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April 13, 2004Remember June 18…
The Terminal looks like the first great dark horse smash hit of 2004… not to mention being the first serious Oscar contender to be released. (Kate Winslet and Charlie Kaufman will be the only nominees from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.)
I had the good fortune of getting a glimpse at the trailer for the film on Monday and found myself watching it over and over and over again, unable to quite believe how it hit me right on the sweet spot. DreamWorks didn't make the trip to ShoWest or you would have heard about this trailer as the next one in the tradition of Forrest Gump, which went from 0 to 100 for Paramount (and Tom Hanks) way back when.
One hates to lay it all out over a trailer. But every once in a while, a brief glimpse can unassailably mark a movie as a disaster… or a smash. Hanks has not had a role that fits this well since Cast Away and hasn't had the physical, dramatic and comedic combo opportunity that this offers since Gump. But that's not all. Catherine Zeta-Jones, who manages to be toned down (no noticeable eye make-up and a semi-blunt cut) and still be gorgeous, brings more humanity to her acting portfolio in just a few lines here than I have seen in other performances. Stanley Tucci, Barry Henley, Diego Luna, Chi McBride, Kumar Pallana, and Zoe Saldana all show glimpses of making a tight, likeable ensemble in support.
But perhaps best of all, Steven Spielberg seems to have found a project that just relaxes into his wheelhouse. I really liked Minority Report and think it is underrated. Catch Me If You Can had wonderful stuff in it, but had a lot of style to get past. Here, Spielberg seems to be letting the actors do the work, but also, in just a couple of minutes, you can see some real magic with the camera by Spielberg and his D.P., Janusz Kaminski (who should have been nominated and probably should have won and Oscar for Minority Report). They built the airport concourse for the film and the use of both handheld cameras and major crane shots, plus the bounce of the light on lots and lots of shiny floors… and all that glass! What I saw was virtually in black & white (for internal security purposes), but you can still see how rich the lighting of such a familiar setting is.
The trailer itself is just right and deserves a lot of praise for its inventiveness. The device used to set up the story, which I won't give away because you'll enjoy discovering it for yourself, is so obvious… in that way that something is so obvious and perfect that it had to have been done before. But it hasn't. Not this way. There is a classic trailer tone change with a song - again seemingly obvious - but just so right. And the out gag… just a beautiful piece of comic editing. Best of all… you get a good sense of the movie, but you don't feel like you've already seen the whole thing.
I spent some time on Sunday night and Monday with various people discussing the summer to come (my summer preview column at MCN arrives this Thursday) and expressing concern that things were not quite catching yet. There will be lots of popular movies, make no mistake. But in a summer loaded with $150 million-plus product (and no fewer than three $200 million films), a bunch of $150 million grosses is not going to leave anyone grinning in the privacy of their offices. The Terminal trailer, completely unexpected, was just what the doctor ordered. A real treat.
THE BIG PICTURE - With this last horrible box office weekend and the inevitable pile-on by media thrilled by the notion of a second $350 million crucifixion in one year, I decided that it was time to take a slightly closer look at where things are in the year to date. I have never been much on domestic share charts, since the amount a studio grosses overall is fairly irrelevant. If you have a $750 million gross with 3 movies or 12, these charts don't know the difference. Whatever you spent on your movies goes without analysis.
That said, I am not going to estimate the expenditure on production and distribution for each studio. It's more fair in the summer, when those numbers get more attention and more sources have better information. But I am not prepared today to get into who paid what on Spartan or how much My Baby's Daddy really cost.
Here is the chart I made up. It reflects only movies that have been released this year.
Domestic Box Office - January 1 - April 11, 2004
Distributor (# of 2004 titles)
(bold = $50m plus)
Gross To Date
(millions)
Per FilmNewmarket (1) $353m Universal (2) $71.7m Sony (4) $61.5m New Line (1) $57.7m MGM (3) $38.4m Buena Vista (7) $32.8m Warner Bros. (8) $28.6m DreamWorks (2) $17.4m Paramount (4) $14.9m Focus (2) $13m Fox (3) $12.4m Miramax (5) $8.9m Lions Gate (2) $7.1m Fox Searchlight (3) $4.3m Here is what I see that's interesting…
1) After 15 weekends, there are 10 films that have grossed more than $50 million and 2 that have passed the $100 million mark. Last year, it was 8 at $50 million and 3 at more than $100 million. The year before, it was 7 at $50 million and 1 at $100 million. So clearly the first quarter opportunity is there. What is keeping studios from exploiting it even more effectively?
2) Every title released by the distributors in the top five slots of this chart has a very clear demographic appeal. The two widest targeted films in this group, romantic comedies 50 First Dates and Along Came Polly, are not surprisingly the second and third highest grossers of the year so far. Stunningly, these are the only two mainstream romantic comedies on the board. There are romantic comedies for teen girls and Jersey Girl tried to position itself as a romantic comedy, but there were just the two mainstreamers, really. This is the second straight year with two big romantic comedies in spring… get it?
3) Warner Bros. and Disney have by far the most releases produced in house and pay a price for the lack of selectivity. On the other hand, each studio has a clear weakness. Warner Bros. comedies didn't work and Disney's bottom line would look a whole lot better if they had stuck with family fare and not tried to stick two fall or mid-summer change of pace movies (The Ladykillers and The Alamo) into the spring. I'm not sure they would have had a massive improvement in the box office for either. But they might have had a better shot. And I sure would have preferred Mr. 3000 as a March/April comedy release.
4) MGM's "can't lose" strategy of releasing only sequels and established franchise product has worked, even if the dividends were not huge. Walking Tall should have been moved away from Hellboy. The showdown cost both studios millions.
5) DreamWorks has a terrific marketing and publicity team, but anything good gets rusty when it's left languishing in the garage.
6) Disney is right about in the middle of the pack this year, in spite of expensive holdovers The Alamo and Hildago. No question that the studio is under pressure. But where is the journalism in screaming about how much better for Disney Peter Chernin would be, using filmed entertainment as a battering ram, when Disney's releases have averaged more than 2.5 times what Fox's have this year? Fox's year should be improving significantly over the summer. I even think that Garfield could work itself out as a strong kids movie. The point is not to attack Fox. But to offer some perspective on Disney's situation.
7) Go with God.
READER OF THE DAY: This came from YOU CAN CALL ME AL: "I have an example of why movies are just as good -- or better -- on TV/DVD than in a theater. You and I are pretty much the same age and certainly saw films in the theater as children. But as a professional, I bet that many of the films that you may consider to be amongst the greatest of all time (Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane) were based on viewings you made on TV from VHS tapes or DVD. Some we may have seen in the theater when we were 8 years old, but until we watched them at home as adults that's when we knew. Is this correct? Seeing them in the theater environment didn't matter. I would never give up my experiences as a child seeing "Star Wars," "Empire Strikes Back," "Jaws," "Alien," or "Animal House" in the theater, but it's so different for an impressionable 8-14 year old boy than as an adult. Therefore, in my opinion, movies are best seen in theaters for children"
E ME: Oy. Read. Respond.
