Friday, 17 November 2000

WEEKEND PREVIEW

It’s gonna be an interesting one...

Let’s begin by writing Bounce off. Miramax has been playing hide-and-go-seek with the film and when they finally screened it in L.A. on Tuesday, they took the unprecedented step of demanding a written agreement from every outlet that its review wouldn’t run until Friday. That meant no sneaking it into the alternative weeklies or, really, any weeklies at all until after the opening.

The 6th Day has a pretty good wave to surf. Charlie’s Angels got people revved for action, and Men of Honor, as word-of-mouth will explain, is no action movie. Red Planet is heading for something like the 8 spot in the Top 10. So, Arnold has room to flex. This also happens to be Arnold’s best movie since True Lies. You might not think that’s much of a compliment, but the movie is a good, solid actioner, and I wouldn’t fight my nephew if he decided he just had to see it next week.

But the big battle is between How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Rugrats in Paris: The Movie. Obviously, The Grinch will win this battle. (It certainly has for my nephew, who called and left a message about how much he’s looking forward to meeting me in Chicago, and seeing snow -- the first time for the 11-year-old Floridian -- and The Grinch.) But will worries about the movie being "too scary" for the little ones send them scurrying for the ’Rats? Of course, both films are really aiming at next weekend, with the kids out of school and everyone with too much time to spend with their families.

For the purely b.o. picture, check out Box Office Extra, right here.

THE GOOD: On Tuesday, Robert Harper was named the vice chairman of 20th Century Fox and executive vice chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment. Bob has been at the studio for more than 15 years and is one of the most-respected and least showy guys in the biz. Many see him as a bit more conservative than his publicity team, but then again, he gave them free rein, which has made them as well-liked and successful a group as there is in this town. He also learned the business in a hands-on way. He started with the studio on the manager level, handling trailers, and he’s worked his way up the ladder since.

The move is clearly an effort to reestablish the stability of the Fox team. After sending Bill Mechanic and Tom Sherak packing (in ways more complex than "packing" might suggest), Rothman and Gianopulos represent the small world that the motion picture industry has become; their valuation of Harper speaks to maintaining the traditions of the company.

It also suggests once again that the studio of the future will be a Hydra and not a one-man superstud show. Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount, and now Fox are really team-topped companies. DreamWorks was kind of born that way; New Line has been that way for a while; and Disney is leaning that way. So, perhaps X-Men is a glimpse of our movie future behind the screen as much as on the screen. (I really don’t want to see many of these guys in tights, though.)

THE BAD: Folks were under the impression, I seem to recall, that Regal Cinemas was one of the chains that was actually in decent financial shape... WRONG! Regal, which with 4,472 screens in 413 theaters is one of the biggest chains in the country, announced Wednesday that bankruptcy is a real option if they can’t restructure their billion-dollar-plus debt. Already down that trail are Carmike, UA, and Edwards, which is also parent to the GCC chain. Unlike other fiscal woes, the problem with movie theaters is simple: they spent too much money building new screens. Yes, for all of our bitching and moaning about the $9-plus tickets, the people we’re paying are going bankrupt trying to please us. Of course, a big part of the problem is that the content providers (the studios) are eating more of the grosses than ever and the "Rush to Video" is shortening the window on even the most successful movies.

To wit, the James Bond entry for 1999, The World Is Not Enough, grossed $127 million domestically over 22 weeks. But the bulk was that first $120 million, which took seven weeks to draw. In 1997, Tomorrow Never Dies took eight weeks to do the same, going on to gross $125 million in 22 weeks. And while 1995’s GoldenEye can be seen as not analogous because it grossed only about $105 million total, it hit its big-bulk figure, $100 million, in weekend ten. But you get the idea... Every year, the bulk of the box office creeps closer to the release date, and the video-release date tightens close behind. Disney used to maintain a hardcore set of rules for video, effectively keeping its release window open longer. Even they have relaxed their rules, as the video business, though still a cash cow, has softened.

But the point is that the distributors make a higher percentage of the gross earlier in the run. If a big movie, like X-Men, runs for a long time, theaters make more money. If its grosses are big early on, studios make more money. Without knowing the actual deal Fox had with the theaters, let me estimate based on that example. In the first weekend of X-Men, Fox probably has a 90-10 deal with the exhibitors on the film. Fox gets the big part. In weeks two and three, probably 80-20. In weeks four through eight, say, they go 70-30. In nine through twelve, they go 50-50. After that, the exhibitors get the edge, 60-40. Okay. X-Men grossed $54.5 million in the first week and $81.5 million in weeks two and three. In weeks four through eight, the film made $18 million; in nine though twelve, $2 million; after that, about $1 million. By these numbers, which may be a little too generous to the studio, the exhibitors made only $23.7 million on X-Men, on a gross of $157 million. That’s just 15 percent. The stat that we’ve all been using forever is that it’s a 50-50 split. Not even close on a film this top-heavy, even if I’m off by 5 or 10 percent. It certainly isn’t any more than that. Hmmm... Honestly, these numbers even surprised me as I ran them. Using the same structure on The Perfect Storm, I get $29 million to exhibitors on a gross of $182 million, or 16 percent.

Of course, on non-event movies, so to speak, the deals are more exhibitor-friendly. But I called some people to make sure I wasn’t coming up with dumb numbers, and everyone agrees... this is happening! And this changes a lot for me... and, I hope, every number-crunching movie writer who sees this story. For one thing, I’ll immediately stop complaining about the price of popcorn. But also, my assessment of what the cash flow is on a film is completely different. If X-Men actually netted rentals for Fox of more than $130 million domestically, then they are already well into profit at home, despite earlier consensus that the film would make all its profit overseas and in ancillaries. This is also true for a film I’ve beaten up, like The Patriot. Using my formula, The Patriot paid exhibitors only 14 percent of its domestic gross, or $15.5 million. That leaves $97.8 million for Sony. Add in just $50 million in overseas grosses and the film is in profit. That’s a very different picture than the generally accepted idea that the film netted $60 million for Sony here and was scraping to make up the difference overseas and in ancillary markets.

I knew this was an issue. I’ve been writing about it for years. But I never knew how much of an issue it had become. Amazing.

PAGE TWO: Quills Plucked, Ad Sucked, ROTD Stuck