I looked at the box office records, and it didn't surprised me that it made $100m but surprised me that it made at least nine times the opening weekend gross.

I looked at the ratings and votes, and it seems that BOM users liked it more than any other like IMDB.

I watched this movie, and it's not probably as good as the book (one I should read) because the movie went nearly nowhere, and the ending was too plain happy sappy that goodie-goodie two-shoed people got away with bad deeds. The cause of my distaste on this book-adapted flick was that either the ending sucked or the rest was what the director WANTED & NEEDED!! according to actors and other productive designs like Kevin Spacey, an actor playing a role of a judge, Matthew McConahay, Donald Sutherland and his son Kiefer, Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, and others whether I'm familiar with or not. But I will say something positive about this movie: it has some moments that kept me entertained such as a discussion about their reputations and personalities (death penalty, for example) between McConahey and Bullock and the other between him and Jackson in prison cell about their own races. But I never realized that the director and writer did non-Burton BATMAN sequels until IMDB.

What led people into watching this? How did it become all but a forgotten smash hit?

Lemme think...

Maybe because it was a great movie?

People liked it?

I mean...

I thought it was a very good movie, and I guess many others did as well.

John Grisham and Sandra Bullock were really hot at one point.

It appealed to women and adults, both demos that tend to take their sweet time moseying to the theater.

It was also before the gazillionplex cinema era took total hold.

It was a shit film but sometimes shit films make over 100mill.

It had a multiplier of 7.01, not 9.

Why did it have such a great multiplier??

Where do I start.....

1. Its a good film - better than the book.
2. Grisham books were red hot at the box office
3. It had little competition at the box office which was effected by the Atlanta olympics.
4. Back then films generally had better multipliers than they do now
5. It was heavily marketed. McConahey was cast into the spotlight and ordained a star even before the film came out.
6. It had a strong all star supporting cast including Bullock and Jackson

It was a decent film .. but nothing that warranted such a high multiplier.

I say the reason why it had a great multiplier is because it was released during the dog days of summer, therefore, it had virtually no competition at all, so it played all throughout the month of August, not to mention, a strong Labor Day session. I agree that the Olympics put a toll on it's opening weekend a bit, but as soon as the Olympics were over, off to the movies they went.