Monday, 26 February 2001

WEEKEND REVIEW

It was an ugly weekend, but clearly, I had no idea how ugly. Monkeybone's estimated $2.6 million was so ugly that Rupert Murdoch might re-hire Bill Mechanic just so he can fire him again. Of course, Titan's $9.4 million start was more that three and a half times the Monkeybone disaster. Like Titan, this seemed to be one of those rare occasions when Fox marketing just couldn't figure out how to sell a movie. Even more to the point, this seemed to be another picture that fell in the cracks between a kid's movie and a film for juvenile adults. When the photo that showed up in most publications was of a felt monkey passing wind through a plastic vent… well…

But, in a way, 3000 Miles To Graceland seems like a much uglier story. After all, the folks at Fox can blame Monkeybone on Bill Mechanic. And Warner Bros.? Well, they just bring out the audio tape of Dan Fellman explaining that they don't have to spend a dime in their deal with Elie Samaha. And so they don't… which is why you have seen two Elie Samaha flops in the last six weekends, this and The Pledge. The studio, particularly under the watchful eye of its new AOL parents, isn't going to throw good money at bad movies.

For those of you who like to live on the Kevin Costner career-death watch, this is only his second movie in the last 5 years to open with less than $10 million. The other one was The Postman, which opened to $6.8 million and ended up grossing just $17.6 million domestic. No matter how much you want to write this guy off, that stat puts him in fairly exclusive territory. 66.6 percent of openings over $10 million in the last five years means that he is, statistically, still a "movie star." What does that mean? He's still in that exclusive group of about 20 openers.

The news is not quite as good for Kurt Russell, who is much better liked in Hollywood's inner circles, but whose career hit a wall with Soldier ($6.4 million start/$14.6 million domestic total) and who is, perhaps, moving into the third stage of his career with a supporting character role in the Cruise/Crowe remake of Vanilla Sky. (By the way, the still unnoted, but soon to make you sick of hearing about it, story there is Penelope Cruz taking the female role in this version that is the opposite to her role in the original. The hints were there in this month's Premiere piece on her, but for some reason, it was not noted in specific, as I recall.)

In the Oscar section, Traffic's reported figures are actually improving week-to-week from what it was doing (off "just" 32 percent, according to weekend estimates), while Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon took its biggest hit to date this weekend (estimated to be off 40 percent this weekend, despite adding 268 screens) and Chocolat dropped an estimated 18 percent despite adding 363 screens. In Brocko-News, Erin is now open on one L.A. screen and will open on one New York screen this Friday and will run indefinitely. For the Gladiator (aka Not So Glad He Ate Her) story of the day, please see The Bad.

THE GOOD: I love this one! Mitch Goldman, formerly of New Line, is starting a new company that offers the extremely unusual product of independent wide-release distribution, with the independence indicating the company's freedom from studio ties, not that they will be releasing indie films. The company is called Premiere Marketing & Distribution Group and it is willing to guarantee "a minimum opening of 2,000 screens and a minimum of $15 million in pre-opening and first-week print and advertising expenditures per release," as reported in The Hollywood Reporter.

Essentially, what Goldman is doing, is making the business of distribution and publicity as independent as producing is these days. As a producer, you will now be able to pick and choose all the pieces of the puzzle for your film from pre-production costs through wide distribution to ancillary output deals. Ironically, Elie Samaha has been mentioned already today for his deal with Warner Bros. Well, the reason he felt compelled to do a deal with Warner Bros. through Morgan Creek is that getting releases of over 1000 screens has traditionally been impossible without a studio distributor behind you.

Of course, that's the rub. As key as foreign/independent financing has become, the current cash crunch in Germany, the country that followed the cash crunch in Japan, may mark the end of the current cycle of real independence for projects that need 2000-plus screens. Elie Samaha is all but over. The other foreign-finance indies are playing it much closer to the vest.

So, where is the business going to come from? Will studios outsource distribution for some of their pictures, as they often do with publicity for art house fare now? Can they save money by not running their in-house machinery quite as hard?

Goldman tells THR that he will distribute his first picture in the traditionally fallow period of mid-August. But for whom? Goldman says that his prices will be similar to studio prices (20 – 30 percent) but that he won't be charging for the overhead charges over which majors are so often accused of screwing talent.

In the end, my guess is that the majority of Premiere's business will be with smaller movies, not the 2000+ ones. Word is, he already has a deal with Sony for their video/CD division.

PAGE TWO: Crowe-ing, Flubbing And Dubbing