WEEKEND REVIEW

It was yet another spectacular slap in the face to the National Research Group and studio tracking in general.

“They” had Scary Movie 2 well into the $40 million range.  BZZT!!!  It did around half the tracking, with a $21 million weekend estimate. 

So, what went wrong?   Well, as far as Miramax is concerned, nothing.  The fact is that given the weird nature of the holiday weekend, and around $34.5 million over five days, Scary Movie 2 did as well as anyone should have ever expected.  This franchise is NOT Austin Powers.  If Scary Movie 2 ends up with a $90 million domestic total, they should be happy… even though they spent more than double (around $45 million) for production on the sequel than they did on the original. 

But back at N.R.G., something went awry… again.  Last weekend, after early reports that tracking was light on A.I., N.R.G. told the studio that the numbers were going through the roof, turning a not-so-surprising $29.4 million into a big disappointment.  The $21 million estimate for Scary Movie 2, given the holiday and a $14 million Wed-Thurs, is a little light, but not as light as the tracking makes it seem.  The weekend before, The Fast and the Furious opened to $40.1 million after tracking in the low 20s. 

There are many reasons why I don’t like the National Research Group.   But they serve a purpose in an industry that has become less about art and more about business.  There was a time when tracking had a more valid place in the business than it does today… a time when there was not between $50 million and $100 million of advertising in the marketplace every weekend.  Having a sense, through telephone surveying – which is all that tracking really is - of whether your movie is penetrating the consciousness of your target audience is important.  But I believe that the massive amount of marketing dollars out there have made the general numbers that come out of the surveys all but irrelevant.  Perhaps surveys could be used to understand highly targeted market strategies more clear.  Or maybe there are so many dollars being thrown at you and yours that it all comes back to human intuition. 

Universal focused almost exclusively on teens with its campaign for TFx2 and hit a small jackpot.  Warner Bros. told reporters that the A.I. audience was dominated by over-35s on opening weekend… a fact that I imagine shocked the hell out of the studio’s execs.  As I’ve written before, it seemed that Warners felt they had the internet-age audience covered with its elaborate on-line “game.”  Wrong.  And rising tracking didn’t make it so.  And again, with SM2, surveyed “want to see” did not translate into as much business as expected.  Someone should have known… in their gut.

Lost in all of this was Kiss of the Dragon’s estimated $13.6 million start.  Reportedly made for around the same $25 million budget as Li’s last American film, Romeo Must Die, a similar box office track would top the film out domestically at about $40 million or $16 million less than Romeo, which was seen as a small hit.  Still, Li seems to be developing a strong European following and the film should end up as another small hit.  Li has real potential, but he faces higher budgets than Steven Seagal did when his box office success was similarly modest at first.  Li’s newer films are going to have to be a little cheaper, until he has a breakout like Under Siege.  (That’s what the studios who continue to pay for his movies are waiting for.)  I’m afraid to say, however, passing on The Matrix 2 & 3, may be a mistake that sends Mr. Li back to the Far East without ever breaking through.

THE GOOD:  I survived the first half of the year.

THE BAD:  As though Warner Bros. didn’t suffer enough over Red Planet, word now comes from Australia that the tax department down under is disallowing tax breaks that were taken on the production of the film, filmed in Sydney and Coober Pedy.  The thing is, while we in Los Angeles spend a lot of time whining about runaway production, Australia, which is trying to encourage it, understands exactly where the story lies… just follow the money. 

According to this story in The Age, “the annual value of US offshore productions is between $US3.2 billion and $US4.7 billion, of which about $170 million was spent in Australia last year.”  That’s about 6 percent.  Canada gets about 81 percent of the business.  But as the story also points out, Canada has been far more successful in integrating their tax breaks into their national laws. 

To wit, “The AusFILM report explains, Canada's linked federal and provincial production services tax credits combine to offer a rebate of between 22 and 40 per cent on qualifying labor expenditure; Britain offers a 100 percent write off, together with approved sale and leaseback schemes linked to an expenditure based qualification for a film production; and Ireland allows qualifying companies and individuals that invest in film companies to write off 80 per cent of the amount invested. This is linked to a 10 percent tax on profits that applies after deducting trading expenses.”

So you tell me, if all that’s true, am I a liar when I say that runaway production has nothing to do with American culture, but everything to do with the bottom line?  It may never change unless the Hollywood unions become far more protective of the American talent that is being used to finance these movies being shot in other countries which, as stated with brilliant clarity by AusFILM’s David Pratt, “have woken up to just how attractive it is to get US productions which spend millions and leave the host country with nothing except celluloid.”'

Read the whole story from The Age right here.

THE UGLY:  My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw Dean Goodman’s Reuters account of Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman being “confident (A.I.) would break $100 million.”  That’s ONE hundred  million dollars, not TWO hundred million.  Of course, I was aware after last weekend’s numbers that $200 million was not happening for A.I.  But realizing that A.I. will struggle to get to $100 million… ouch.   (Variety’s Carl DiOrio has an excellent look at some of the marketing problems on the film… only available to Variety subscribers now, but try looking it up sometime later today on Yahoo!)

BAD AD WATCH:  Paramount’s ad for The Score – a movie I’m hoping to really like – leads its double truck ad this weekend with a quote from Larry King.  Now, you know how I feel about quote whoring.  But there is no opinion less valuable to me when it comes to a movie than Larry King’s.  Rosie O’Donnell is more reliable… Jerry Lewis is more sincere…  Jiminy Glick is more discriminating.  I don’t know how they got a Jack Matthews quote so early, but many of the other 9 quoters – one of the industry’s surest signs of crap – are from traditional quote kings and queens.  The Maria Salas/Steve Oldfield tag teams lives on.  Plus, we now have the additional joy of an insightful outlet called the “What’s The 411? Network.”  Why haven’t I changed this site to “The Voices of Hollywood Network?”  I am clearly a fool!

BIG LIST O’ QUOTES:  Is here.

JUST WONDERING:  Is anyone else amazed and a bit disgusted by the detail with which the divorce settlement between Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise is being reported?  I read some of the specifics published last week, but my first reaction was to want to take a shower.  How much of it is true, I don’t know.  What the truth between these two people, I don’t know.  But the overall tone suggests that it is more of a business negotiation than a divorce… and I don’t want to know.

READER OF THE DAY:  Not Over Bay writes:  “I find myself confused with Hollywood movies these days.  I hated Pearl Harbor, I mean as a movie fan I was just pissed! Now as far as a being a Patriot, I felt like more of one for, Uh well The Patriot!  While watching, I felt I would not be more mad a movie all this summer, mostly because I did not want to attend another one! Then came AI! Steven Spielberg is not my favorite filmmaker by any means. However, he has made so many good heartfelt films I will never question his skills as a director. I love the fact that with AI, Spielberg was trying to pay homage to a wonderful filmmaker in Stanley Kubrick, but he failed. Spielberg mixed in to many explanations and heartfelt moments into a movie that had some real dark material and an even darker feeling.

This is where I came to understand a certain fact! If Spielberg would have directed Pearl Harbor, we would have got what we deserved, a epic movie, with standard formulas of past films polished to the highest degree! He would have been allowed to make a rated R film, and he would have gone after the better actor of the South Boss academy award winners. I hated AI because I miss Kubrick and he was a total original that would have mastered this film. I also hated Pearl Harbor because Spielberg should have made this film, instead of Bay. My final point, Kubrick was famous for lack of human real emotion in his films, he should have had Bay take on AI, he has pulled that feat off in every movie!!!!”

E ME:  I am the Pola-Tron 2000… take me to your leader!