Weekend, 15-16 May 1999

NEWS BY THE NUMBERS

10. I Knight Thee, Sir Evil Personified: Sir Ian McKellen, who deserved an Oscar® nomination for his role in last year's Apt Pupil, more so than for Gods & Monsters, will re-unite with Bryan Singer for The X-Men. But before you get carried away talking about whether Patrick Stewart would have been a better choice to play Professor Xavier, relax. McKellen will play the villain, the mighty, mighty Magneto. Of course, my favorite part of the story that ran in Variety on the subject was Variety's Chris Petrikin's rip at The Hollywood Reporter in the final paragraph: " Contrary to a recent report in The Hollywood Reporter, McKellen will not appear in Paramount's sequel to Mission: Impossible." And the beat(ing) goes on.

9. Ho-gaaaan!!!: While Mike Ovitz pisses off agents in L.A., his very briefly former partner Garth Drabinsky, himself formerly of Livent, is claiming, "I know noth-ing!" Thank you, Sgt. Schultz. You see, "Drabinsky was not an accountant nor a financial officer of Livent. He did not micromanage the Livent accounting department nor did he direct or monitor the allocation of particular costs or expenses to particular ledger accounts." Yeah. Nice brief. And oral sex isn't sex, the check is in the mail and you can't get pregnant if it's your first time.

8. Losing It: In the peace bombings of Yugoslavia, CNN says that they have lost $1.1 million in equipment, including a $400,000 satellite transmitter, five vehicles and a rental car. Perhaps they should have checked in with the folks who film movies in nearby Slovakia. Apparently, stolen vehicles are such a tradition in the region that film companies get special insurance deals that anticipate that about 25 percent of their vehicles will be stolen at some point during production. And I have a feeling that Dino De Laurentiis could probably tell the State Department a thing or two about dealing with unmovable parties in a civil war-style conflict. What's the difference between a studio executive and Milosevic? He has ethnics to cleanse and no studio exec would ever be caught dead in that cheap suit.

7. Guns, Guns, Guns: Littleton was still a hot topic in the Senate last week. Shockingly, the Republicans wanted to censor entertainment and the Democrats wanted to ban guns. Well, that's except for Bill Clinton, who was out touting the image of censoring entertainment and making it harder to buy certain guns. Look for this debate to drive audiences away from their TVs through the summer to the most violent movies they can find.

6. Multiplication Rock: As though touched by the magic of George Lucas, Warner Bros.' movie topper now says that The Matrix was conceived by the Wachowski Brothers as a trilogy. Hey. It's okay with me. As long as The Wachowskis have complete creative control again. Meanwhile, over at Universal, they are anxious to do a sequel to The Mummy, another $150-something million hit in the making. Seems that The Mummy will go to London in the tradition of all cheesy Universal monsters. Also okay with it, though hopefully the Big U will spend a few more dollars this time to make it as close to perfect as possible. No more completely unknown actors in third-tier roles. No more CG replacing what can be constructed in reality to better effect. And make the boat move, please!

5. Insure This!: Robin Williams once made the joke, "Cocaine is God's way of telling you that you make too much money." Funny, but true. And putting hundreds of millions in the film business is a sign that the insurance companies have too much money. This has become the latest fad, in addition to banks getting further into the finance game with some major production companies. The latest deal to hit was the $450 million deal between a group of seven small production companies (which included Mandalay and Artisan, which aren't so small) and Brit insurance company The Heath Group. Everyone wants to believe that these deals will be a consistent new funding method, but one deal already proved just how tentative the whole thing is. Phoenix Pictures had an insurance deal and saw it ripped apart after just two films didn't live up to expectations, even though one of them, The People vs. Larry Flynt, was an awards favorite. It's the first thing you learn in this business: never spend your own money. Expect the insurance companies to last in the movie business just about as long as Coca-Cola lasted at Columbia Pictures.

4. Not So Wild Wild Move: With all the self-reflective media hum surrounding Star Wars: Episode One -- The Phantom Menace, Warner Bros. is considering a move of Wild Wild West from Friday, July 2 to Wednesday, June 30. So, what does this mean? Well it better be confidence because the five-day weekend was what killed Godzilla last year, as bad word-of-mouth slowed the grosses down by Friday, when the grosses could of and should of been higher. On the other hand, some might theorize that Godzilla was going down anyway and that the five-day weekend meant a better start than the film deserved. I vote for the first choice. That is, unless Warner Bros, suddenly decides to not screen the film until the last minute. That would be a very, very bad sign. Whatever it means, the decision was probably based on a first look at the new footage that Barry Sonnenfeld & Co. recently finished shooting. These questions and more will be answered when the studio screens the film, hopefully in about a month.

3. More on Summer Changes: Look for Jeff Wells and his ilk to find a way to suggest that Wild Wild West is moving earlier by two whole days because Star Wars is "in trouble." Jeff was kind enough to mention me in his most recent column, suggesting that my work schedule might be the cause of my suggestion that his "George Lucas Must Resign" theory (which includes, despite his protestations, the patently absurd assumption that Lucas no longer cares about the series) was a "goofball" one. Just for the record, my exhaustion from overwork caused me to use "goofball" and not to reach for "asinine." I also substituted "over-reaching" for "short-sighted and mean-spirited" and "wild-eyed hysteria" for "without appreciation for the very real strengths and limitations of the whole Star Wars series." My apologies to Jeff and to the team at Mr. Showbiz, who showed the courage of their mud-throwing convictions by not printing the truth about the LucasFilm net junket boycott because they had a reporter who got access through his print outlet and might be taken off the list if the site rocked the boat. Oops. Was I cranky there or just honest? I can't tell. Must be the exhaustion.

2. Cranking Up The Cranks: And speaking of the new glory of SWEO: TPM bashing, The DVD Journal adds, in its long spolier-laden rant, the idea that claiming that Phantom Menace might be less complete than Star Wars because it intended to be a first act is irrational. "By that rationale, we shouldn't have been caring about John McClane until Die Hard 2." This comment proves a basic misunderstanding, likely intentional, of the theory. There was no plan for Die Hard 2 when Die Hard was produced. Star Wars had a more distinctive beginning, middle and end because it was made as a stand-alone movie, whatever sequel ideas Lucas had in mind. If you come out from Episode One not caring about what will happen to Obi-Wan, Anikin, Princess Amidala and the universe of characters around them, then you probably have no imagination. I won't be defending the perfection of this film. It's flawed. But good God people! Take a walk on the happy side.

1. More Star Wars: Len Klady of Daily Variety was kind enough to do the legwork on the number of seats that will be available for The Phantom Menace on its opening weekend. With between 2900 and 3000 screens playing the film, which, unlike Jurassic Park, canŐt add extra multiplex screens for the first weekend, Klady says the available seat count will be around 35 million or 7 million each day. I believe that the studios should be reporting per-seat averages in the future and not per-screens, as the line between screen-count and theater-count becomes more and more convoluted. A film that opens with 2000 screens can have as many as 20 times as many seats to sell as an "art" film that opens on 500. In fact, finding the balance between screen count and seat count is one of the most complex issues facing exhibitors today. How many films a year can fill a 1000 seat house anytime other than on a Saturday night? Not many. But screening rooms that are too small, even to specifically cater to smaller films, will send people home to their videotapes. In all things, balance. Trust The Force, but make sure to find room for Trekkies, too.

READER OF THE DAY: From The D: "Haha...I have to share with you our little story... My SO (Significant Other) has been in line with a friend of his since 11:00 p.m. May 4. More and more of their friends showed up in line, along with the college kids from UT. Even a group of transients (is that politically correct?) were hired to place-hold for another group of fans who weren't able to stand in line all week...when tix went on sale Tuesday at 2:00 (here), there were well over 300 people in line. My SO and his friend were number 1 and 2 in line and bought their 12 tix each... and NOW, they are number 1 and 2 in line to get a seat in the theater... Yesterday the company I work for gathered 30 people to show up at the theater so we could buy an entire showing next Thursday, and of course, I asked my SO and his friend to show up and help us get the tix..they obliged and now they have even more tix to the movie... And yesterday, the company my SO and his friend work for also bought tickets for an entire theatre for next week... we have our tickets..."

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E ME: Let's all hope that using the tickets brings more interesting stories than buying the tickets. Not much time left before we'll have to judge this film based on the film and not on the hype or anti-hype. Time to get in the last licks.