Boy, was I wrong about the box office…

The price to be paid for burying Trapped was far greater than I thought possible… an estimated $3.2 million weekend later, lesson learned. 

The New York Times’ Stephen Holden was one of many critics who wrote things like, “Trapped arrives at a moment when the headlines are full of child abductions. Its release couldn't have been more poorly timed.”  I actually thought it was a little unfair of Holden to fail to recognize Columbia’s concerns about this in his review.  It also felt as though Holden went out of the way to give away as much plot as possible, while reviewing only by making snide comments in the margins of the description.  I consider Holden a quality critic, thus my surprise.

Regardless, as problematic as the time is and as negative as the review is, I found some of Holden’s comments about the film to be indicative of exactly why the Greg Iles novel appealed to co-producer/director Luis Mandoki.  Specifically, “Sinewy and snake-eyed, flashing sly, wet smiles, Mr. Bacon's Joe oozes the kind of rancid bravado that begs for a fist in the jaw to wipe away that sleazy grin. Ms. Love's Cheryl projects the abrasive walleyed screwiness of a grown-up baby doll that's been smashed against the wall too many times.”

That makes me want to see that movie.  I love the idea of a scumbag villain that I want to punch, and if Courtney Love was ever built for a movie role, it would be as Baby Jane in a remake of that sicko classic, a role well described by Holden.  Were it only that I found the bad guys in XXX  - or any Bond films since Christopher Walken and Grace Jones in A View To A Kill - as bizarre as that, I might have loved the movie.

The Banger Sisters did better than I expected, which is nice.  There wasn’t a lot to sell other than Sarandon and Hawn and they drew a nice crowd.  Of the four wide openings, this one cost the least and will easily be the most profitable… actually, it will probably be the only one to turn a profit at all.  The happiest people coming out of the film’s estimated $10.3 million start are probably in Disney’s marketing department, who have to be encouraged about the potential for Moonlight Mile, fronted by Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman. 

Ecks Vs. Sever had its Ball-istics removed, while Shakar Kapur’s unfortunate desert romp reminded me of the Fight Club marketing line, “Just because you have a feather in your ass doesn’t make you an eagle.”  Four feathers up your ass might make you a turkey however.  But the weekend estimates on Ballistic were just plain funny, as WB estimated that their film brought in $10,000 more than The Four Feathers.  Keep in mind that weekend estimates almost never include the tens of thousands.  But Ballistic just had to win, damn it!

For more – and some would say “more better” – box office, check out our new weekly feature from Len Klady, the industry numbers guru who has been at it longer and deeper than anyone else out there.  (Sounds almost dirty, don’t it?)  Look for Len’s insights on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning, from the safety of your desks.  Click here to take a look right now.

Between Len and Ray Pride (here), whose column runs on Friday, I would say that it is time for any of you who are linking right to this column to re-bookmark the front page.  You don’t want to miss this stuff.

DID YOU HEAR:  I think there was someone wondering aloud why white people don’t go to “black movies” like Barbershop.  So bizarre.  The answer is simple.  Most studios think that there are “black movies.”  So they never sell them to white people.  To MGM’s credit, Peter Adee has gone on the record hoping that he will be able to find an even bigger crossover audience than his marketing has already found.  And I would suggest that the strong second-weekend showing is a sign that the crossover has begun, much as it did with Soul Food five long years ago. 

SPEAKING OF MARKETING:  Have you noticed the shift in the campaign for The Tuxedo?  After positioning it as a kids’ film with a lot of story explanation about the suit, DreamWorks has shifted to a more traditional “Jackie Chan and a great looking chick” campaign.  Interesting.  It’s well done, but whenever a campaign shifts this close to a release date, you have to wonder.

ON THE OTHER HAND:  Even other studios are thinking good thoughts for The Transporter, Fox’s recently-delayed action film.  I’ve had conversations with a number of Fox’s competitors and to a man (or woman), they argued that Fox just needed better traction for a movie they really think can do business.  Let’s hope so.  The trailer is great.

KEY NEWS:  The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have been leading the way on key industry business stories lately.  The L.A. Times has been pushing to step it up lately, bringing Claudia Eller back to greater prominence and signing on Anita Busch, but they have some hard work to do to catch up. 

It was bad enough that the New York Times scooped the many Friends of di Bonaventura on the real story of his exit.  But in the same week, it happened again.  While Corie Brown did a good job with a story on internal speculation about Barry Diller’s ongoing role with the entertainment division (here). WSJ’s Martin Peers and John Carreyrou were getting the rest of the story, unearthing the fine print on a nine-month-old SEC filing that redefines one of the most talked about industry stories of the year. 

It seems that Diller’s control over his destiny when selling out his companies to Vivendi was even greater than the assumed, “They can’t mess with him, he’s the only one who really knows what he’s doing” argument.  As detailed in last December’s SEC filing, Diller assured that Vivendi could not use the fruits of his efforts to support themselves in times of trouble.  (It’s not clear if Diller knew how quickly they’d be in trouble.)  Vivendi is not allowed to sell off assets in Diller’s USA Interactive in a piece-meal fashion unless paying an expensive tax bill that would eat a significant portion of any earnings from a sale.  And if Vivendi wants to sell any part of Vivendi Universal Entertainment (VUE) that wasn’t previously owned by Diller, they have to keep half the revenues in the company, again thwarting the base motive… fund raising.   And on top of that, Diller’s deal keeps Vivendi from sticking any more than $800 million in non-Diller debt in VUE.

And so, it is with that underlying reality that Vivendi has determined that it’s all about Waiting For Barry.  They don’t have much of a choice.  Diller had them in check when he did his deal, and trying to move in any direction he doesn’t approve puts them in checkmate.  (So does that mean that he actually had them in checkmate on the last move?  Hmmmm…)   The story is here, if you subscribe to the WSJ online pay site.

BY THE WAY:  I believe that we are currently in a period of industry-wide change that seems to happen every fifteen years or so.  The last huge change came with home video.  Before that, it was the transition from the old studio system to the pay-per-job system that has reigned since the late 60s.  I would argue that these two events were the key business events, even as we all looked at Jaws and Star Wars or the independently minded films of the Vietnam era.  Without home video, the wide-release phenomenon would never have become the monster that has led us to the six-week distribution window.  And without a seismic shift in the studio business, the risks and successes of the early 70s would never have happened.

More than half the studios in town are facing major transitions in the next two years… assuming they can find willing suckers.  The game is afoot.  And for the first time in a long time, industry coverage matters (or can matter).  With due respect to the current giants of this business, the genius of Diller and Eisner and Murdoch and Redstone and Kerkorian and Team Sony is in the home stretch.  Even S, K & G are maturing past the joys of hyperactive precociousness. 

Something has got to give.  And the story will be written daily and weekly and monthly before they write the books.  Time for all of us who care to strap it on and get serious.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE:  Great smoochy story on soon-to-be-12-time-Oscar-nominee Jack Nicholson in the New York Times by Dana Kennedy.  It’s right here.

READER OF THE DAY:  THE LAW writes:  “As an enormous fan of Shekhar Kapur's triumphant Elizabeth, I was really looking forward to seeing The Four Feathers yesterday. It was very disappointing overall.  The Four Feathers struck me as the Pearl Harbor of the Sudan. The good news is that the 20-minute action centerpiece of the movie, not unlike the famed 40-minute naval base attack in Pearl Harbor - is inherently compelling. The bad news is that little else in the movie is. Seems to me that the "foursquare" battle sequence takes the crown held for the last forty years by a comparable sequence in Zulu.

But otherwise the film falls apart completely. Kate Hudson is simply terrible, and spouts one of the worst British accents in recent movie history. I had to fight back laughing out loud when she plaintively utters "I love you." I just felt embarrassed for her throughout the film. The generally unconvincing Heath Ledger at least acquits himself honorably at a few moments in the film. But looking at him in the Sudan sequences all I could think was, "What the hell is Tommy Chong doing in this movie?!?" The slave-tribe warrior played superbly by Djimon Hounsou – who inexplicably, unfathomably finds the Heath Ledger character "heroic" -- is the single most powerful presence in the film. Now, a film about that character would have been fascinating. Instead, we get an anachronistic piece of colonial British Empire drivel about someone who proves himself not to be a coward but confirms unequivocally he is boring.

Which begs the question: What does Naomi Watts see in this guy?”

And this from SALEM TED:  “Maybe it's approaching old age (I'm a youthful 55), but I want to see less and less "Hollywood Films."  I don't think it's just me, but the writing is often bad, the directing uninspired, there's wall to wall music and I'm being CG'd to death.  I avoided Clones, was unimpressed by Harry Potter, loved Fellowship of the Ring and Moulin Rouge  (but they're not really a Hollywood Films are they?).  Also liked The Others and was knocked out by Amelie, one of the years best films.”

E ME:  How would you define a “Hollywood Film” these days?