Box Office

'Taken' assumes top spot in first $1 billion January Liam Neeson's CIA thriller Taken bumped off Paul Blart: Mall Cop at the weekend box office, raking in $24.6 million and helping fuel the first $1 billion January in Hollywood history. North American box office revenues were up nearly 20 percent in January over the same period last year, reaching a record $1.03 billion for the month. Attendance was up 16 percent over last year, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media by Numbers.

Well, you knew it was coming.In the twisted world of modern celebrity, The Outrage comes first and then The Apology.Thus, it was only natural that Bitin' Mike Tyson returned to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas yesterday, begging forgiveness in a prepared statement that was as predictable as it was pathetic.Tyson apologized to Evander Holyfield, the heavyweight champion whose ears he found so irresistible.He apologized to "this wonderful city of Las Vegas," the place where murder and riots have followed his recent fights.

Individual game tickets for the Orioles' 1997 home games will go on sale at 10 a.m. on Jan. 18.Tickets may be purchased Jan. 18 at Oriole Park from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Jan. 19 from noon to 5 p.m. Tickets will also be on sale through Ticketmaster phone charge at (410) 481-SEAT.Seats in all price categories are available for every game except Opening Day. A limit of 12 seats per game for up to eight games is in effect Jan. 18-19. Tickets will remain on sale Jan. 20-24 at the box office, Ticketmaster outlets and Ticketmaster phone charge.

HOLLYWOOD -- The head of a major movie studio sighed deeply yesterday morning as he surveyed the box-office wreckage of the past two weeks. "I'm scared," he said. "The business is frightening."What's frightening more than one studio executive is the failure of so many recent releases, films that have appeared and disappeared almost with the flicker of an eye. Rarely has Hollywood seen seven or eight films, opening over two weekends, collapse without a trace."Everything is in free fall," said Tom Sherak, senior vice president of 20th Century Fox, who blames competition from the Summer Olympics for the disastrous box-office returns.

Audiences made Kevin Costner's "Waterworld" No. 1 at the box office over the weekend in the wake of tepid-to-warm reviews and bad press over its bloated budget.The movie -- considered the most expensive made, at $175 million to $200 million -- took in an estimated $21.6 million in its debut weekend."It's impressive considering the negative press, but there is still a question whether it will earn its money back," said John Krier of Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc., which tracks box office performance.

Hollywood -- Each Sunday, Hollywood studios release estimates of how their movies performed at the box office, and the resulting Top 10 list is disseminated to the world through the media.The nation's No. 1 movie, be it "Batman Forever" or "Pocahontas" or "Congo," is, thus, judged a success or failure in the public mind simply by how much money it took in on its opening weekend of release.But how accurate are those Sunday numbers that receive such wide play?While studio executives say every effort is made to be as accurate as possible, they acknowledge that the process, by its very nature, is flawed.

Audiences made Kevin Costner's "Waterworld" No. 1 at the box office over the weekend in the wake of tepid-to-warm reviews and bad press over its bloated budget.The movie -- considered the most expensive made, at $175 million to $200 million -- took in an estimated $21.6 million in its debut weekend."It's impressive considering the negative press, but there is still a question whether it will earn its money back," said John Krier of Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc., which tracks box office performance.

Hollywood closed the books on the 1992 box office year Sunday with an impressive New Year's weekend that capped a year in which moviegoers bought almost $5 billion worth of tickets.If estimates for the year -- calculated by various sources to be hovering above $4.9 billion -- hold, it would be the film industry's third best year in U.S. and Canadian box office grosses. According to figures issued by the Motion Picture Association of America, the strongest box- office year was 1989 with $5.03 billion in tickets sold, followed by 1990 with $5.02 billion.

LOS ANGELES -- The efforts by gay rights advocates to disrupt tomorrow's premiere of "Basic Instinct" are unlikely to damage the movie's box office results, industry watchers said."

Linda Ronstadt's appearance at the Pier Six Concert Pavilion Aug. 30 has been canceled due to "unavoidable changes in the artist's touring schedule creating an irreconcilable conflict," according to a spokeswoman for Ms. Ronstadt's agent at the William Morris Agency. She declined to elaborate further, saying that the cancellation was of a "personal" nature.The show, which also was to feature Los Camperos de Nati Cano, is the second concert this month to be canceled at Pier Six. A package featuring Patti Austin, James Ingram, George Howard and others was pulled on Aug. 6 because of poor ticket sales.

While word of mouth could always make or break a movie, it usually took days to affect the box office. But the rise of social networking tools like Twitter may be narrowing that time frame to mere hours. And that has Hollywood on edge. This summer, movies such as "Bruno" and "G.I. Joe" have had unexpected tumbles at the box office - just within their opening weekends - while "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" survived blistering critical reaction to become a blockbuster. Box-office watchers say the dramatic swings may be caused by Twitter and other social networking sites that can blast instant raves - or pans - to hundreds of people just minutes after the credits roll.

'Hannah Montana' scores at the box office Miley Cyrus and alter ego Hannah Montana have double-teamed their way to another No. 1 box-office debut. Walt Disney's Hannah Montana: The Movie opened with $34 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. That followed Cyrus' first-place premiere last year with her 3-D concert film. The movie is a big-screen installment of the Disney Channel series about an ordinary teen living a double life as a pop star. Hannah Montana drew $17.3 million on Friday for the biggest opening day ever for a G-rated live-action movie.

'Taken' assumes top spot in first $1 billion January Liam Neeson's CIA thriller Taken bumped off Paul Blart: Mall Cop at the weekend box office, raking in $24.6 million and helping fuel the first $1 billion January in Hollywood history. North American box office revenues were up nearly 20 percent in January over the same period last year, reaching a record $1.03 billion for the month. Attendance was up 16 percent over last year, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media by Numbers.

Movie openings ... they're not just for Fridays anymore. With new movies tripping over each other every week as they struggle to maximize buzz and bring in more box-office bucks than the competition, studios are looking to exploit every possible edge. Increasingly, that involves pushing at the boundaries of the traditional Friday opening - either by debuting the film just after midnight Friday (as The Dark Knight did last month) or, as is happening today with Columbia's Pineapple Express and Warner Bros.

FYI Because of the holiday, box office does not appear today. It will be published later this week.

What's the point? -- Box-office statistics are strangely addictive - especially when you know how much a movie costs to make. Box Office Mojo lists gross profit estimates for dozens of movies and often puts them in perspective with production costs. The site also has movie news and reviews, but they take the back seat to the stats. What to look for --The big flops. Sometimes it's surprising how little a super-hyped flick actually makes at the box office. And believe it or not, all these gory horror flicks like the Saw series are cash cows.

LOS ANGELES -- The Jodie Foster vigilante flick The Brave One scared up $14 million at the box office to become the weekend's top film. The Warner Bros. tale of revenge transcended gender, appealing to older women as well as men who might naturally be expected to enjoy the violent, R-rated film. "Revenge movies often appeal to men, but the fact that Jodie Foster was in it brought in the women," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "That combination worked."

HOLLYWOOD -- Once a dumping ground for Hollywood's dregs, August has become a key month in an increasingly competitive, year-round business at the box office. Proof came this weekend when Universal Pictures' thriller The Bourne Ultimatum, starring Matt Damon, opened to an estimated $70.2 million in the United States and Canada - a record for a movie launched in August and one of the best starts ever for an action film. "This year, in particular, there are a lot of good movies coming during August," said Nikki Rocco, Universal's president of domestic distribution.

Zach Braff is in a period of transition. And loving every minute of it. Last year, Garden State, his first film as a writer and director, became an unexpected critical and commercial hit. The film, about a troubled (and medicated) son returning home and discovering he's not nearly as messed up as he's been told, garnered largely positive reviews and pulled in $26.7 million at the U.S. box office - a figure 13 times more than it cost to make. Braff says he's still shocked by the film's success.

LOS ANGELES -- The Will Ferrell comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby stayed in first place at the box office for a second weekend with $23 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates yesterday. Estimated ticket sales are for Friday through Sunday at United States and Canadian theaters, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. WeekendTotalNo. ofRankTitle (Studio)gross *gross*weeks 1Talladega Nights (Sony)$23.0$70.02 2Step Up (Touchstone)$21.