The Hot Button by David Poland

Friday, 22 May 1998

WEEKEND PREVIEW
Gee, are there any new movies this week? Godzilla has a six-day weekend to rampage through. I'm estimating the film will do at least $110 million over the weekend with a four-day total of about $90 million. That should be enough for first place. My estimate is down from my original $125 million six-day/$100 million four-day expectation, but it's not because there's anything wrong with the movie. After some people complained that I wasn't being hard enough on the film, I went back to see it again on Wednesday. The audience I saw it with broke into applause about a half-dozen times during the film, and then cheered at the end. I actually enjoyed the film more the second time around. The human characters are pretty weak, but the action, especially in the third act, is really strong. I honestly feel the film, while still limited by its genre and some execution, is entertaining and better than Twister, The Lost World or Deep Impact. (Please, feel free to feel otherwise.)
The reason I'm adjusting my estimate is that Sony is dragging its feet on releasing numbers. Exhibitor Relations towed the line yesterday and didn't estimate Tuesday night numbers, but as of Thursday at noon, Sony still hadn't given them Tuesday or Wednesday numbers. The estimate is now $4.1 million for Tuesday night, which dwarfs The Lost World's $2.6 million Thursday night preview last year. The Exhibitor Relations guestimate on Wednesday is $8.4 million, which is pretty damned impressive, especially considering that people are still in school and/or working. Compare it to Titanic, back in February when it was still doing $20 million-plus a weekend. Titanic was doing about $1.5 million on a Wednesday. Deep Impact was under $3 million a weekday after its mammoth opening weekend. Nonetheless, when studios drag their feet releasing numbers, you definitely get the feeling they are disappointed with the figures.
Bulworth is a real question mark this weekend. The marketing is questionable. The movie seems to be a love/hate story. Warren Beatty is no longer the star he once was. But I'll bet it can still take second place from Deep Impact with a $23 million four-day weekend. Deep Impact should hold up OK, pulling in another $22 million or so over four days. The Horse Whisperer and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas should duke it out for fourth and fifth, both finding around $18 million each over the four days. The second five looks pretty boring. Warner Bros. takes sixth and seventh with Quest for Camelot finding about $6 million and City of Angels winging its way to another $2.7 million. Spike Lee still has He Got Game in enough theaters to take in about $2.3 million. The Titanic floats another $2 million, and just hanging on, Woo should be good to go for another $1.5 million. All of these number are over four days.
THE GOOD: Terry Gilliam's and Johnny Depp's reputations as artists.
THE BAD: Reviews across the board for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
THE UGLY: ABC pulling ads for the film, claiming the film promotes drug use. This is the network of "Dharma and Greg," pothead couple of the '90s.
THE CONTEST: Godzilla stuff is on the block for the winner. So, enter now! (P.S. Anyone who hasn't received prizes they were expecting, please write me and let me know. We should be caught up except for last week.)
THE CORRECTION: Warren Beatty has managed to get Mann's Chinese to let him put his hands and feet in cement as part of the Bulworth promotion. You get the feeling this guy could talk Suharto into resigning. (That wasn't your work, was it, Warren?)
TWO MOVIES EQUAL: Bulworth + Godzilla = Bulzilla. Radiation hits the mountains above Beverly Hills, and Warren Beatty is transformed into a truth-telling, 20-story lizard who becomes the target of assassination attempts by both the Crips and the Bloods when he mistakenly crushes Puff Daddy. In the end, Bulzilla is killed after he is tied up in red tape trying to get city approval to build a 300-foot-deep swimming pool in his back yard, Annette Bening gets her career back and Sony and Fox share the $500 million in box office grosses.
JUST WONDERING: Has anyone else noticed the Monster Theme from Godzilla is a direct rip-off of the Bernard Herrmann score for Cape Fear? I mean, direct. Dean Devlin had no idea what I was talking about, but it is overwhelmingly obvious.
BAD AD WATCH: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a movie that I am rooting for (as are many of you, according to your e-mail), offers up Craig Kopp from KCOP, Sara Edwards from the NBC News Channel, Wild from Bad Ad, regular Jim Ferguson of Prevue Channel, Mike Cidoni from WORK and David Moss from WJW. Even worse, all they took from these folks were adjectives, not even partial sentences. "Dangerous," Outrageous," Wild," "Twisted, Bizarre" (that was in-depth) and "Mindblowing." I'm sure we could all come up with sentences using those words to cut either toward the positive or the negative. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
READER OF THE DAY: Alex was ballsy enough to write in the following fashion, so I went along: "From the reader of the day: Of course, I will be seeing Godzilla. Just not opening weekend. I don't want to contribute to the opening weekend grosses. But unfortunately, like many people (I'd say at least 50 percent of those going), I'm prepared for a bad movie, but as a point of pop-culture reference, I MUST see the film just to able to discuss with friends and colleagues how bad it was. Seems to be a continuing trend ever since Twister came out."
And this from Geof: "For the record, I've seen no more than three 'The X-Files' episodes. 'The X-Files' movie however is at the top of my list for films to see this summer. (The trailer just looks too cool.) I'll be dragging my girlfriend along who doesn't watch anything but 'ER.' So add 16 more bucks to your $100 million total. I just hope Warner Bros. doesn't read your column, do the ratings versus box office math, and greenlight 'ER' the movie. YIKES!!!"

E ME: Godzilla and "The X-Files" seem to be the films to watch in the early running, at least amongst many The Hot Button readers. Any other movies you care about? And let's hear more Godzilla reviews!