March 29, 2004

Well… nothing much has changed in a week.

Universal gets a gold star for opening Dawn Of The Dead, even if it dropped off by 60% or more in its second weekend. Disney and Warner Bros. folks should feel pretty good about getting Hidalgo to around $65 million domestic and Starsky & Hutch to about $85 million.

But this last weekend… not pretty. It’s all well and good for people to be happy with opening grosses that outdo tracking. But the bigger picture is something else indeed.

It’s been over 13 years since a Tom Hanks movie opened to as little as The Ladykillers opened. 13 years. Philadelphia opened on 4 screens, but that very specific exception should not distract from the rule… and the film went on to gross over $77 million. Interestingly, Philadelphia, Oscar win and all, was the last Tom Hanks film to gross less than $100 million. That was more than a decade ago.

But that isn’t even the tough part… the $13 million estimate Disney gave out may well have been inspired by the $12.5 million opening weekend of the Coen Bros.’ last movie, Intolerable Cruelty, which had Clooney and Zeta-Jones… who combined are not Tom Hanks level box office stars, due respect offered. Had The Ladykillers failed to match that number, the agony would have been exquisite indeed.

Also taking a step backwards, albeit a much smaller step, was Kevin Smith, whose Jersey Girl, complete with a flailing Ben Affleck, was estimated by MCN’s Len Klady to open at $8.5 million, $1.5 million behind the opening of Smith’s last film, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which opened without stars to $11 million in late summer, 2001. It is much closer to Lions Gate’s 1999 November $8.7 million opening for Dogma. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back went on to gross just over $30 million domestic for Miramax and it looks like Jersey Girl will have a hard time getting to $25 million. Still, it will make money after ancillary income comes in.

And while a comic book movie like Green Hornet has more box office potential than any of Mr. Smith’s earlier pictures, he will be the second Miramax franchise director in three years to make a movie that is more expensive than anything else he has ever directed by multiples. (QT’s Kill Bill was more than five times his most expensive prior outing and Kevin’s Green Hornet will be about three times more expensive than Jersey Girl.) I believe that Mr. Smith will be more responsible with his budget than was Mr. Tarantino and that the film will be his biggest career grosser. That said, why isn’t Weinstein teaming Kevin up with a director he likes and trusts to allow him his first-ever true collaboration instead of setting him up to walk a tightrope. Ironically, it could be just like a comic book, where a writer and an artist come together to make magic. That would be revolutionary.

The big distraction of the weekend was Scooby Doo 2’s estimated $30.7 million start which, in the old days would be just fine and in the recent history of sequels, is a minor disaster. This is the one that outdid tracking by a significant amount. But who really gives a damn about that? The real issue is a $100 million-plus movie that will gross around $160 million worldwide (unless the foreign market, that was about 80% of domestic last time, gets even wiser than we Americans have) will have to make up $40 million to $60 million in ancillary markets before breaking even.

This puts Scooby Doo in the same place as Sony’s Charlie’s Angels franchise and even, in a way, the WB Batman franchise. There is clearly an audience that will show up no matter what crap they dish out, so long as it tastes familiar. But if the studio wants to make money, they have to find a way to do the Doo for less money, which in this case means either tough talent negotiations – which might work, since none of the Doo cast has emerged as a real box office draw - or recasting.

The funny thing is that while the overall box office is doing well this year, the amount of product being thrown into theaters and the cost of making those films is off-setting the positive strides at almost every turn. At the end of the first quarter of 2004, there will be have been 20 films released that will gross more than $20 million. There were 22 such titles last year.

If you add up the grosses of all these titles and estimate final numbers for this year’s already-in-release product, the total should be about the same from last year’s 22 to this year’s 20. However, the massive anomaly is The Passion of The Christ, which should surpass last year’s top first quarter grosser by about $250 million, making it comparable to Spider-Man in terms of twisting box office stats.

The biggest shock in this first quarter of 2004 is the superstar power outage. Tom Hanks joins Jim Carrey, Ben Affleck, Frankie Muniz, Ashley Judd, Meg Ryan, Val Kilmer, Bernardo Bertolucci, Heath Ledger, Naomi Watts, Broken Lizard, Owen Wilson, Mandy Moore, Ray Romano and Ice Cube on the list of names coming up short at the box office in the first quarter of this year.

It’s hard to smack Ashton Kutcher for opening The Butterfly Effect and getting it to $57 million domestic. On the other hand, he was in that turd, Just Married, last year and took it to $56 million. So, has he moved up the ladder this year?

Ben Stiller has become the $85 million man this year, with two titles in three months that should end up about there by the end of their runs. This follows his last two lead role box office numbers, in Duplex - $5m/$10m (open/domestic total) – and Zoolander - $16m/$45m… so it looks awfully good. On the other hand, both films are only about half way to his career high in Meet The Parents.

Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore’s 50 First Dates did well and should top out at a little over $120 million domestic. But the bad news is that it is Sandler’s weakest showing – excepting Little Nicky – since his first pairing with Barrymore, The Wedding Singer, launched him into the big time.

My point is not to disrespect any of the actors who have not had their best moments this year. My point is that while The Passion of The Christ has eaten up a lot of box office dollars, March 2004 has still seen three of the ten best March openings of all time. There is money out there to grab. But 2002’s Blade II and Ice Age both kicked Scooby 2’s animated opening ass even though the first Blade did less than half of what Scooby Doo did and Ice Age was a completely unknown commodity from a little known filmmaker for a studio that had a mostly sad animation history. And let’s not even discuss the fact that Ice Age and Blade II combined were cheaper to produce than Scooby 2.

To quote Fred Willard… “Wha’ happened!?!?!?”

It could be that the tyrannical power of Hollywood marketing is falling off a bit and that the industry’s focus on home entertainment income is beginning to show negative dividends in theatrical.

It could be that the niche-ing of Hollywood is coming on strong and that the separation of the haves and the have nots is about to reek havoc in the five months we are about to broach, starting with Hellboy.

Or maybe Analyze This is just a better movie than Starsky & Hutch… maybe Save The Last Dance was just better than You Got Served… maybe The Christ is three times more powerful than The Blair Witch. (Don’t even get me started on the reputation hit that Newmarket is going to take on its new pull-quote driven ads for the most widely exposed movie of the decade.)

I think it is far too simple to say, “Movies used to be better.” Art is art. Business is business. The next big change in how this industry works is already underway.

E ME: I guess you might be Bermuda curious… I’ll get to it…