December 21, 2004

Now is the winter of our Oscar discontent
Made glorious summer movies by this spawn of Lucas;
And all the screeners that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

A few trailers have popped up in the last few days that have awoken me from my wintery Oscar haze and got me thinking about the Summer, now five months away. And it's gonna be a weird one!

Once again, studios will mine April with some titles that seem, from a distance, to have a lot of upside. MGM is currently scheduled to unload both Beauty Shop and The Amityville Horror in first two weekends of April. While Beauty Shop seems to have some clear space, Amityville is probably in a bad space as the geeks are sure to be completely obsessed with the Frank Miller/Robert Rodriguez Sin City, which seems to be intended to recreate the look of Miller's high intensity graphic novel. In the third weekend of the month, there is something for the adults… Sydney Pollack's thriller The Interpreter.

SUMMER STARTS

But summer starts on April 29, as Sony/Revolution's XXX: State of the Nation, directed by Lee Tamahori and now starring Ice Cube, breaks out. With a lot of egos out of the way, it seems from the trailer that they finally hit the formula that made the XXX idea an intriguing alternative to Bond.

Of course, getting "summer to start" before May has not really worked out before. There have been some April successes, but not the kind of May breakouts we've become used to. But one of the things that seems to encourage it more this year is the first weekend of May films that are lined up so far. The first point is that it is films, not film. Without a singularity of focus on the Ridley Scott epic (Kingdom of Heaven) or the quirky cult wannabe (The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy), May 6 becomes just another date.

The J-Fo/J-Lo Monster-In-Law may outgross both of the other films, but we can be sure that it is not going to do Spider-Man or X2 business and will have to reach to get to even Van Helsing numbers, no matter how good it is.

If I had to guess from here, I would say that XXX2 has a good chance of being the biggest film of the four that "start the summer." The big question will be whether Sony can sell that notion and get the opening number past the $40 million mark… a feat to date only managed in April by Anger Management.

THE BIG ONE(S)

There are only two films that can hope to compete with Star Wars: Episode Three - Revenge of the Sith and get anywhere near the $300 million mark for the summer… The Longest Yard and Batman Begins.

Episode One did $431 million and Episode Two did $302 million, both domestically. Episode Three, which is likely to get the best reviews of the groups - positive big city reviews for a second-era Star Wars film? - should be somewhere in between.

The precedent that The Longest Yard will try to match is Bruce Almighty's $243 million domestic. Batman Begins will be chasing the first Tim Burton film's $251 million gross… which was real money back in 1989, then making it the seventh highest domestic grosser of all time.

THE BIG KIDS

The family audience is being well served this summer with six films directly aimed at that demographic target.

The presumed leaders in the category, seemingly capable of passing the $150 million mark, are DreamWorks Animation's Madagscar, about some Central Park Zoo animals trying to make the trip back to the wild, and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp/John August re-think of the Roald Dahl book that we all remember from both reading the book and from the 1971 classic, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Chasing dollars with familiar other-media franchise titles are The Fantastic Four, which will lay heavily on the comic book community and style with no stars and a no-name directo, and Herbie: Fully Loaded, which will lean on the unbelievably familiar well-engineered pop roundness that seems to have its own personality… and besides Ms. Lohan's chest, it will feature a Volkswagon Bug. (Fantastic Four's Ms. Alba also sells the skintight, not only in FF, but in MGM's Into The Blue as the end of the summer.) Has anyone at Disney realized the set-up they are giving the tabloids, which have been chasing Ms. Lohan's fully loaded party behavior for a year now?

Culty teen girl book The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants will try to get traction. But the other unknown name of the genre has a lot more box office upside. Robert Rodriguez brings is The Adventures Of Lava Girl & Shark Boy. No idea what that is? Well, you didn't know what Spy Kids was either. It will be in 3-D and if the June 10 date holds, it will be Rodriguez' second release in two months… an amazing achievement, especially in this era.

FOR THE ADULTS

Chasing adult money - and hoping to grab a lot of teenage eyeballs at the same time - is Cinderella Man. Right now… that's it. Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger in a period dramatic romance directed by Ron Howard. Cool.

And there is the thriller Skeleton Key, starring Kate Hudson, which will have to prove it belongs in the summer game at all.

MORE ACTION

There are a couple of other big action movies coming. One just has to wonder about how up the upside is.

Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise will come out with a new take on War of The Worlds.

Doug Liman teams up with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for Mr. & Mrs. Smith, another film in the male-and-female-assassin-try-to-kill-one-another genre. If it's good, it should do well here, but with only one week to get the action crowd before Batman Begins begins.

You can expect one of the big stories around these films to be the international box office for the films, following Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise's greatest star power.

DUH-MB STUFF

Sometimes dumb films turn out to be a lot of fun and have great success. Sometimes, they should have stayed on the shelf. This summer, we have a sequel, a remake and a remake from another medium with Rob Schneider's Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo,
Steve Martin's The Pink Panther, and Boss Hogg's The Dukes of Hazzard. In fact, 12 of the 23 films currently with dates are sequels, remakes or pulls from TV.

THE SECRET HITS?

Clear of The Longest Yard are the other two potentially big comedies of the summer, Bewitched and The Wedding Crashers. Both have upside and downside and no way to know until we see the films.

Bewitched will be top heavy with both Nicole Kidman and Will Farrell and the request that we actually believe that they sleep in the same bed on purpose. Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine, Steve Carell, Joan Plowright… and Amy Sedaris as Gladys Kravitz fill out some of the familiar TV roles. Will Nora Ephron hit the right tone or will it have Stepford-it is? It's not an easy get.

The Wedding Crashers is another Owen & Vince flick with the premise that two guys crash weddings all the time to eat, drink and bed bridesmaids. But when they run into Rachel McAdams and her family, which includes Christopher Walken, Jane Seymour, and Isla Fisher, they stick around… long enough to fall in love!

Okay… so it could suck. Or it could be a near My Best Friend's Wedding. We'll see.

THE END

Of course, dates will change. I wouldn't be shocked if the e-mails starting coming in minutes after this publishes, explaining what's already moved that I missed. But that is the summer as it lays out.

My sense is that it is one of the least hectic schedules in a few years, in part because there are few wannabe monster hits. Star Wars, Batman, Fantastic Four and War of the Worlds, with Charlie & The Chocolate Factory as the potential Pirates of The Caribbean of this summer. While Fantastic Four has the greatest flop potential, Fox has kept the budget under control by using no-names all around. While there aren't a lot of huge movies reaching for the sky, that also means that there are a lot fewer that could crash and burn and leave an unsightly mess. After all, are your really sweating The Pink Panther or Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? Kingdom of Heaven has some of that danger… but the potential upside too.

The countdown has begun… five months until we are all taking The Big Dip.

THE CURRENT SCHEDULE (as of 12/21/04)

April 1
Sin City
Beauty Shop
The Weather Man

April 15
The Amityville Horror

April 22
The Interpreter

April 29
XXX: State of the Union

May 6
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Kingdom of Heaven
Monster In Law

May 13
empty

May 19
Star Wars: Episode Three - Revenge of the Sith

May 27
The Longest Yard
Madagscar

June 3
Cinderella Man
Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants

June 10
The Adventures Of Lava Girl & Shark Boy
Mr & Mrs. Smith

June 17
Batman Begins

June 29
War of the Worlds

July 1
Fantastic Four

July 8
Bewitched
Skeleton Key

July 15
Charlie & The Chocolate Factory

July 22
The Pink Panther
The Wedding Crashers

July 29
The Dukes of Hazzard

August 3
Herbie: Fully Loaded

August 12
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

August 19
Into The Blue

READER OF THE DAY: TRAV-LING MAN writes: "Did you actually read Bolero's letter that was printed today? He said Julia Ormond won an Oscar for The English Patient - try again. It was Juliette Binoche, nominated again in 2000 as Best Actress, Leading, for Chocolat."

And GOING BACK TO CALI writes: "I enjoy reading your column but I don't understand your negative campaigning against 'Closer' at the Box Office. It's really doing quite solidly in 1090 theaters with a strong average -- in the top ten for three weeks with comparatively less theaters than the others. 'Closer' should get a good mention for being a hard R-rated, adult-oriented film doing well against a load of PG and PG 13 family holiday blockbuster films.

Even more misleadingly, you lumped 'Closer' with 'Spanglish' saying it was made for more than most dramas and would lose millions for SONY. This is simply not true.

"Spanglish" budget was a wopping $80 million, plus it debuted in over 2,400 theaters. 'Closer' has half the budget and half the number of prints.

There are one or two articles saying that 'Closer' was made for under $40 million (saying $30 and $37 mil). A bit last week from Variety.com regarding its relatively LOW cost for a studio film gives the 'Closer' budget as $27 million, far below what the average studio film costs to produce, and contrary to your claims.

While I agree that 'Closer' may not make it to $30 million at the domestic box office (It will make that if allowed to stay in theaters through Feb) -- certainly it will do well enough in dvd and overseas
to make back the $27 million production cost. Yep, I realize that marketing could be $20 million or more, but you did claim it would lose on it's high production costs.

The Variety article also reveals that "Sideways" costs $16 million, not the reported $11 or 12 million listed in order to qualify as an "indie" for the ISAs. That should be a story -- seems unfair to real indies with
little studio advertising (like $2.5 mil "Garden State") to bend the rules for 'Sideways.' Very misleading.

If you have some other sources for a higher than $30 or $40 million cost for 'Closer', I will glady rethink my complaint. :) Otherwise it seems like you are unfairly reporting inaccurate information, for
whatever reason. Hopefully not just because you didn't like 'Closer' personally and you find satisfaction if it does poorly at box office, with
critics, and with the public. Yep, I'm one of the many who loved it, but not for the reasons you presumed in an earlier 'Closer' review. In fact, for all the ones who give it an "F" a lot of people and critics like the film."

E-ME: I'm not campaigning against Closer. Very few studio dramas are made at any price. A total gross of $30 million domestic for a high profile film starring Julia Roberts is not a happy number. And, indeed, it might make money for the studio once all the ancillaries are in. I'm not going to get into a fight over the budget, as neither you nor I nor Variety knows the truth. And that is fine. The bottom line is that Sony/Columbia has had a very good year and that these two titles, for which expectations were very, very high given the talent involved, are a bit of a downer on the way out.

For the record, I don't hate Closer and have never indicated anything like an "F" rating. And I have no investment in its box office limitations. In fact, quite the opposite, since a $60 million gross for Closer would encourage more studios to make the courageous call that Sony did in the first place by greenlighting that film. Borderline profitability encourages more execs to think inside the box. And that is a shame.

Enjoying failure is not a good thing... except when it's something like Catwoman. But that horror still grossed $40 million domestic. And The Day After Tomorrow was a hugely profitable film. Now... please excuse me while I throw up.

But before I go... I don't know of anyone who ever suggested that Sideways was made for $12 million... the ISA number was $15 million last year and $16 million this year. Many outlets reported Sideways' price tag last spring. That IFP continues to slowly expand its rule is a story, but it is more complex than finger-pointing at Sideways. And I have written that story, so perhaps you should look it up.

And how is Searchlight's Garden State a real indie if Searchlight's Sideways is not? Because it got picked up at a festval?