June 20, 2003

So I figure more people than usual are interested in this weekend’s box office…

Whale Rider adds 68 screens for a total of 79.  You can expect this lovely tale to more than double its gross by Monday. 

This has nothing to do with the box office, but a LA Film Festival doc called Sunset Story sold out both of its scheduled showings, so the festival booked a third screening on Saturday at 2:00pm at the DGA Theater, 7920 Sunset.  The film tells the story of a Los Angeles rest home that is known for it’s gathering of political activists who now need personal care.  In particular, the movie focuses on two women, quite different in style and temperament, but bonded in a deep, deep way.  It’s a very strong picture, albeit it a little amateurish.  But there are hopes for the film to be a serious competitor in next year’s Oscar race.  This is your chance to check it out now and impress all your friends. 

Four of last weekend’s Top Eleven lose more than 500 screens apiece, led by Daddy Day Care’s 942 screen loss, followed by Wrong Turn (which is over), The Italian Job (which needed the room to stretch) and The Matrix Reloaded, which should fall out of the Top Ten this weekend.

Oh… you were wondering about The Hulk? 

Huge green.  Duh!

Interestingly, the biggest June opening in history was for The Spy Who Shagged Me, in 1999, with $54.9 million.  But that is probably a function of the tradition of big films not being released in the Memorial Day/July 4 hammock.  But the rules keep evolving.  Last year, there were two $70 million openings all summer.  This year, there have been three in the month of May. 

The advantage for the Hulk is a fairly light balance of the Top Ten, thinned out by last weekend’s ugliness and this weekend’s throwaways.  The weakest weekend with a big opening this summer was the fist X2 weekend.  To fill that suit, Hulk would have to do about $60 million.  To match the heaviest weekend of summer so far, Hulk would have to take in about $87 million.  (I suspect that July 4 weekend will perhaps be the biggest three-day weekend in history.) 

Perhaps someone can find what I could not.  But according to what I did find, the last time a studio had three of the Top Five slots in the same weekend, it was Labor Day 1994, when Paramount added Milk Money to the leggy power duo of Forrest Gump and Clear And Present Danger.  Why does this matter?  Well, I am projecting a similar domination of the Top Five this weekend by Universal, as The Hulk meets 2 Fast and Bruce Almighty.  There is one slight difference.  Paramount’s 1994 trio took in just over $27 million that weekend.  Universal’s trio should be well over $80 million and could actually conceivably pass the $100 million mark.

WEEKEND GUESSTIMATES

Hulk – 3660 venues – new - $79.8 million
Finding Nemo – 3404 venues - off 33 percent - $19 million
2 Fast 2 Furious  – 3130 venues – off 53 percent - $8.8 million
From Justin to Kelly – 2001 venues – new - $8.6 million
Bruce Almighty  – 3090 venues - off 41 percent - $8.4 million
Alex and Emma – 2310 venues – new - $7.3 million
Rugrats Go Wild  – 3041 venues - off 43 percent - $6.6 million
The Italian Job  – 2095 venues - off 35 percent - $6.2 million
Hollywood Homicide  – 2840 venues - off 45 percent - $6.1 million
Dumb and Dumberer - 2609 venues - off 53 percent - $5.1 million

MORE HULK:  USA Today’s William Keck got James Schamus to talk about the potential screenstory for Hulk 2.  In part, he wrote:  “Schamus says his script further delves into Bruce Banner's epic struggle with his inner demons, resulting in the emergence of an evil, gray-hued Hulk. Shamus says he's toying with the idea of incorporating two possible villains: The Leader (described by Lee as ''a giant-head brainiac'') and The Abomination (''a big ugly guy the same size as the Hulk'').”  To read the whole story, click here.

FEATURE WRITERS AGREE:  A few days ago, I complimented Columbia on its handling of S.W.A.T.   Sure enough, my increasingly warm feelings about the company have been cooled within days.  Pulling quotes is an ugly business.  But I’m not sure if there has been a more misleading pull in recent memory than Columbia’s quoting of Sean M. Smith’s suck up intro for the Newsweek Q&A with the Charlie’s Angels trio. 

“Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle… is the perfect encore. More action, more jokes, more skin—and more Moore.”

But the rich, deep insights of the interview almost make up for it. I assume that Smith actually saw the film before doing the interview, yet the only question that comes close to being investigative about the film itself is: “Speaking of butts, we sure see a lot of yours in these movies. Is McG a ‘butt man’?”

No, I’m not kidding.  Read it for yourself..  

I honestly hope to enjoy the film.  I’m not averse to the idea of a film that is pure stupidity.  There is no way it could be as stupid as a newsweekly printing this interview.  Columbia quoting it?  Just business, baby. 

MISS CAST:  It is hard to think of someone more wrong to play Janis Joplin than Renee Zellweger.  She is too small... too cute… too everything.  In her day, Better Midler, who played a version of Joplin in The Rose, was a perfect, off-beat choice.  Maybe if Zellweger keeps the weight from Bridget Jones 2 on, she can start to make the transition. 

There is something earthy about Jessica Lange that allowed the feel of Patsy Cline to remain, despite that movie star face.  If Kelly Clarkson could act, she would be perfect. But I am afraid that she can’t.  The actress who could win an Academy Award doing this role is Samantha Morton.  But she’s not a big enough star to grab a studio’s attention.  She would be perfection.  Anna Paquin might be a great choice, if they were going young. 

But alas, Renee has the heat.  Take another little piece of my heart, now, baby.

READER OF THE DAY:  KP DUTY writes:  “The thing that amazed me the most about "Hulk" is that the filmmakers managed to make the monster convincing.  When the big green guy bounces all over the place, smashing things and getting angry, I was along for the ride.  All of the bad tv spots that Universal had (unwisely) showed months in advance of the film's opening have been corrected.  I believed a man could turn green.

The main reason that I had problems with the movie was that I wanted a summer action movie with things blowing up real good but (and I suppose he had his reasons) that's not the film Ang Lee wanted to make.  And I think the film that he did make falls way short of what he wanted to do.

I frequently had the sense that Lee was apologizing for his own film.  "Yeah, I'm an Academy Award nominated director who made 'The Ice Storm', 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' and 'Sense and Sensibility', so I'm really sorry about this one."  So to compensate he does these split screen camera angles (which the tv show "24" has done so much more effectively), has a character's death framed as if in a comic panel and does all of these tricky things to convince us that he's still a really smart director.  But all of these slights of hand just pushed me further away from the movie.

It's almost as if the whole thing is kind of beneath him, so he'll try to elevate it to his level instead of embracing the source material.

"Embracing the source material":  Kind of makes it sound like he was trying to do Hemingway rather than a comic book.

But somehow Sam Raimi managed to convey the energy of a pulp-like story without being embarrassed.  Maybe all of those years of "Evil Dead" movies and then acting as a hired gun in Hollywood helped him to control his urges.  I don't think it's simply a fact that Spider-Man is a better character for the big screen than The Hulk; I think Raimi wanted to make a fun movie while Lee wanted to make art.

But oh the boring angst of this movie: Bruce is emotionally distant; Betty cries a lot; the whole father/son relationship, all of it ripped right from a 1980s NBC Movie of the Week.  It's all so cliché that it's embarrassing. And none of it is entertaining. 

So my head just about explodes whenever I hear someone refer to it as a "smart film".  Stupid plot devices that make no sense whatsoever are an insult to an audience that is trying to watch the movie as if it were a "smart film":  Betty sees her scarf stolen but does nothing; the military allow Banner and his father to chat even though they know what happens when junior gets angry; "sorry I sent those killer dogs after you, but I need to speak to my son"; and why was the scene of Banner going off to college in a movie that was already way too long when it only serves to confuse the audience about his parents' status?

As bad as "Daredevil" was, at least the movie had Colin Farrell giving it a pulse.  The only time this movie gets going is when Banner turns green, and all of those scenes feel as if they've been tacked on because, umm, well, Ang Lee is kind of embarrassed by it all.

Executives at Universal must have been having conniption fits when they saw the film:  why's it taking the monster so long to show?  Where's the bad guy?  Why is there so much talking?  Why am I watching the same damn helicopter from 3 different angles on a split screen?

It's a movie that fails as a summer comic book action flick.

It's a movie that fails as an art film.

It's a movie that a lot of critics are going to like because, I dunno, "Ang Lee brings emotion and style to a traditionally two-dimensional setting" or some such mumbo jumbo.

But it's a movie that is going to bore its audience.  There aren't enough "WOW!" moments to compensate for the rest of the tedium and at no point did I care about any of the characters.

It looks like "Finding Nemo" will be the biggest movie of the summer.  And it's not because of its great computer animation or because Pixar makes beautiful films.  It's because it has a story.  It's that simple.  It has a story that entertains and takes the audience somewhere new.

Everything "Hulk" fails at doing.”

E ME:   How many licks does it take to get to the center of The Hulk?