August 13, 2003

No Hot Button today, but check out my first Oscar Column of the season - 29 Weeks To Oscar at Movie City News.

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August 12, 2003

I was wondering about the significance of the estimated $37.4 million start for S.W.A.T. and how good $37.4 million looks at this point in the summer, so I took a look at some numbers that I thought might be interesting….

In May, this summer scored four of the Top Eight all-time May openings and two of the Top Three. In June, it was two of the Top Five June openings. By July, we ended up with three of the Top Ten… but they ranked eight-nine-ten. This month, we’ve the fifth and sixth best August starters, beat out by two titles in each of the last two years. Worse, in the last two Augusts, there has been a $60m+ and a $40m+ starter. This year, our top titles, American Wedding and S.W.A.T., both started in the 30s.

In other words… it’s been a downhill slide. Now everyone has already kind of agreed to this, even if both American Wedding & S.W.A.T. will surely be profitable with these opening numbers. But the question is, why the slide?

It is easy to say that the movies got worse as the summer progressed or that people got burned in May and June and gave up, but while the openings are falling off, business is not that bad. The openings of Pirates of the Caribbean, T3 and Bad Boys II are nearly indistinguishable. But Pirates will do more than the other two combined. A good movie can still break through with a mid-level opening. On the other hand, this will be the first August of the last three to go without a $200 million movie.

I think the most significant issue responsible for the downward turn was fatigue and an overwhelming amount of success in opening movies. The Hollywood marketing machines have matured. Perhaps they are now a little overripe.

In fifteen weekends of the summer so far, there have been fifteen $25 million-plus openings and another five between $20 million and $25 million. That represents by far the most $20 million-plus summer opening weekends in history. But, as it turns out, that is not necessarily a good thing.

The average “big opening” this summer was $44.2 million. That would be the worst such average in the last three summers. The current up trend started in 2001, when 14 “big openers” averaged $44.2 million, a significant jump from 2000’s 14 “big openers” average of $33.7. The trend continued last summer, as the average for 13 big openers jumped to $51.4 million. And, unlike the overall gross number for last summer and last year, the numbers for Spider-Man and Attack of the Clones did not bend these statistics by much. Head-to-head against X2 and Matrix Reloaded, there is only a $12 million difference.

But it’s worse! This summer had nine movies that cost over $100 million to produce… another record. Last summer, there were seven and only five the year before that - when Pearl Harbor was given the controversial most expensive greenlight ever. Michael Eisner was proven prescient when that film did a lot of box office, but still it was barely a breakeven movie. (I know… benefit of the doubt…) Nonetheless, in the year after that, there were no less than three films scheduled for this summer that were greenlit at more than the budget for Pearl Harbor. One of them, in the ultimate irony, was Bruckheimer & Bay’s Bad Boys II, which will underperform Pearl Harbor domestically by at least $40 million. And this is not a Bay bash. The first person to get Bay to make an action movie for $80 million or less will surely hit the jackpot. The thing about BBII is, you can open a movie to $46.5 million and still be sweating profitability in a big way.

But I digress…

Hollywood has proven that, at base, it can consistently open an average of a movie a weekend during the summer to an average of over $40 million apiece. Even if you take away the two highest and two lowest grosser of this group each year, you’re still in that range. (And, by the way, 2003 dips just under the $40 million mark in that analysis, while last summer remains at $47 million average… again, it’s wasn’t just Spidey and Clones.)

It is possible to have a serious dip in future years, but given the power of marketing in today’s business and the focus on opening weekend, I am willing to say that the marketing departments can maintain this status quo.

What I see as hope in a reaction to this marketing stability is a move away from Hollywood’s version of the old poli-military term, Mutual Assured Destruction. Assuming that advertising dollars are not going to dip anytime soon, the variables that they can control is the cost of production and quality. And since quality is not really a completely controllable variable, regardless of the talent involved, regardless of high or low concept, regardless of how many critics drone on about “if someone at the studio cared…”

I guess unsurprisingly, Disney is the studio that advanced furthest down the road to financial sanity. The only major risk projects they have this year are Pirates of The Caribbean (which they gave to Bruckheimer on a budget), The Haunted Mansion (which they gave to Stuart Little/Lion King director Rob Minkoff and insure by family favorite Eddie Murphy), and The Alamo (for which they stuck to their budget and rating guns, despite having to give up on Oscar-winning director Ron Howard to make it happen).

Columbia’s Amy Pascal and Revolution’s Joe Roth went on record last week in the Wall Street Journal and the L.A. Times, saying that their spending will be tighter in future. (The least reported upon piece of news coming out of the stories was that Rob Cohen will not be back for XXX2, which points to a whole different story about Vin Diesel’s future.) They also are jumping back onto a new Zorro movie with Banderas and Martin Campbell and a light romp with Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz… smart.

DreamWorks springs back to life next year after a slumbering 2003 with 2 major new animated films, Cameron Crowe, Spielberg & Hanks, Michael Mann & Tom Cruise, some inexpensive comedies and an actual (cheap) art film. It’s not conservative, but they are definitely investing big only in top quality teams and franchises.

Fox is lining up a whole load of relatively cheap comedies, family and otherwise, to compliment its big summer boom booms, which next year are The Day After Tomorrow, I., Robot and Alien vs. Predator.

MGM has a total of six titles on the board, two of them sequels to hits from the last year. It doesn’t look like the studio will be getting anywhere near a $100 million budget until Bond returns in 2005.

New Line will coast on Lord of the Rings profits through most of next year, riding Blade and The Mask back to “Classic New Line.” In other words, no worries about overspending there.

Paramount is already known as the leader in split rights and no one wears a tighter belt than Jon Dolgen.

The only big money risk next year at Universal is Van Helsing, which is the summer opener and relies on classic monsters and Hugh Jackman’s flowing locks. The insanity of 2003’s six-release summer will be replaced by just three strong titles next summer, according to the current calendar. And after the marketing department resurrects the classic monsters of the studio’s past, it will find itself trying to resurrect Vin Diesel’s career… a far more impressive feat if accomplished. And they will leave us wondering why Kirsten Dunst’s Wimbledon whites are being left on the shelf until football season. But overall, a fairly conservative line-up.

Warner Bros. is the most intense spender in the group right now. But they do seem intent on building on franchise players… no pun intended. Matrix, Looney Tunes and Tom Cruise this year. The Exorcist, Scooby Doo, Brad Pitt & Wolfgang Petersen, Harry Potter, Catwoman, Luhrmann & DiCaprio, Hanks & Zemeckis and the gang from Ocean’s 11 are all on the way next year. That around $900 million in production costs for those eight films alone.

Will Hollywood adjust course on its own, without a tragedy? It looks like it.

In the meantime, S.W.A.T.’s opening means that they’ll probably have a chance to get it better in the sequel. It also proves that you don’t need to spend a fortune to get a solid return.

You can make a good $70 million movie or a bad $70 million movie. You can make a good $130 million movie or a bad $130 million movie. A simple cop flick can be grand or it can be a bore. Spending 90 minutes with three charming, sexy movie stars can be a joy or it can be a chore.

I know that some of you will be unhappy that I am reducing this conversation to a financial one. The thing that too many people forget is that they are different conversations. Most art film lovers’ favorite films of this year likely cost less combined than their favorite studio film of the year. Just because a studio makes a big CG movie that is intended to gross $200 million domestic, it does not mean that it can’t make something small and intended for true greatness… they just can’t sell it! HA HA!!! Kidding. Kind of.

But seriously… as I wrote on Friday, I worry about increasing budgets at the art-majors and the competitive effect, much as I am thrilled that there will be more money out there targeting quality at a price. First one at a major to have some money left in the budget at the end of the year wins…

READER OF THE DAY: T.M. sends us the Gobble, Gobble from Down Under: “Columbia in Australia have just given GIGLI its other title TOUGH LOVE and moved its release date from October 2 to October 23.

This is probably part of an international redo on the film by Columbia to try and escape from the bad US press.

PS. Columbia Pictures is still called Columbia TriStar in Australia. They do not use the Sony name anywhere at all.”

And TAIWAN STEVE offers up what I hope will be the final (unedited) insight about Gigli… ever!!!!: “It's such a coincidental that all three summer movies bomb in roll came from Columbia, all starring singing Divas.

First, it's "Glitter" with Mariah Carey. This film is presented by Columbia and 20th Century Fox. After this movie, they don't work together anymore.

Last year, it's "Swept Away" with My favorite Madonna. Unfortunately, it's Columbia, too. Gay Ritchie is not talented enough to turn his wife into the great actress. I am really disappointed about him.

This year, it's "Gigli" with J. Lo. I like J. Lo, I love to sing her songs, even such dummy like "All I Have".

It's so funny nobody who works in Columbia finds out the movie title sounds like Mariah's false one. Isn't it the sign that "Gigli" would step on the fate of "Glitter" or something?”

E ME: As always, Taiwan Steve leaves me speechless. How about you?

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