WEEKEND REVIEW

Peter Gabriel sang about shocking the monkey. This weekend, The monkey shocked L.A.  Kind of…

Fox issued an estimate of just under $70 million for Planet of the Apes’ three days in the sun.  (It’s probably no coincidence that the number is just ahead of the opening of The Mummy Returns.)  The film broke various irrelevant records with a $25 million Friday, so the film’s soft Saturday had to have been a bit of a disappointment… it’s a funny thing, that show biz perspective.  Nonetheless, even with the inevitable 50 percent drop next weekend, POTA will pass $120 million by the end of next weekend and will break into the Top Six for the year by the end of its third weekend and chasing Hannibal’s $165 million for a slot in the Top Five.  That said, Fox’s challenge is to find a way for Apes to reach the $200 million mark that such a huge opening seems to demand.   Anything less than $175 million has to be seen as an indictment of the film.  Brutal world, huh?

America’s Sweethearts fell a reported 48 percent… ouch.  There’s a very good chance that the film will be the first Julia Roberts comedy to fall short of $90 million since her debut in Mystic Pizza.

THE GOOD:  Brett Ratner may or may not have told the British press that Pierce Brosnan really wanted him to direct the next Bond film.  But the selection of the next Bond director, reported by Variety’s Michael Fleming, suggests that any such suggestion was a lot of smoke.  The choice is Lee Tamahori, the Kiwi filmmaker who has had mixed results crossing over to Hollywood, but who fits the recent run of unusually serious filmmakers for Bond, from Martin Campbell to Roger Spottiswoode to Michael Apted.  Tamahori’s U.S. breakthrough film, Once Were Warriors, was intense and intimate, while The Edge showed his ability to deal with wide screen images (if not script) and Along Came A Spider showed his ability to deliver a tight, taut film on a budget.  This could be a match made in heaven.

THE BAD:  I am sympathetic to the animal rights movement.  But sometimes, they go a little overboard.  And not just here in the U.S.  It seems that there is a group in Spain called Amnistia Animal which is accusing Pedro Almodovar of animal cruelty for shooting part of his next film at a bullfighting training session where four bulls were killed in the course of normal training.  The spokesperson for the group took the position that, essentially, any cruelty to animals put on film was wrong, that that local laws prevented such things… even if the bulls were going to die anyway.  For or against killing of any kind, if we’re going to do it, I’d rather see the real thing than a lifelike simulation… if we lean towards seeing it as cruel, the cruelty will be all the more apparent… and if we lean towards not caring, the ugliness of it will be real and impossible for us to avoid, forcing us to take responsibility for our beliefs. 

THE UGLY:  There aren’t many movie writers for whom I have real contempt.  And honestly, it is probably unfair of me to suggest that Tom King is any more problematic than a raft of writers out there that just go along to get along.  However, King works for The Wall Street Journal, the news outlet whose business-side coverage of the industry I admire most, thanks to writers like John Lippman and Bruce Orwall.  Yet, week after week, King not only fails to bring inspiration to his Hollywood Journal column… he fails to do the most obvious research to keep from embarrassing himself.  Again, I don’t expect as much from most entertainment outlets, but I expect depth from The Wall Street Journal.

To wit, in this last weekend’s Hollywood Journal, after explaining that “Hollywood is facing its oddest summer in recent memory,” King proposes the following:  “If Planet of the Apes, as expected, unseats last week's winner, Jurassic Park III, this weekend, it will be the eighth week in a row a new film has topped the charts. While that has something to do with the sheer volume of big-budget "event" pictures, it mostly says a lot about moviegoers' dissatisfaction with the bulk of the studios' offerings.” 

What’s the first question a journalist must ask him or her self after noticing a trend like that and thinking about building a column around it?  Duh!  “Has it happened before?”

The answer? 

Well, last summer we went nine straight weekends with new Number Ones, starting with Gone in 60 Seconds’ $25 million opening, which came two weekends after MI:2’s Memorial Day kick-off.  And we were very close to ten straight weekends, as Big Momma’s House opened just $1 million behind the second weekend for MI:2.  The movie that ended the trend last year?  Hollow Man… not exactly an example of a film that says a lot about moviegoers’ satisfaction with studio offerings.  And the trend would have gone on after Hollow Man dropped 51 percent… except that the openers slotted into the second weekend of August were the pathetic Autumn in New York and The Replacements.

Well, maybe it’s a two-year phenomenon?  Nope.

In 1999, The Phantom Menace was on top for three straight weekends, followed by nine straight weekends of new Number Ones.   And once again, if August’s first weekend winner, The Sixth Sense, even had a nominal drop of 35 percent, there would have been a new Number One for a tenth weekend, with Bowfinger opening to $18 million. 

One has to go back to 1998 to find a post-Memorial Day, pre-second-weekend-of -August movie that had a second weekend at Number One.  That would be The Truman Show, which was followed by six weekends of new Number Ones.  That run was stopped by Saving Private Ryan.  Amongst that summer’s six week run of new weekly blood, there were hundred million hits (back when $100 million really meant something), Armageddon, Dr. Dolittle and Mulan (a film that didn’t ever enjoy the top slot.). 

Does King have a point about the increasingly disposable nature of summer movies?  Yes.  But the story is far more complex than a look at how many weekends a movie is in first place or any experiential analysis of any one year.  And it’s certainly not about quality as judged my the media.  There are four $150 million-plus films so far this year – Shrek, The Mummy Returns, Pearl Harbor and Hannibal.  Of those four, I would may money to see only one of them again.  And I will pay some attention to Ridley Scott’s beautiful story-light work on Hannibal when it comes to cable.  But I prefer the first, infinitely more charming Mummy movie by far and Pearl Harbor… well… you know. 

The “disposable movie” is, in my opinion, a phenomenon created by the studios by the extreme emphasis on opening weekends.  I have offered many reasons for this trend over the years of this column, but the primary villain is the rush to video.  One other idea that has really just hit me is that as the studios get more corporate and the overall bottom line becomes more important than the films themselves, bean counters are being asked to come up with ways of adding a percent on the return here and a percent on the return there.  Movies are unpredictable.  But the most predictable things on which one can get a return are major movie stars, advertising marketable high-concept things like special effects and increasing rentals by getting more box office more early in the run when the percentages favor the studios.   The trouble is, with a major movie star and a big summer ad campaign, you are already $60 - $75 million in the hole before you shoot a frame of celluloid.  That’s no less than $110 million in box office dollars and as much as $140 million… between $225 million and $300 million when you add in production.   Of course, that’s worldwide and video makes a lot of silk purses out of a business heavy on sows’ ears.  But those margins get tighter and tighter as releasing movies becomes more and more expensive.

But studios have guys like Tom King to maintain the illusion.  He closes, “After all, if audiences will pay to see Angelina Jolie trot through the critically panned Tomb Raider, a film that has grossed $126 million, why give 'em anything better?”  The answer?  Because $135 million domestic for Tomb Raider is a disappointment.  Will the movie make money?  Yes.  Paramount made it for a price ($80 million - $90 million) and Pepsi ate a lot of the marketing costs.  With foreign, the film should be in profit before video.  Yet, it is a solid double, not a home run.  Fortunately for Paramount, they’ve had a pretty good year with a pretty conservative slate of films.  But the answer to “Why give `em anything better?” is that “better” means longer, stronger legs and in a low-margin business, that’s the only way that individual films and more importantly, their studios, make real money.

PROGRAMMING NOTES:  The column will only be updated on Monday, Wednesday and Friday as I will be traveling for the next two weeks.  Filling the void, Amy Berg’s column, The Spin, will appear on Tuesday and Thursday.   And in other news, all THB merchandise will have been shipped by the end of business today.  If you haven’t received what you ordered by the end of the week, please let us know. Thanks for your patience.

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY:  Whether you love or hate Fight Club , you will probably enjoy this site.

JUST WONDERING:  I saw a Planet of the Apes “Making of” show on HBO over the weekend and I heard this voice that seemed to be Paul Giamatti’s Ape voice… but it was Dick Zanuck.  Has anyone else thought that Mr. Giamatti might be mocking his human employer?

READER OF THE DAY:  Boston Nicky writes:  “Don't knock the premium cinemas before you try them. General Cinemas has a similar theatre called the Premium Cinema in the Chicago suburbs. For $15 a person, you get to sit in pairs of comfy leather seats (which are well-spaced), all-you-can-eat popcorn, all-you-can-drink soda, lots of leg room, steeper-than-normal stadium seating, and you are waited on by the ushers -- yes, they brought my girlfriend and I our drinks an hour into "Crouching Tiger" just as I had asked. Plus, the movie changes every week so, unlike every other screen in the multiplex, it's not still showing "Pearl Harbor."

When you think about it, with the rising cost of tickets and concessions, it's not much more than you would pay for a "non-premium" cinema. And the biggest peace of mind to me is knowing that no group of loud, obnoxious 13-year-olds is going to drop $15 to take up space in that theater. Yes, it's a sad commentary on the movie-going etiquette of younger kids that I occasionally feel like paying a little more money to not have to deal with them. At "Jurassic Park III," I got a running commentary from a trio of junior-high clods, one of whom proceeded to spill his drink on my shirt. Would that have happened to me at a premium cinema? I have no doubt it would not have. I think the premium cinema concept is good -- it provides a moviegoing experience that is more cushy, less annoying, and, at its current price, not just for the rich people.”

Mustang Liz writes:  “I don't give Blockbuster my money for rentals at all anymore. For DVD, I do all of my renting through www.netflix.com, and it is a good plan, and price wise, beats the pants off of Blockbuster, which currently charges $3.79 per DVD. NetFlix is cool because they have pretty much everything released on DVD, and have the more obscure titles that Blockbuster won't have (just this week I rented Caligula (the NR version) and Smilla's Sense of Snow) and the turnaround between mailing your returned DVD and getting your next DVD on your list is 3-4 days. With the 2 DVDs out at a time plan, I get about 10-15 DVDs a month, for $13.95 flat fee per month. Let Blockbuster beat that.  For films that are on video and not DVD, I just saunter over to my Mom and Pop store down the street and get my old classics or obscure older indie films (like Closet Land and Winter Guest this week) on VHS.  Blockbuster is evil. They charge far too much and carry only the most popular titles.”

E ME:  What do you think of three days a week of THB?