Friday, 29 August 1997

RANTING & RAVING
With 14 Oscar nominations for Titanic, I've begun to reflect on this rush of magazine pieces about how Titanic will change the movies you see. I'm pretty sure that I can sum up the answer in two words. It won't. Teen romances were already relaunched by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet a year ago. And unless you're going to remake The Hindenburg, there is no epic to be made that is in any way analogous to Titanic. There's no trend for Titanic to set. It's a singular event.

As far as Titanic launching more $250 million-plus budgets, fugeddaboudit. There's only one director alive other than James Cameron who could have steered Titanic to the theaters, and his name is Steven Spielberg. That hasn't changed. And don't expect a guy like Spielberg, who is as image-sensitive as he is brilliant, to be going down into those murky waters. No. Titanic was made because Fox wanted Cameron to be in their stable. The same reason Paramount got involved. Now, everyone will make money and, as a result, Cameron won't be jumping through hoops to get his next picture off the ground for Fox. So that might effect you. Cameron deprivation. Catch it!

The only real effect could be on the distribution side. Titanic may or may not pass Jurassic Park as the highest-grossing movie of all time, but it will certainly be the all-time biggest money-maker for theater owners. Normally, studios get between 60 and 70 percent on the take on opening weekends, with the percentage dropping to about 50 percent after a few weeks. But as Hollywood has gone into "All Blockbuster, All The Time" mode, the massive opening weekends have inspired studios to demand huge percentages of the opening-weekend gross, so a movie like The Lost World gobbles up 90 percent of all the revenue for the studio in Week One. Exhibitors enjoyed the massive $90 million Lost World opening in popcorn sales, but by the time they had a real stake in the financial bounty, three weekends later, the film managed only a $12.5 million weekend.

Titanic, on the other hand, has played right into exhibitors' hands. The two films totaled almost the same over their first five weekends: The Lost World made $158 million, Titanic, $162 million). Yet Titanic, because of its consistent weekend pull of between $28 and $36 million, made exhibitors $63 million, while The Lost World was good for only about $39 million. On top of that, Titanic has played much better on weekdays, even on work days. Distribution chiefs at every studio are no doubt scrambling to figure out how to use this long run of Titanic success as an excuse to keep a higher percentage of revenue for a longer period of time. So, keep an eye out for the $5 tub of popcorn, coming soon to a theater near you. And thank Titanic.

READERS OF THE DAY: It took four readers to pick the Oscars. No one got everything. Everyone got the four Best Picture nods. And no one (no one!) got director Peter Cattaneo for The Full Monty. Check in tomorrow for the whole story.

E ME: Leo didn't get the nod. Come on, ladies. E-mail me your distress.