April 21, 2003

Catchin’ Up Is Hard To Do…

Bermuda was terrific, as always.  I’ll let another day come and go before I report on the week of Dark-n-Stormies & lovely sunnies.  Included in the fun is a one-on-one with Roger Friedman. 

P.S.:  Will you be running an apology when Daddy Day Care passes $100 million, Roger?  You wrote, “Murphy is getting ready to launch his third flop in a row on May 9.”  People keep burying Eddie Murphy, who is the biggest star in the world that does virtually no press for his movies.  And then he comes back with a vengeance.  Why? Because he is incredibly talented.  He deserved an Oscar nomination for his dual role in Bowfinger.  Mike Myers’ work in Austin Powers is far less sophisticated than what Murphy did in the Nutty Professor movies, fart jokes or not.  And he was an irreplaceable key to the success of Shrek. Also, a closer look at the bad year Murphy had last year will reveal screenplays that were never close to being ready when production started.  Not great business judgment, but it has happened to pretty much every $10 million-plus actor who chooses to work more than once every 18 months.  (Hanks has avoided it by working only with the best directors and doing drama, which Murphy has stayed away from.) 

Anyway, I will bet that Daddy Day Care is a $100 million movie by the end of Memorial Day weekend.  I promise to apologize to Roger if DDC turns out to be a flop.  Roger?

MORE APOLOGIES:  Two potential members of this summer’s $100 Million Club were left out of last week’s (and it sat there for a full week) column on summer movies.  One fell off based on my failure to do proper research.  American Pie 2 did $145 million.  Wow!  I had no idea.  It was such a blip on the radar that I underestimated its success grossly.  So, it seems unlikely that Number Three will do less than, say, $115 million, no matter how lame it might be.  (Let’s hope it is not.)

DreamWorks’ Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas was more a matter of too much quiet from DreamWorks.  Ironically, when I arrived back from Bermuda, there were no less than three packages from the studio touting the film.  And they were both clever and impressive.  The non-ViewMaster ViewMaster with images from the film was terrific fun.  The trailer, which I played for a group of 12 and 13 year olds, both surprised and delighted them.  And the faces-behind-the-animation package was beautifully put together and informative.  At the very least, the film deserved a slot in the “Looking To Move Up” group.  Any animation title from Disney, DreamWorks or Fox deserves at least that. 

Unfortunately, the reality in today’s summer marketplace is that an animated film that the press has not seen becomes suspect very quickly.  It’s not fair.  But it is true. 

This duo would push the list of highly likely $100 million summer films to an astounding seventeen.  Seventeen!

The only other film that I got a lot of mail on was Finding Nemo, which a lot of people expect to be a $200 million plus Pixar smash…. and it could well be…

TITLE ROULETTE:  In the week since I wrote the summer column, two Fox movies have made title changes.  X-Men 2 became X2: X-Men United and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen became The League.  The changes are acts of absolute daring by Fox, as neither title change really forces a rethink of the marketing, but both changes allow for the studio to clarify marketing for their non-target audiences. 

Talk to “the kids” and you will find that X2 and LXG have already gotten significant traction.  (Some will mock LXG, but they also know exactly what it is.)  But for the next group over, did X2 read as the X-Men sequel?  Were features coming out with both “X-Men 2” and “X2” confusing the issue?  X2: X-Men United solves both.

Likewise, try getting someone to repeat “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” to you.  This is a phrase that just does not trip off of the modern tongue.  It is a great title.  But not if you have to sell it.  So, what do people called it around the office?  Probably “League.”  “Hey Max, have you got those approvals on League yet?!?!”  Not many people said, “I’m going to see MiBII” last year.  People recognized the MiB2 tag… and they said they were going to see Men In Black or Men In Black 2.  Well, now people will be able to say, “What’s coming out next week?” And the simple, clean answer will be “The League.” 

One of the other films that changed titles at nearly the last minute was Warner Bros. The In-Laws, which was The Wedding Party until a month or so ago.  My guess is – and it is a guess – that WB was concerned about the TV series “In-Laws.”  But worse, it seems to me, is trying to differentiate between a remake of a not-very-old movie starring Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks from The Wedding Planner, The Wedding Singer, A Wedding, etc, etc, etc.  Of course, the best hope for the picture is to find an audience like the one for My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  But I guess one year of Wedding bliss was enough.

DOC STOCKS:  Michael Moore is going after his Oscar night humiliation with all of the vigor that he brings to all of his efforts.  And like all of those efforts, he is crossing the line into unreality a bit.  On his web site michaelmoore.com, Moore spins the events of that evening into a rousing success responsible for funding for his next film, the possible revival of his failed TV series, pre-sales for the video for Bowling for Columbine and increasing box office for the same. 

Of course, funding for his next film was assured due to the success of Bowling For Columbine, and really, even if Bowling was only a moderate success.  The only reason he didn’t already have funding from the company that paid for B.F.C. (not UA) was that working with Moore was a nightmare for them, regardless of the respect that they still have for his talent.  His claim that Mel Gibson’s Icon Production will fund the film has yet to be confirmed by Icon.  His TV show may or may not return. If you go to Amazon.com, you will find that the Bowling For Columbine DVD page does not allow for pre-orders and has no projected release date listed, while Chicago has pre-sales available and an August 19 release listed. 

And the increase in box office that Moore cites (“On the day after I criticized Bush and the war at the Academy Awards, attendance at "Bowling for Columbine" in theaters around the country went up 110%.”) is either feebly ignorant or intentionally misleading.  The Monday box office for BFC was up 115% from the previous Monday, from $13,503 to $29,052.  The Pianist only went up only 111%… to $226,000. 

The thing is, I am very happy that Michael Moore is out there.  I enjoy his work.  And I enjoy his unfettered passion.  But he is, often, full of it.  I don’t want his voice curbed or limited in any way.  Let his rage free and let the rest of us respond as we wish.  But we all should remain aware of how easily the line between an aggressive pursuit of ideals and absurd self-indulgence can be crossed.

Speaking of which, Oliver Stone’s Commandante was derailed from its HBO berth last week in response to an increase of violence against anti-Castro agitators in Cuba.  As I commented in my review of the film back in January,  “Unfortunately, this Comandante is more a fancy death shroud than a serious document of history, or even fancy.”  My opinion about the film was not unusual. 

But here is the rub.  HBO was selling the film as Oliver sold it… as a daring, wide-open, in-depth powerful look at a heretofore very private man.  But that was a lie.  The only reason Castro never ducked a question is because Stone never asked one.  All is fair in love and marketing.  But while selling a softball interview that would make a quote whore cringe is one thing in a calm time, pushing it while The Bearded One is killing or imprisoning dozens of well-known people who disagree with him is about the same as re-running an old True Hollywood Story about how OJ helped built Hertz’ image without mentioning the blonde with the severed head.

I am uncomfortable with HBO laying this all on Stone’s doorstep when they are running from the bed they made.  His film was always a drunken, cigar-chomping Lewinsky.  So when documentarians get pissed at the idea of HBO asking that he change the film now, it is perfectly reasonable.  On the other hand, running the film as a courageous profile would be obscene.

All things considered, it’s time for Ollie to move on to Colin Farrell in a toga.  Can’t wait to see the bar bills on that one!  (The good news for WB is that I can’t imagine Farrell as a big sniffy sniffy guy… that’s a $250,000 savings right there!)

ONE LESS BELL TO ANSWER:  Have you seen the Martin Scorsese one-hour photo ad for American Express and the Tribeca Film Festival?  Anyone else thinking that the war saved Marty from one more ugly piece of hype turning up before the Oscars?  Phew!

DOWN, DOWN & AWAY!:  The Matrix is the new Lord of the Rings… until Return of the King comes and overwhelms us next December.  But that’s no excuse for WB’s bungling of their D.C. franchises.  Good God!  Even Artisan is going to get a super hero movie rolling before Warner Bros!  Now the Chris Nolan film is gasping for air.  People are still writing about Superman as a failure of casting when casting was a failure of having a director so good that the actors trusted him to make a film so great that a three-picture deal was not a potential disaster.  Aronofsky still has no next film.  And Burton’s Batman Returns has been on cable a lot lately, practically sticking its tongue out at the studio. 

Warner Bros. stripped down, the Potter franchise followed by the Matrix franchise followed by the Superman franchise, followed by the Batman franchise is immediately the biggest of the franchise studios.  No one has a machine that can compete.  But instead, the cry of 2004 will be, “What’s next?,” even if The Last Samurai is a major Oscar movie, as I suspect it will be.  God bless 2004’s The Polar Express and Catwoman, but they are not the same.  I am thrilled by the idea of a Harry Potter by Alfonso Cuaron, but the return of an old-fashioned super hero movie, classically DC and not Marvel (wonderful as their movies have been lately) is, to steal from The Matrix, revolutionary.

The only thing nearly as important for WB is to get its release schedule down from the 25 titles scheduled this year.  

TOM KING:  Many of you sent me notice of Tom King’s passing while I was in Bermuda.  I commented on it on Movie City News last Monday.  The news stayed with me, like a ghost, for days.  And this is a man I did not know, whose journalistic work was troubling for me up to the sad end.  Tom King was, first and last, a human being.  For that alone, my heart hangs a little heavier due to his death.

There have been more than a few signposts in recent months reminding us to value every day we are given on this earth.  I have been blessed with the opportunity to do work that I care about through much of my life… and today is one of those days. 

Tom King was a part of a very small community of us who make an earnest effort to shine a light on an industry that is so extraordinarily powerful in so many particular and peculiar ways.  There were already too few of us.  Critical thinking about movies is at its lowest ebb in decades.  Fortunately, the internet is the spawning ground for the next nave, much as the new wave was for the last.  And it is always darkest just before dawn.

If you wish to honor Tom’s memory, you can contact The Tom King Memorial Fund, University of Iowa Foundation, PO Box 4500, Iowa City, IA  52244.

READER OF THE DAY:  There is none… time for you to start writing again also…