Monday, 12 March 2001

WEEKEND REVIEW

Well, that was interesting. I wish I could say that missing Friday’s column due to technical problems was some sort of relief. Quite the opposite. It’s amazing how disorienting being computer-disconnected is for me. Unfortunately, it turns out that my hard drive is dead, thanks to my computer being dropped by one of my staffers up at Sundance. So, there is yet another part of my existence being reset by the gods of karma. Surreal. But I also hope it marks the moment of new beginnings in my career. There are a few strings still attached to AOL/Time-Warner, but those too should be severed completely by week’s end. And so, I go on. Thanks for continuing along on the ride. Coverage of the Warner Bros. luncheon/product reel is below. A look at Disney’s presentation of Atlantis will be in tomorrow’s column, as will my look at the future of ShoWest.

As for the weekend box office, The Mexican dropped an estimated 38 percent for an estimated $38.3 million total. That suggests that the film will top out somewhere around $70 million, which means that if DreamWorks is telling the truth about the $40 million price tag, profit will come in foreign release. Though that will make it Roberts’ first film to do less than $90 million domestic since 1997’s Conspiracy Theory, it still suggests that Roberts can bring in big money despite mostly negative reviews and a quirky premise.

15 Minutes is - and I’m being kind - and absolute piece of crap. It is the early leader for my Worst of 2001 list and a shocking bit of incompetence from John Herzfeld, a director who previously seemed to have escaped the stench of Two of a Kind, the megabomb that almost destroyed his career forever in 1983. After an early 90’s run of good TV movies, Herzfeld returned to the big screen with Two Days in the Valley, which got mixed reviews, but whose fans were near rabid. I wasn’t the biggest fan of that film, but it did show style and a well thought out plan on how to get the most out of a low budget. It also marked the discovery of Charlize Theron, which secures Herzfeld and his casting team (Mindy Marin & John Papsidera ) a certain place in movie history. But 5 years and one strong HBO movie (Only in America) later, Herzfeld has dropped a bomb of epic proportions. Forget Ed Burns. Forget the humungous story problems. Forget the poorly designed combination of psuedo-video and 35mm. Forget the so-cute casting of TV personality after TV personality. This is a film that marks Robert DeNiro’s entry into The Michael Caine Club... great actors who are willing to walk through roles for a big check. After a year in which DeNiro was at the top of his game in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle and Meet The Parents, it turns out that 15 Minutes is the biggest comedy of them all. It did an estimated $10.5 million this weekend. If you ask me, I’d like to have back every 15 minutes of my life I spent seeing this thing.

The shine around Kirsten Dunst was dulled a little bit this weekend, as Get Over It managed only an estimated $4.4 million. Or was Bring It On’s $17.4 million start the illusion? After all, Dick and Drop Dead Gorgeous both opened at just under $4 million. On the third hand, Get Over It seemed to be kind of thrown out into the marketplace without the kind of grass roots effort that Universal made for Bring It On. Dunst has 4 films due out before Spider-Man hits next year, so I guess time will tell.

On the Oscar watch, both Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Traffic dropped an estimated $600,000 and Chocolat, which remains third in the group, estimates a drop of only $400,000. Tiger and Traffic should both pass the $100 million mark by the end of next weekend. Unless Chocolat shocks the world and has a big Oscar night, it should top out around $65 million domestic.

WARNERS @ SHOWEST: Warner Bros. was the only studio to do a sit down meal at ShoWest 2001 and for that they should be saluted. Many people believe that this will be the last event of its kind to be seen in the second week of March in a town called Las Vegas. Warner Bros. has been the most consistent presence at ShoWest in my time covering the event (8 years), so I guess it would be appropriate if they were the closer on this particular form of tradition.

But the Warner Bros. event was not a bastion of tradition. It started with the traditional introduction of the management team for the studio, followed by the appearance of a dais full of movie star talent. But the familiar faces of Bob Daly and Terry Semel were replaced by the new team of Barry Meyer and Alan Horn, only the fourth management team ever to run the studio. Meyer emphasized the company’s new Internet base, but insisted that the company’s DNA remains the same as ever. My shock came from the repeated reference to the studio’s breakthrough into sound movies. History reminds us that the only reason why sound, which had been around for years, was part of The Jazz Singer is that Warner Bros. was going bankrupt and needed a gimmick to stoke the dying fires of interest in their films. It worked, obviously. But in a period of change, the analogy to a dark moment in the company’s history turning into a part of the industry’s happy history seems... well, a little scary.

The other odd part of the intro was that the talent never got a chance to speak. This has been one of the great parts of the Warner Bros. lunch. Even though it is obviously scripted, a dais filled by the most popular movie actors in the world meant that the lunch could play as though it was one big improvised event. There was also a lack of real star power. Travolta, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Denzel and Seagal were there, but none of them got a chance to take the floor. Chris Rock was so far to a side that he was practically off the stage. Bobby Farrelly was there and whatever reason Peter wasn’t there would have surely been funnier than anything that Meyer or Horn got to say. And none of the other major stars who are in upcoming WB projects. No Jim Carrey. No Jennifer Lopez. No Eddie Murphy. No Anthony Hopkins. No one from Harry Potter. And not the person whose appearance would have been the most interesting, the director of A.I., Steven Spielberg.

There was an appearance at the end of the reel by the 11 guys of Ocean’s 11, including Brad Pitt. (No Julia Roberts, Bill Murray or Matt Damon, however. Last year, Damon and Murray both left big impressions... Murray with his shredding of Charlie’s Angels and Damon with his claim that All The Pretty Horses was his best film ever.) But only Clooney and the young, unknown, Asian co-star got to talk. The gag about the kid, whose name hasn’t made it into the Imdb yet, was that he explained the story in a language no one in the room spoke. And then George couldn’t get him to shut up. Clooney was incredibly charming, of course. And his performance reminded us of what we were missing from the rest of the stars.

And now, a first impression of the films that were shown in clips... in alphabetical order.

PAGE TWO: It’s All Lunch