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WEEKEND REVIEW
Well, aren’t my predictions on teen-driven product in the crapper lately!?!?!
But there is a lot more at stake when The Fast and the Furious opens to an estimated $41.6 million. Last weekend, Tomb Raider started with $47.7 million. By the end of the theatrical runs of the two films, that $6 million difference in openings will mean about $15 to $20 million in domestic revenue… less than $10 million in money returning to the studio. The Fast and the Furious cost a little more than half of what Tomb Raider cost. There was no massive Pepsi tie-in. There was no great brand awareness coming out of years and years of videogame attention and marketing. The P&A on Universal’s release was likely more than 30 percent lower than Paramount’s. Yet at the box office…
One could write this off as an “any given movie on any given weekend” phenomena, but it’s not. And much as I would love to give Universal’s Terry Curtin a shoulder ride for genius marketing… and they did a fine job… something more is at play. The Fast and the Furious is kind of the Twister of teen wannabe-R hard-on-and-an-action-thrill movies. Angelina Jolie’s bra collection for Tomb Raider probably cost more than the entire cast of talented but minor name young actors Rob Cohen and Universal put together for TF-squared. Yet at the box office…
The scary thing is that this is about the scariest box office phenomena in a while. TF-squared may be a good movie. I haven’t seen it and its quality will be reflected in next weekend’s box office, not opening weekend. (That set of qualities goes back into Terry Curtain’s credit list.) What’s scary is that success reed repetition and much as I love looking back at AIP and Corman, cheap hyperactivity is not the brand of cinema that I want to be faced with for the next three years. No doubt, a great work will come out of all of this. Some person will take all this energy and connect it to a real story with real characters, much as The Wachowskis did in The Matrix. But while we wait for the needle in that haystack, we are going to be deluged by crap that makes Moulin Rouge look like it was edited on sedatives.
On top of that, this is another example of frontloaded box office. While TF-squared is racing to the top of the charts, Lara Croft took an estimated 58 percent dive in weekend two. Despite this, Paramount will still be pleased to have had that massive start last weekend. The higher percentage of box office to hit in the first weeks, the better their cut. The old traditional 50/50 formula for the studio/exhibitor split is more like 60/40 these days. On Tomb Raider, it may end up being more like 75/25, given that the film will have taken in more than 80 percent of its gross in the first three weekends.
Oh yeah… and Dr. Dolittle 2 opened to an estimated $26.7 million. Funny how that becomes a small story in a weekend like this. Three years after the original, the sequel opened to, by estimate, about 8 percent less than the original. That’s quite unusual… in a good way. Look for Dr. Dolittle 2 to be one of the quietest $100 million movies of the year.
Among holdovers, the news is that a lot of people seem to prefer the idea of seeing Shrek again over seeing Atlantis the first time. While the Disney actioner is off an estimated 35 percent in just it’s second weekend, DreamWorks' jolly green magnet is estimating in a drop of less than half of that, at 17 percent, in its sixth weekend.
THE GOOD: There were some interesting stories floating around out there this weekend. One reader sent in a link to a story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Writer Colin Covert takes a look at The Fast and the Furious with the perspective that there is a lot more going on when the boys grab their stick shifts. Very funny. Maybe interesting stuff. (It’s here)
Meanwhile, in Nicosia, the local film club showed, we assume, an uncut version of Catherine Breillat’s Romance… the theater operator, Michael Papas may be in jail today. The film is in the midst of a battle over censorship and while the ban of the film that authorities sought is now on the losing side of an ongoing legal battle, Papas was ordered by the court to put his print in the court’s custody, pending appeal. He refused. And announced that he would proceed with the scheduled screening. No word on the wires about what finally happened, but the Friday story is here.
THE BAD: On the bad side, David Ansen of Newsweek has a good story in this week’s magazine about his experiences with being quoted -- and misquoted -- by the studios. (Click here.)
And John Horn, who has inspired me to rant & rave on Wednesday (Y’all come back now, hear!) wrote a piece on John Stockwell’s film, crazy/beautiful, that give a good account of the current paranoia that movie studios are experiencing when it comes to films that push uncomfortable buttons, especially when there are teens involved. (Surprisingly, Horn does not mention Disney subsidiary Miramax’s dumping of O, which was so overt that Miramax actually paid a settlement with the producers to make a pending lawsuit go away.) The thing is that despite the restraints, crazy/beautiful still stands as one of the most complex, disturbing, unresolved teen dramas I have ever seen. It got under my skin to the degree that I am trying to see it a second time before I review the film.
You may remember that I wrote about Kirsten Dunst’s choice to keep her bust covered. That was a little cynical, but I think it’s important for all of us, from John Horn to David Poland and beyond, to point out that in this case, despite the studio caution, there is a tough, interesting film here. Anyway, the story is located here.
