TINGLING:  I saw Spider-Man this weekend. 

No spies.  No trips to SXSW.  Heck, I wasn’t even looking to see the thing.  But as if by magic, the film appeared, complete and ready for the big screen… a completely illicit experience. 

And now, I’m not sure what to do about it. 

I don’t have to worry about the morality of reviewing an incomplete film.  This is the version you are going to see in theaters next month.  And I don’t have to worry about the inherent promise one makes to a studio when you they give you early access to a film.  Sony clearly had no intention of screening this movie early for me, if at all. 

But still, I am uncomfortable by the potential hypocrisy of being the first to review this summer blockbuster, before even long-lead press has had a screening.  I’ve been first before.  The excitement wears off pretty quickly.  I’ve had studios that wanted me to be first and I’ve had studios get really angry with me for being first, even when my comments have been glowing. 

My review is not going to be one from which you’d pull quotes.  At the same time, I am definitely feeling a lot more positive about the movie than I was before I saw it. 

Anyway, I’m taking a deep breath.  This will put everyone who gives a damn on notice.  If someone else really wants to be first, here’s your chance.  (I’m sure that I’m not the first person who wasn’t supposed to see the film this early to have done so.)  If the studio wants to threaten me, publicly or privately, they have a few hours.  And you all have a chance to chime in and let me know what you think.  Is there a need for an early Spider-Man review?  Will the media outlets that are supposed to see the film in the next week try to push their embargo dates because of Web Boy?  Or am I just overthinking all of this?

More – possibly including a review – on the morrow.

BOX OFFICE:  It was a nice weekend at the box office.  Not for distributors so much, but for the cinema deities on high.  The ugly trio of High Crimes, Van Wilder and Big Trouble managed only an estimated $26.2 million between them.  Only Big Trouble, estimating $3.7 million, was a real disaster.  But Disney saw it coming and saved as much as they could on P&A.  High Crimes managed to grab an estimated $15 million, so although the film will not be very successful for Fox, it keeps Ashley Judd’s “star value” up in the eight figure range and a truly hideous film has a decent shot at breaking even in the ancillary market.  (If it were a Sony film, we’d be reading about High Crimes II in tomorrow’s trades… ha!)  And Van Wilder - which I found out over the weekend was not made by what’s left of the National Lampoon team, but rather had the header purchased by Artisan after the fact, as a marketing tool – estimated $7.5 million… or $400,000 more than the final number for Freddy Got Fingered’s opening.    `Nuff said.

Van Wilder actually is a nice example of a moderate success in putting your limited marketing dollars into promotion instead of TV ads.  There were spot ads, primarily on cable television and selected network shows.  But the Artisan team made an extraordinary effort to promote the film with a Van Wilder tour bus, lots of on campus promotion at colleges and a remarkable number of TV and radio appearances by the movie’s actors, led by stars Tara Reid and Ryan Reynolds, who remains the male Sandra Bullock of the last few years – a star that everyone in town seems to know is going to happen, but who can’t seem to find the right vehicle.  Reynolds has not gotten his Demolition Man yet – it sure isn’t Van Wilder – but give him time.

A TRIP WORTH TAKING:  The Floating Film Festival took place just a few weeks ago and happy notices are coming in.  Check out Ain’t It Cool’s look at the fest by clicking here.

LOVE THAT SPIN!:  Panic Room stayed in first place, dropping an estimated 39 percent to $18.5 million in its second weekend.  Though that percentage is likely to go over 40 percent in the final numbers, it’s still a decent drop in today’s box office world. 

What wasn’t so decent was the spin by Sony distribution king Jeff Blake that was printed by Reuters’ Gina Keating.  And let me make it clear, I don’t blame Jeff Blake for spinning.  That’s his job.  Every weekend, every distribution exec who has a movie opening or in the Top Ten has to come up with something to make even the best weekend sound more impressive than it really was.  But when Ms. Keating is told that being Number One for two weekends in a row is an amazing achievement, isn’t it her job to put that statement, if she prints it at all, into context. 

There have been fourteen weekends this year so far.  High Crimes, the high opener opposite Panic Room’s second stand at the top, had somewhere between the twelfth and the sixteenth best opening weekend of the year so far.  In other words, the lame competition had a lot to do with the two-weekends-on-top achievement of Panic Room.  There wasn’t a single weekend in March that would have been topped by $18.5 million. 

Does any of this really matter?  I think it does.  The media does act in concert with studios all the time.  But there is a line between journalism and publicity that should not be crossed. 

TOM KING WEEKLY HORROR SHOW:  There are a lot of people writing a lot of things about the film business out there.  So why is it that the Wall Street Journal’s Tom King seems to hit the wrong note with me virtually each and every week?  There are others out there professing to be experts who are every bit as ignorant as Tom.  Yet King manages to encapsulate his misunderstandings into bite-sized pieces that can be digested and turned into new misstatements by other entertainment writers as well.  And that pisses me off. 

This weekend, he leads with the “bust” that he claims the E.T. re-release is.  And I guess it is a bust in the eyes of one group… those who had convinced themselves that this re-release was going to buck the trend and do huge numbers.  But isn’t a reporter responsible for having more perspective than the studio marketing executives who are out pushing the product?  Isn’t a reporter responsible to understand the history of the industry he is writing about, particularly when he is suggesting that something has failed based on his short-sighted vision of that history.

King starts his analysis by comparing the re-release of E.T. to the re-release of the first Star Wars film, which was a once-in-a-lifetime phenomena, enhanced greatly by the anticipation of a new trilogy of movies.  E.T. was a huge box office success, but it has never developed the ongoing fervor attached to franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek or even Indiana Jones, in part because E.T. was a single film and not a series.  But King’s comparison is invalidated by his own reportage, as he writes of tracking that showed E.T. opening to $25 million and delivering only $15 million.  Let’s get past the basic fact that tracking is wrong quite often in this business… that’s not a story anymore.  The Star Wars re-release opened with $36 million, 31 percent more than the tracking ever suggested.  Even more telling, Return of the Jedi, the third re-release, started with $16.3 million and grossed “only” $34 million domestically.  Those numbers are more realistic in regards to what we should see as a successful re-release. 

But King does even more damage by talking only to marketing people who cannot point the finger in some directions that kept the E.T. re-release from being a $50 million success… in perception, which all of this is, of course.  Universal’s Marc Shmuger is not about to create problems for himself in an article about a film that is already pretty much a part of his marketing past by discussing, for instance, the massive multiple premieres that had to be cancelled in the face of 9/11.  He’s not going to complain about the promotional availability of Drew Barrymore, the only major movie star to come out of the film or even director Steven Spielberg, who is in the midst of a very tense post-production process on Minority Report.  And he sure as hell is not going to discuss the serious problem of marketing a family film to teens in the current marketing atmosphere, where the appearance of an edge is a key component of selling to anyone over 8 years old, and Steven Spielberg’s ultimate control of the marketing effort and the image of E.T.  Clockstoppers, which opened to less than E.T., is chock full of tight-clothed, sexy teens and was promoted by the vast Viacom teen and pre-teen empire, including the use MTV and Nickelodeon.  

But King’s lack of vision of the industry is even worse than his lack of knowledge of the history of this release.  Disney re-built its empire back in the Mike & Jeff era with hugely successful re-releases of classic films.  There was a much-discussed formula.  Re-release a classic into theaters every seven years and then release the video six months later with a date on which the video was removed from the marketplace.  This worked like gangbusters.  But it pretty much ended in 1997, the same year that Star Wars shocked everyone with its re-release.  Disney put on a big show for the re-release of The Little Mermaid, the first big animated hit of the Katzenberg era.  Fox was enraged that Disney would bring out such a big gun to damage the release of Anastasia, their first big entry into the big-dollar animation game.  But the film only opened to $9.8 million and totaled out at $25.5 million domestic.  The end of an era.  That’s why you haven’t seen the re-release of The Lion King, but have seen the direct-to-video release of the sequel.  Before the re-release well dried up, sequels to Disney animation were verboten.  Things change. 

Since then, the successful re-release has been quite rare.  DVD, which ironically is the subject of an L.A. Times Calendar cover this weekend, became the driver behind re-releases.  Since studios needed to invest in “extras” to stimulate the sales of the DVDs, they invested a little more and got a full re-release.  Paramount struck over 2000 prints of Grease and ended up with “only” $28 million, but the same studio has only bothered to strike 40 prints of The Godfather. 

Apocalypse Now Redux, which King brings up as a “misfire,” was an opportunity for a great filmmaker to do a director’s cut.  But ultimately, it was a chance to sell more DVDs.  Miramax never put the film on as many as 100 screens.  If E.T. did as much business per screen as Apocalypse Now Redux, it would be the second highest grossing re-release ever, behind only Star Wars.  But that requires an actual investigation into the release of the film, not just a bottom line short cut… a King specialty. 

The Exorcist is really the only exception and that was also, like Star Wars, a phenomena.  Warner Bros. didn’t really believe in the re-release, even after months of successful dates in small markets all over America.  Finally they decided to go to 1150 screens.  But the limited opening on 664 screens was so big ($8.4 million) that they struck even more prints and ended up on as many as 1708 screens, ending up with a total gross of almost $40 million.  And everyone cheered.  E.T. will do a similar number and The Wall Street Journal will be calling it “a bust.”  Argh.

MORE KING:  Tommy writes of the surprise that Halle Berry has been moved ahead of Heath Ledger in the advertising credits for Monster’s Ball.  Shocking!  If Ledger’s camp isn’t complaining and Lion’s Gate is expanding the film’s release quite publicly because of Ms. Berry’s Oscar, where is the story?  Answer: There is none.  If you want to find something interesting about the advertising, perhaps you’d notice that Ms. Berry’s breasts are prominently featured both in the Oscar ad and the tiniest display ad, which shows her in bed with Thornton, on her back, pictured from the bottom of her breasts up.  Or perhaps you’d be as disgusted as one reader who wrote in last week about the video box, which features Ms. Berry and Mr. Thornton in the rich, golden glow that tends to signal a love story instead of a racist, sexual abuse story. 

FINALLY:  King misinforms America about film credits, again because of a lack of historical insight.  While it is true that credits now roll pretty quickly on film, the reason has less to do with studios trying to keep the running time on films down and more with the proliferation of the number of credits in a film.  It wasn’t that long ago that there were minimal or no back credits at all on a film.  With Star Wars and other effects films, the number of credits doubled and tripled.  I recall someone writing about the near 15 minutes of credits at the end of The Empire Strikes Back.  It’s was like a whole additional film.  Nowadays, composers do additional bits of scoring for the credit block.  Generally, the first dozen or so actors in big films are credited as many as three times; in the front credits, in the first back credits and then in a complete scroll of all the actors later in the back credits.  Of course, the only credits that really take care of the cast AND crew belong to The Farrelly Bros., who have actually shown and named their crew in the end credits in their last two films.

IN TOMORROW’S THB:  The latest on Gangs of New York from The New York Times, more on Miramax in The L.A. Times, Minority Report ads, dueling disappearances, gay divorce and perhaps, some Spider droppings. 

READER OF THE DAY:  Son Of A Damon takes on the world:  “i'd have to echo what "the showgirl's friend" said about the piss-poor state of most movie theaters.  i used to think no screen could be big enough and no sound system loud or "clean" enough when i was in my teens and early 20's.  that lasted exactly until the new wave of stadium seating and digital sound became the standards and not the exceptions in the big cineplexes.  as a whole, i think it's a great idea, but i get irritated beyond belief when i plunk my butt down  in front of a big screen that's lit by too dim a bulb or that has one of its speakers fried, hissing and crackling whenever major sound effects kick in.  i guess the problem isn't in the idea, but the management of these places.  anything to save a buck, i guess.

i used to love the whole communal idea of going to the movies, but more and more there seem to be more idiots showing up and talking too loud during the screening, or the sound will crap out as i described above, or the picture will be out of focus or cutting off too much from the top, bottom, and/or sides.  never in my wildest dreams did i think i would ever look forward to waiting for video for movies that i was interested in, just to avoid a less-than-adequate viewing experience.  I loved the whole opening night excitement of the latest Arnold flick when i was growing up, and all the oohs and aahs those movies and others (admittedly, usually from a big franchise or "name" actor) instilled in the audience.  i see less than a tenth of the movies i used to in the course of a year now.  if i had the power, i would make it a requirement for theater owners or management (or direct representative) to be present upon an audience exiting a random screening, to ask how the presentation was.  if one single theater in town took that initiative, i would be a repeat customer for as long as that policy existed.  those pre-screening flashes encouraging the audience to seek out management if the picture or sound goes bad are pure bunk.  if we paid for the fucking movie, why the hell would we want to leave in the middle of it just to track someone down.  someone should be there at all times to ensure quality.  i don't care what it costs- charge even more for all that junk food to make up for it.  i don't eat that stuff anyway.  :)

on a side note, i've got to say how utterly mystified i am at anyone who bemoans the use of CG in today's bigger-budget extravaganzas.  for cripes' sake, in george lucas we finally have someone who has the desire

and technological wherewithall to actually show us aliens and the occasional landscape that LOOK alien; things that would be impossible to realize with a frickin' man in a suit or spasmodic puppet.  CG is a tool, and i rarely see it as the crutch that apparently irks so many others.  on some fanboy user board somewhere i saw the question raised in response to the latest episode 2 trailer, "why oh why does lucas have to use so much fake-ass CG" (or something to that effect).  the answer was a good one:  because it would take around ten years and ten times the budget to realize those visions and vistas and battles using what in the minds of these idiots are more "practical" effects.  oh, the irony...

news flash- it looks fake because it IS fake.  those things don't, and never did, exist.

anyone who would bitch and moan about a "CG wasteland" is simply telegraphing their own lack of imaginations.  those who wouldn't use a tool with such limitless visual possibilities are going to be doomed to repeat what's been done before, and it's precisely that kind of luddite thinking that would have held us back from every major technological advance in the history of film.  no, not everyone is going to use this new medium to its potential.  so effin' what?   it will never evolve if people don't test the boundaries of what's possible, so thank God for the people willing to push the envelope and take us to new places.  mind you, the technical side of things are wholly different from whatever other problem (acting, plot holes, etc.) a film might have, but blaming or calling into question the simple USE of CG for the sorry state of said film is lazy and should be the least offensive of a film's sins.

E ME:  The questions have already been asked… or you can ask some more.