

Meanwhile, Bruce Willis' Breakfast of Champions debuted to little fanfare, taking in just $42,326 from 7 theaters. To be fair, Disney didn't promote it much, but its $6,047 average is still rather mediocre for such a limited release and all star cast.

Editor's Note: Articles published before 2001 were assigned and reported as box office briefings, not a full evaluation or analysis.