November 4, 2002

Time to blow my own horn a little…

I’m pretty sure that I’m the only person in America to predict that Santa Claus 2 would outgross I Spy by $16 million.  Of course, I was about $5 million high on both films.  And The Ring has become the long-legged the movie I hinted at after a relatively small opening weekend… though I must say, it is doing better now than I really thought was possible in this distribution day and age.  Kudos to Jim Tharp and the entire DreamWorks team. 

Not faring as well, Jackass: The Movie and Ghost Ship both dropped an estimated 45 percent.  Both films are relatively inexpensive, but while Ghost Ship will end up being marginally profitable once the international box office and all the ancillaries are counted, Jackass: The Movie is looking like it will be the most profitable movie of the year for Paramount.  Amazing. 

I expected more from Punch-Drunk Love as it made its first big expansion.  It’s screen count was still fairly modest and I figured that Adam Sandler fans were still ready to be plucked.  Apparently not.  There was an increase in the film’s gross, but with so many new screens, it was fairly disappointing.  As things stand, a total domestic gross of anything over $30 million is unlikely. Thanks to PT Anderson’s reputation, box office in much of the rest of the world should be better. 

If My Big Fat Greek Wedding continues to drop as slowly as it is, now that it’s on a lot of screens, look for two effects.  First, Goldmember’s $213 million mark, #3 for the year, is not out of reach.  Second, the film will be still have some very real heat as we head into awards season.  Many of us have questioned whether IFC will spend the money on an Oscar campaign for the film.  But with these kinds of profits, a $20 million investment balanced with a February video release… well, it’s making more sense.  The only problem is that the film may not play itself out quickly enough.

Star Wars: Episode One – Attack Of The Clones: The IMAX Experience rounded up another $1.4 million (est.) for “the movie that no one liked.”  That’s only a couple thousand dollars more than “the movie lat everyone loves,” Apollo 13, has done in seven weeks.  Disney’s IMAX-only ten-year anniversary release of Beauty & The Beast still beats every other film by a wide margin, but still…

Also doing very well in limited release were Miramax’s Frida (est. $1 million on 47 screens) and MGM/UA’s Bowling For Columbine ($1.5 million on 162 screens). 

FALL PREVIEWS:  If you haven’t checked out the L.A. and N.Y. Times’ film previews, you should.  The entirety of both are linked at www.moviecitynews.com.  There are some great stories in there, including no less than 20 in-depth pieces on specific films that are coming soon to a theater near you.

THE DISNEY DANCE:  On Friday,  Los Angeles Times’ Claudia Eller and Richard Verrier reported Thomas Schumacher’s end-of-contract exit from Disney Animation.  On Sunday, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Schumacher called the report “remarkably inaccurate” when they spoke to him on Saturday.  However, he refused to discuss the issue in any detail… which means, in Hollywood-speak, that, as Eller & Verrier reported, they are still negotiating his exit from the post and publicly acknowledging the decision weakens his negotiating position. 

The question when one of these leaks happens is always, “Who and why?”  The answer here is likely somewhere near Michael Eisner’s office.   The day after this story was leaking to the L.A. Times, Eller and Verrier reported that things weren’t so bad between Disney and Pixar.  You don’t have to be Eisner-basher Nikki Finke to smell the company re-positioning the animation division before what seems to be a car-wreck in Treasure Planet can actually hit the wall. 

Two weeks ago, Jay Rasulo was named as the new head of the company’s Parks division and will try to lead a turnaround.  Unfortunately, just four days after the appointment – which was forced by the abrupt exit of a longtime employee  - Euro Disney had to “revise down” attendance estimates. 

Are you sensing a trend here?

There hasn’t been one of these odd shifts in either of the other two major Disney divisions… yet.  Two weeks ago, Business Week’s Ron Grover laid out the possibility of an ABC resurrection.  (Read that here.)  Unfortunately, two temporary series that don’t generate repeats, The Bachelor and Monday Night Football, were the only ABC shows in the Top 20 last week.  The network has six other shows that have the potential to break the Top 20, so all hope is not lost.  Disney is pushing hard to establish a group of those 20-30s – Bonnie Hunt, Jim Belushi, John Ritter - as a powerhouse night of comedy.  They are also hoping that Jennifer Garner hype will finally lead to ratings for Alias.  And The Practice is performing better than ever.  But it’s still a long road to impressive.  But there is a sense that Susan Lyne should be given a little time before the rug is yanked out from under her… despite Push, Nevada.

The only division that seems to be chugging along is the live-action movie division.   Signs and Sweet Home Alabama have been the biggest hits in the last three months and The Santa Clause 2 performed above expectations this weekend.  As frustrating as the box office failures of Moonlight Mile and Tuck Everlasting must be, these successes make up for it… at least, in perception.

And perception is what we are really talking about here, isn’t it?  Eisner has to keep the perception that forward motion is being made.  Everyone, including his board, understands that the economy is bad and that excrement happens.  So, the strategy seems to be to stay a step ahead.  If a bad park issue is coming, make sure that everyone knows a change is coming.  If an animated movie is going to disappoint, signal positive change in the future.  So, next time some positive, new business-side movement is announced by Disney, keep an eye out for the other shoe.  It seems likely to be dropping nearby.

AT THE VIDEO STORE:  Spider-Man swung into video/DVD stores on Halloween night and there was no trick, Sony Home Entertainment got a big treat.  They sold around 11 million video/DVD units through the weekend, generating gross revenue of an estimate $190 million.  The expectation is that Spider-Man will become biggest sell-thru title in history before Christmas comes and goes.  Sony has already shipped 26 million combined units. 

Perhaps the most remarkable stat amongst so many remarkable stats is that 80 percent of first day sales were DVD.  80 percent.  Industry estimations place DVD penetration at 43 percent of households.  Are DVD owners more buyers than video owners?  Be assured that the industry is researching this very carefully.  Video ownership fatigue and simple space issues could well be at the center of this issue. 

HARVARD MAN:  I caught James Toback’s Harvard Man on DVD over the weekend.  And now I understand exactly why the film never got distribution beyond Boston and New York City.  There’s nothing much to sell.  Toback is as addicted to style as Roger Avary is in The Rules of Attraction… and fails even more miserably to make sense out of any of it.  He is relentless with the camera… but with no rhyme or reason.  And he does some split screen that should be interesting… but isn’t… again, because there is no foundation for the choices he makes.

Here’s a newsflash.  People were interested in Toback’s Black & White because Bijou Phillips had sex with two men and a woman in Central Park in the opening, and because Mike Tyson threatened Robert Downey, Jr. because of the improvised scene in which Downey came on to Tyson.  Strip those away and there wasn’t much to draw a crowd. 

Toback has essentially taken the least interesting segment of Black & White – The Basketball Fix – and made it into a feature.  Of course, for any of it to work, all logic must be thrown out the window.   Toback got Sarah Michelle “Buffy” Gellar into this film, but not only does she keep her clothes on throughout, when she does have a sex scene, it is late-night Cinemax simulated sex, outdoors and completely uninteresting.  Rebecca Gayheart has been more sexy at movie premieres than in this movie.  And Adrian Grenier is a great looking kid who can barely act. 

The one gimmick that almost works for Toback is an LSD trip…but the same effect used over and over and over and over and over again gets boring in a hurry. 

Toback is so obviously a talented, intelligent man.  But Harvard Man was torture.

READER OF THE DAY:  McVA writes:  “I-Spy me dead on the floor for thinking this could be a 'fun' movie.  Eddie Murphy only has one gear in this movie and he's stuck in overdrive.  Owen Wilson can be charming but this movie wastes a lot of his charm.  A lot of the dialogue was mumbled and garbled. I can't believe they needed 4 screenwriters to create this piece of drivel.  The only fun bit in the movie was having Murphy's character play Cyrano for the Wilson character.  Gary Cole must be extremely happy that he's unrecognizable as Carlos - I didn't know it was him until the credits rolled.  Be thankful you didn't see this.”

HONG KONG STEVE writes:  “I saw "The Transporter" last week. Well, I think Shu Qi can really kill all the villains by speaking English!

Why hadn't she ever thought about this idea while she was around by bad buys? If she could keep talking English, I believe all villains would give up and beg her for their lives.”

THE LEVI adds:  “How about Arlington Road for an unexpected failure? Great script, taut direction, excellent performances and a movie that the studio liked so much they moved it into the middle of the summer from its original winter opening. And then it totally fizzled.

Also, here's one that wasn't exactly a failure but had to be a huge disappointment for the studio: The Family Man. Here's a classic holiday movie premise with a huge star done pretty well, and they only get $76 million in return. This is the same year that Miss Congeniality does over $110 million.

As for a movie whose success is completely unwarranted, my vote goes to Twister. Sure, it's a big effects movie in the beginning of summer so it has a $40 million opening. That's fine. But it somehow amasses $240+million in the US. That's 6 times it's opening, an absurd ratio held for only the most leggy of movies. And Twister did it! One of the poorest blockbusters ever perpetrated on the American public. A script and characters that are barely worthy of a Fox TV movie mixed with big time special effects. Don't get me started on this one.”

And NO-EL writes:  “I caught up with Punch Drunk Love this weekend and I enjoyed it very much.  I agree that this is not exactly a deep picture but I think there is genius at work just the same.  Obviously PT Anderson was born to direct.  His compositions are really stunning and his overall strategy for the film was inspired, particularly the way the score is used to put us inside Sandler's head and help us to actually experience the development of his rage.  This is basically a distillation and deconstruction of the typical Sandler persona.  Some of the people I saw it with thought that it made Sandler not so much funny as scary, but in my opinion it is that fear that makes it all the more hilarious.  I laughed more at PDL than I had at most Sandler pictures.  His rage seemed more real and earned but at the same time Anderson films it in such a stylized and hyper-realistic way that it's funny as hell.  For the first time I felt a great deal of sympathy for a Sandler character and I actually found myself doing a bit of silent cheering when he (takes action).

While I don't think that Anderson has made a film that will stay with me emotionally (the romance did not move me) I think that what he has done is a kind of film criticism by way of filmmaking.  He comments on Adam Sandler and his screen persona by making an Adam Sandler film.  I don't know if that makes sense but that's how I saw it.”

E ME:  What do you think?