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Eddie Murphy scores big
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July 30, 2000: 7:24 p.m. ET
Universal's 'Nutty Professor II' marks second biggest opening for a comedy
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Universal Pictures' "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps," starring Eddie Murphy gobbled up weekend ticket sales of $42.7 million at the North American box office.
Playing in a wide 3,243 theaters, and on about 5,000 screens, "Nutty" averaged an extraordinary $13,167 per location. And among all the comedy movies ever released in North America, that makes it second only to last year's premiere of New Line Cinema's "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me."
 It also marked the biggest three-day opening for a picture starring Eddie Murphy.
Universal Pictures is a unit of Seagram Co. (VO: Research, Estimates).
Last weekend's champ, the Harrison Ford-Michelle Pfeiffer thriller "What Lies Beneath" of the privately-held DreamWorks SKG fell to No. 2 with $22.0 million for the Friday-to-Sunday period.
The superhero ensemble "X-Men" of Fox, the film unit of Rupert Murdoch's Fox Entertainment Group (FOX: Research, Estimates), meanwhile slipped to No. 3 with $11.5 million.
Rounding out the top five were "Scary Movie" of Dimension Films with $8.1 million in its fourth weekend, taking its 24-day total to $131.9 million.
Warner Brothers' "The Perfect Storm" took in $7.0 million in its fifth weekend and a 31-day total of $157.6 million.
Dimension is a division of Walt Disney Co. (DIS: Research, Estimates), and CNNfn and Warner Brothers both are units of Time Warner Inc. (TWX: Research, Estimates).
Tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. reported the top 12 films grossed $117.6 million this weekend, down 7.6 percent from last weekend and down 15.5 percent from the year-ago weekend, when the Julia Roberts-Richard Gere romance "Runaway Bride" opened at No. 1 with $35 million.
New releases next weekend include "Hollow Man," an invisible man thriller starring Kevin Bacon; "Space Cowboys," an astronaut saga produced and directed by and starring Clint Eastwood; and "Coyote Ugly," a "Cocktail"-like female ensemble based in a wild New York bar. 
- from staff and wire reports
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