'GRINCH' PULLS BOX OFFICE TO NEW HIGH.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand Staff Writer

With no major movies opening this weekend, Hollywood can fire up a fat stogie and celebrate what is expected to be another year of record box office revenue and the added excitement of a down-to-the-wire race to see which studio comes out on top.

But the taste is bittersweet.

After four years of posting growth of 7 percent or more, the domestic movie take will only be up about 2 percent, to an estimated record of $7.7 billion from $7.5 billion in 1999, once final numbers are released in coming weeks, industry analysts said Thursday.

Attendance was down for the second consecutive year, meaning the added revenue came from higher ticket prices - no surprise to moviegoers.

``Coming off this string of really great box offices, this year fell flat on its face,'' said Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. ``You started to have great product late in the year but it wasn't enough to rescue the situation.''

The late rally put Burbank-based The Walt Disney Co. and Universal Studios Inc., the Universal City-based division of French entertainment giant Universal Vivendi, into a dead heat for the box office crown.

Going into the four-day Christmas weekend, Disney had a $37 million lead with $1.044 billion in revenue for the year, compared with Universal's $1.007 billion, according to ACNielsen EDI, the box office trackers in Hollywood.

As of Thursday, Universal had cut that lead in half. But its last great hope, ``The Family Man'' starring Nicholas Cage, did not seem to have enough momentum to carry the day after a relatively weak $15 million opening on a weekend dominated by Fox's ``Cast Away,'' the Tom Hanks survivor story.

``An absolute great race,'' said ACNielsen's Dan Marks. ``It's almost as exciting as Florida.''

Disney isn't taking any bows yet, said Chuck Viane, president of distribution for Buena Vista Pictures. ``It could be us or Universal but in either case I compliment both companies on being so strong. These are the kinds of races you like - where it benefits both companies.''

In many ways Universal's year was more remarkable since the studio was widely seen as the weak link in the industry less than two years ago, Kyser said.

``Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,'' ``Erin Brockovich,'' ``Meet the Parents'' and ``Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' each earned more than $100 million domestically for Universal.

``A third of the time when you looked at what film was No. 1 at the box office it was from Universal,'' said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co., a Los Angeles box office tracking firm.

Universal had two of the year's top 5 grossing films, No. 1 ``Grinch'' with $235.1 million after the Christmas weekend and No. 5, ``Meet the Parents,'' at $160.1 million.

Disney's strength was all the more impressive because it had no films in the top 5 but will still likely come out on top. Disney's top films were ``Dinosaur,'' ($137 million), ``Remember the Titans'' ($113 million) and ``Gone in 60 Seconds'' ($102 million).

``For us it's always about consistency,'' Viane said. ``Year in and year out you try to set that billion-dollar goal and find a way to get there.''

In fact, it was Disney's ``Titans'' and Universal's ``Parents'' that resuscitated the box office in the early fall after an 11-week losing streak that caused revenue to fall below the year-ago figures.

The box office was strong going into the summer, peaking with the Memorial Day weekend release of Paramount's ``Mission: Impossible 2,'' which went on to be the year's second-biggest grosser at $215.4 million so far.

``The box office fell off badly due to the combination of the Olympics and the fact that product flow was soft,'' said industry analyst Art Rockwell of Rockwell Capital Inc. in Burbank. ``Everyone was forecasting a down year at that point but you don't look at a few bad months and say the business is soft.''

The average cost of a ticket in 2000 was expected to be about $5.25 to $5.40, up from $5.08 last year.

For the industry, what was at stake was the industry's record of nine consecutive years of increasing box office revenue.

Of course there were some films that didn't do as well as expected, including Disney's ``102 Dalmatians,'' and ``The Beach'' from Twentieth Century Fox.

Others were outright duds like ``Little Nicky'' from New Line Cinemas, ``Titan A.E.'' from Twentieth Century Fox and the critically acclaimed ``Almost Famous'' from DreamWorks SKG.

Otherwise, DreamWorks had a good year with ``Gladiator,'' ``Scream 3,'' ``Next Friday'' and ``The Whole Nine Yards.''

The year was also marked by several relatively low budget films that did remarkably well, including ``Big Momma's House'' from Twentieth Century Fox and Dimension Film's ``Scary Movie,'' which has taken in almost $160 million.

The year also saw evidence of a new cost-saving strategy pursued by Universal, Disney and other studios to scale back the number of pictures released and put more resources behind those that were, said Robin Diedrich, entertainment analyst for Edward Jones.

``In essence that can work but you still have to have those few good movies,'' Diedrich said, noting that the strategy appeared to be more successful for Universal than Disney.

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Box: HIP, HIP HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD

SOURCE: ACNielsen EDI