The Hot Button by David Poland

Friday, 3 April 1998

WEEKEND PREVIEW
Can the Space Family Robinson be the ones to overtake Titanic? I'm getting mixed signals from all over the place. There are people who think Mercury Rising is the movie to beat this weekend. I don't see it. I've yet to hear a single person point out how much they loved the trailer or that they were even aware the film was coming out this weekend. On the other hand, I've spoken to people with access to tracking who say they don't expect much from Lost In Space. With Titanic likely to drop under $15 million for the first time, I'm banking on Lost In Space to generate at least $16 million, maybe as much as $20 million, to win the weekend. Titanic should do enough for second place, with Grease sliding into third with about $9 million. Mercury Rising should accelerate on star power alone to gross about $8 million, with My Giant opening to a weak $5.5 million, enough to take fifth place over the quickly falling Primary Colors ($4.8 million). The Man in the Iron Mask looks like a seventh place finisher with about $4.7 million, followed by Barney's Great Adventure, which may draw enough kids to hit the $4 million mark. The rest of the Top 10 should have Wild Things just over Oscar winners As Good As It Gets and Good Will Hunting.
THE GOOD: As Good Will Hunting and As Good As It Gets make their likely last appearances on the Top 10, we know they'll both be leaving with over $125 million in domestic ticket sales. Love or hate the players involved, that's a good sign. The theory that Cameron is a threat or that his films won't be made is bull. You make money, you make movies. Always. And low-budget foreign flicks like The Full Monty will continue to be made. It's the films that are just good old-fashioned storytelling that are the true endangered species. If these two films can break $100 million, more will be made. Hooray.
THE BAD: Grease, Primary Colors, Wild Things, The Big Lebowski, The Apostle and even bad films from quality filmmakers like The Newton Boys, Twilight, The Borrowers and Dark City are going underseen, even by true film fanatics. October will be a fun month at the video store.
THE UGLY: From Manohla Dargis' LA Weekly review of The Newton Boys: "In his true-life film about four brothers who robbed banks out West during the late teens and early '20s, Richard Linklater seems to achieve the impossible: He makes Ethan Hawke bearable." That's gotta hurt!
THE CONTEST: Pick the Top Five. Include the grosses you project for each. And add in your guesses on how the other new films that won't hit the Top 10 will fare. (The four newcomers are Lost In Space, Mercury Rising, My Giant and Barney's Great Adventure.) That's all you have to do. If you guess best, you win the New Line Lost In Space prize package. And if you make the Top Five, New Line will send you your very own Lost In Space cap or CD. Cool, huh? And if you click on the link below, you can sign up for even more cool free stuff from New Line that you can pick up at a theater near you this weekend. Let the games commence!

TWO BAD MOVIES EQUAL: From Universal and Imagine Entertainment, "Somebody Sings Too Much!" Barney's Great Adventure + Mercury Rising = Barney Rising. Sales of M&M/Mars, Nestle and Hershey products drop when the teeth of America's children start rotting with unprecedented speed. But it's not the candy. It's Barney and that stupid song! After Baby Bop is found dead with a bullet through its head, Bruce Willis takes Barney into protective custody under orders from Demi and their Barney-loving youngest daughter, Tiramisu. But Alec Baldwin is on their trail, desperate to keep his newborn from being infected by dino-mania. Who will die? Who will survive? Who cares? Heather Graham is buck-naked and spray-painted green and purple in her cameo as Baby Bop! Whether of nursing age or pre-teen, the kids will love it!
JUST WONDERING: Why do studios insist on coming up with names that mean absolutely nothing, like Mercury Rising? It takes Universal more time to explain the name in the ads then to explain the storyline. Not good.
BAD AD WATCH: The limited release Ken Branagh/Madeleine Stowe film The Proposition boasts pull quotes from National News Syndicate, Drama-Logue and the latest greatest, Hollywood Bytes.
READER OF THE DAY: From Annie Larsen: "We have odd standards in Rochester, Minnesota. The films that do great? The Flintstones, Dumb & Dumber, and, of course, Titanic. The ones we never see? The Full Monty, Il Postino, etc. We have three major theaters plus a $1.50 theater. One has tiny theaters so they can boast two showings of Titanic. Another has huge theaters that I've only seen filled when Home Alone was playing. And our mall has four screens and typically shows Van Damme and remakes-of-TV-shows-that-should-never-have-been-remade-into-movies fare. That's the theater experience in Rochester, Minnesota. We may not see any of the Oscar contenders until after they're released on video, but we know who's starring in the new remake of 'The Partridge Family.' "

E ME: I got some letters this week correcting me on whether anyone was dead on Loyd Movie's Oscar no-show list. Apparently they are all alive. I could have sworn that Beatrice Straight and Peter Ustinov moved into the next realm. My mistake. Correct me now! I'm only an e-mail away!