The Hot Button by David Poland

Friday, 24 July 1998

WEEKEND PREVIEW

Will Pvt. Ryan find the box office safe or soft? That is the question. My answer is that Saving Private Ryan will gross about $24 million this weekend for first place, which doesn't make it the biggest opener of the summer by any means, but to my mind's eye is a powerful achievement for a long (2:49), appropriately but extremely violent, male-only cast war movie. Even if it is the best work of Spielberg's career. And I think it is. Spielberg should manage a one-two punch with The Mask of Zorro (Spielberg executive produced) holding onto all but 18 percent of its first weekend take. I know, movies holding up that well have been as rare lately as a co-star Minnie Driver hasn't slept with, but I'm going out on a limb for a great summer movie that I hope has legs as long and attractive as Catherine Zeta-Jones. Eighteen-point-five million.
In third, Lethal Weapon 4 should hold up with a 40 percent drop to $13 million. I don't know who is still paying for tickets to this star-powered clunker, but one can't argue with success (the film will pass $100 million by the middle of next week), even if one wants to. The debut of Disturbing Behavior has all the marketing hallmarks of a strong opening. But so did Can't Hardly Wait. MGM has had a depressing run trying to get fannies into seats and this should be no different. Fourth place with $11 million.
Closing out the first half of the Top 10 is There's Something About Mary. The film took the No. 2 spot through the weekdays, right behind Zorro, on decent but not overwhelming business. Even with just a 25 percent drop, the film falls to the five spot with $10.3 million. Legs, legs, legs. Can Zorro and Mary reassert that ideal? We'll find out this weekend.
The second 10 should be led by Armageddon, which will drop about 40 percent to $10 million (lots of round number estimates this week, huh?) as it charges past Godzilla and Deep Impact to take the top box office spot for the summer to date. Both of the other films are out of the Top 25. Look for the lightly publicized and completely star-free MAFIA! to take seventh with about $8.5 million. Dr. Dolittle should continue to do a lot as the prime contender for "Most Profitable Film of Summer 1998," adding another $6.6 million in eighth place to close in on the $120 million mark. Small Soldiers should continue to fall (though I think audiences will find and really enjoy this film on cable) with another 40 percent drop to $5.2 million. And look for Mulan to close out the Top 10 with a 30 percent drop to $3.4 million.
THE GOOD: With his first big-budget film, The Negotiator, due next weekend, director F. Gary Gray is trying to get out of his commitment to direct The Nutty Professor II. Unlike Robert Rodriguez, who dropped out of Zorro in a snit because Amblin and Sony wouldn't give a guy who had never made a movie for more than $12 million more than a $40 million budget to make the film, Gray is trying to get out because he isn't comfortable with the way the project is going creatively. You hear that all the time, but this time I believe it. Why else would a young director jump ship from a big-budget virtually guaranteed commercial hit?
THE BAD: This one is from Ryan of Canada. The real bad comes at the end: "I work in a movie theater in Toronto which uses a separate ratings board from the MPAA. Instead of the PG-13 category, we have AA [Adult Accompaniment]. AA requires that anyone under 14 be accompanied by an adult [18 years]. The Mask of Zorro was rated AA -- something I see as justified. But a reader letter complains that Zorro had it easy -- which just isn't true. Zorro's head in a jar and swordplay is hardly on par with Lethal Weapon 4 (also rated AA). As for the beheading scene in Zorro, well, the audience never sees it. It's implied, which leaves the imagery up to the individual -- meaning kids who've never seen a head decapitated won't have a problem with it. Unfortunately, you'd probably have a hard time finding one who hasn't."
THE BETTER: When you check out Saving Private Ryan, keep your eyes on the young ensemble of actors working around the Toms -- Hanks and Sizemore. My bet would be that this film is one of those films we'll see on cable 15 years from now and say, "How did Spielberg get all those guys in that movie?" (As opposed to Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, which is filled with already established names like Travolta, Nolte, Penn, Clooney, Harrelson and Cusack. Incidentally, Sizemore passed on Thin to do Ryan.) Giovanni Ribisi, Barry Pepper and especially Vin Diesel are all going to be movie stars for a long, long time. Jeremy Davies may have a hard time transitioning to adult roles, and Adam Goldberg may be terminally ethnic, but both are masterful as well. There has never been a better-casted Spielberg movie. Never.
TWO MOVIES EQUAL: Saving Private Ryan + Small Soldiers = Saving Small Soldiers. The marketing department of the fictional movie studio, ScreamWorks, needs to resurrect a quickly-fading kids movie that kids don't seem to care about. After a grossly unsuccessful cross-promotion with McBurger Prince in which kids get real sticks of dynamite with every Crappy Meal they buy, the team comes up with the ultimate plan. They start a contest in which every movie ticket holder is entered to win a date with Marty Demon, who recently became "Hunk O' the Year" and won an "Academy I'm Bored" for Great Bill Murray. Much to their shock, their film is immediately picked up to open both the BOP Magazine Film Fest and the International Gay Film Festival, doubling its gross within days.
JUST WONDERING: Have any of you checked out Andrew Sarris' work for The New York Observer? It's available at select newsstands outside of New York and on the Net on AOL only (keyword: nyobserver). Sorry if that's a kind of tease for those of you who don't have AOL access, but Sarris is one of the few critics working today who is really worth reading, whether he's talking Ryan or Mary or Zorro. Check it out, and send me some feedback.
BAD AD WATCH: Joel Siegel has been such a blurb-o-matic for so long that the sight of his name draws gales of laughter at the only-for-a-
pull-quote phrasemaking of the wannabe Gene Shalit (talk about low aspirations). But we both liked There's Something About Mary. OK. But let's deconstruct this bizarre pull-quote. "Bring your chiropractor if you can because you're going to hurt yourself laughing." First I think, "If you can..." What a bizarre notion. The idea that Siegel takes his words so literally that he would concern himself with your access to chiropractic services. Then the idea that his comment is a compliment strikes me odd. Wouldn't "bring your urologist if you can because you'll wet yourself," really turn some heads? Maybe you could take a proctologist. Or a gastroenterologist. How about, "bring your priest if you can because you're going to have to confess after laughing at masturbation, lust and cripples for two hours!?"
READER OF THE DAY: From Brandon G: "There's Something About Mary's opening weekend potential wasn't stunted by its R-rating, but rather by its being a comedy without one bankable star. Comedies, unless they star Jim Carrey or Eddie Murphy, traditionally do not have huge openings. I would say $13 million is an excellent take. Mary is the first and probably best of a string of comedies (MAFIA!, BASEketball and Wrongfully Accused) and will benefit greatly from this. Mary's got legs and should reach $60 million at least. (I predicted $11.6 million for its opening.) Another thing concerning Mary: did you notice that every Farrelly brothers movie features a cross-country road trip? Someone could write a dissertation on this for a cinema class. Viva Auteur Theory!

E ME: Personally, I still feel that the R-rating affected Mary's box office as it does with every genre of movie. The audience that says, "I must see that gross joke!" is younger. Older audiences will wait for word-of-mouth on a gross-out comedy. Sure, Eddie and Jim open wider. But $13.7 was certainly a disappointment to Fox. In any case, I'm still looking to find out whether you love that something about Mary. And for the women, I am especially interested in your reactions to Saving Private Ryan. Many feel that the film is too harsh for women. What do you think?