August 29, 2003

Welcome to one of the most boring commercial movie weekends of the year…

It’s amazing, really. Only one genre film is willing to brave the frozen tundra of a Labor Day Weekend opening. The first Jeepers Creepers opened on the same relative weekend in 2001 and scored a surprising $13.1 million 3-day for the little known horror thriller. Very much like the Friday The 13th series, which segued from the crazy mother who was killing people in her son’s memory to sequels in which the son was, indeed, the killer, Jeepers Creepers 2 seems to take the “What is that?” premise of the original and move into the “How many people will that thing kill?” mode.

Also old and wide this weekend at the box office, The Italian Job makes its final leap at the $100 million mark with a 1964 screen reload. Much as I enjoy having the year of my birth as the number of screens, it would have been far more amusing for them to go out on 1969 screens… marking the year of the original’s release.

All things considered, a good weekend for checking out American Splendor, Thirteen, Dirty Pretty Things, The Magdalene Sisters, Swimming Pool, etc.

This weekend’s guesses are for the four-day weekend…

WEEKEND GUESTIMATES

Jeepers Creepers 2 – 3124 venues – new - $15.3 million
Open Range – 2244 venues – n/a – $7.7 million
S.W.A.T. - 2781 venues - n/a – $7.6 million
Freaky Friday - 3067 venues - n/a – $7.2 million
Pirates OTC - 2227 venues - n/a – $6.2 million
Freddy vs. Jason - 3014 venues - n/a – $5.4 million
The Medallion – 2652 venues – n/a – $5 million
Seabiscuit - 2550 venues - n/a – $4.9 million
American Wedding - 1805 venues - n/a – $4 million
Italian Job – 1964 venues – n/a - $3.8 million
Uptown Girls - 2166 venues - n/a – $2.9 million

QUICK SHIFT: Just a few weeks ago, Columbia seemed to be filling the final slots in a challenging Oscar season, with Big Fish at Thanksgiving and Ron Howard’s film, The Missing, turning up for consideration in mid-December. November remained the hot month and the December pile-up was coming down to Lord of the Rings and Cold Mountain, but a change from the past seem imminent.

BZZT! Wrong!!!

Big Fish moved to a December limited release to support Oscar hopes before a January wide release. DreamWorks finally dropped the other shoe with House of Sand & Fog, setting a Christmas Day release.

And you still have Disney’s The Alamo, Columbia’s Mona Lisa Smile, Universal’s Peter Pan, Disney’s Calendar Girls, Nancy Meyer’s Something’s Gotta Give and limited (with limited prospects) The Girl With The Pearl Earring and The Statement…. all in the last three weekends of the year.

But it is weirder than that. Lord of The Rings is the only title that is likely to be able to wait until early December to screen for the press and awards voters. So the huge parade of hype will be every bit as intensified around Thanksgiving as ever – more so – and you have to know that some of these pictures will be hurt commercially the same way that The Hours and Adaptation and Antwone Fisher were hurt chasing Oscar last year.

And besides the six (Rings, Alamo, Mona Lisa, Pan, Gotta Give and Calendar Girls) that I believe are sure bets commercially, there are also more titles that are not intended as Oscar contenders (Stuck on You, Love Don’t Cost A Thing, Cheaper By The Dozen, Paycheck) jamming things up as well.

My theory that 2003 will stand out in the history of the movie business seems to continue apace. I expect that Underworld and The Rundown will provide the most successful September tandem ever, combined with some real quality in Matchstick Men, Lost In Translation and underdogs with box office potential in Anything Else, Under The Tuscan Sun and The Fighting Temptations.

October is also loaded, with Kill Bill, Runaway Jury, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Scary Movie 3 and Gothika all looking like money movies.

November is simply insane. Even if The Cat in the Hat stiffs, Elf, Matrix Revolutions, Master & Commander, Radio and The Haunted Mansion are all sure cash monsters. But you also have high profile films like Love Actually, 21 Grams, In America and Brother Bear just sitting there, waiting to steal the spotlight.

I just don’t remember a year that seemed this loaded. And suddenly, I find myself worried about the kind of fatigue that plagued the middle of this summer. (Where are all those stories about how strong summer closed with Spy Kids 3D, American Wedding, S.W.A.T. and Freaky Friday?)

JUST SAYING: I’m not at all surprised that Fox passed on their option on the Passion and I am not offended. But, there is something creepy about the ADL being out there getting no-buy commitments from studios.

READER OF THE DAY: THE DANDY writes: “The Lessons I Have Learnt This Summer:

1) That the 1980's is back in a big way! Freddy and Jason - two of the 80's biggest icons have just become more iconic to a whole new generation....The announcement that a number of 80's films will be remade, including the Rodney Dangerfield Classic 'Back to School' and the proposed sequals to Bevelly Hill Cop, Rocky 6, Aliens Vs predator and a live action Transformers says that North America is ready for a big 80's nostalgia quest. Although Europe has been rediscovering the fashions and music of the 80's for sometime now, get ready to rock the caspah in the USA!

2) That any title with an X will now confuse the hell out of the general public. If X2 is the sequel to X-men, then what is the sequel to XXX? XXXXXX2? If Maci X is a box office Bomb, thank God there wasnt Maci V, Maci VI, VII, VIII and VIIII! (Thats a clue for Stallone!) And LXG? What studio thought that was a good idea? Do they really still think the American Public is incapable of prononcing 'Extradinary'....

3)That 3D movies still look awful, even when filmed with the supposedly 'revolutionary 3d camera system'....But since we hadn’t seen a 3D release since 1992's Freddy’s Dead, young kids were awaiting the new chance to discover cinemas long lost gimmick! Be prepared to see a whole slate of pics next summer filmed in crappy 3D!

4)That there is good publicity and bad publicity and then there’s really really bad publicity. Kutcher goes out with Demi Moore; Charlie’s Angels 2 sinks without a heavenly pardon. Kutcher can't open My Bosses Daughter and either can Tara Reid, who likewise thought she was too good for American Pie 3, but will soon be exiting moviemaking altogether with her recent slew of box office duds. Sorry, but the smoky raspiness of her voice only gives college boys a woody for so long.

5) That the summer pie will never die! With most other releases gaining heat for losing money and films like Bad Boys 2 getting a merit badge for making 130 million bucks, American Wedding has been slowly sailing towards the century mark. Given the films low 50 million dollar budget, it’s another pie hit for universal. Given the actors all say they will not do another film; do not let this mislead you into thinking the franchise is over...Revenge of the Nerds managed to spawn 3 sequels after the high grossing original and each managed to pull a decent chunk of the video/theatrical release money at the time, and each did with less and less of the original cast, proving that as long as there is an audience hiding in some auxiliary market, a studio will never give up!

6) That low budget horror is back bigger than ever, as evidenced by 28 days later? A marketing feat or a great film? Both! Many studios will try and copy the films success, but will probably come closer to producing 28 days after - a sequel to the less than warmly received sandra bullock comedy.

7) That Pirates are cool again! Remember how many times during the last 25 years, that movie studios tried to turn pirates into something more than skull and bones....and now Disney have their hit, expect many more pirate films and spoofs to come our way.... Then we will be forced to relive the entire spiral of downhill pirate films that got us where we are today!

8) That Studio Heads will need to triple their insurance premiums as Heart attacks increase with the likelihood of the media using box office figures to help or a kill a film on arrival; regardless of its quality. Just how many massive openings can summer films provide? And just how bad can the media overreaction be when the film doesn’t live up to its promised figures? If this is the trend of the summer, then we may start seeing a lot more media manipulation of the numbers than we currently see.. when the reporting of figures becomes the event before the party, expect the entire nature of hollywood reporting to change...

E ME: Some yes, some no… what do you think?

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