 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| |||||
August 11, 2005FALL PREVIEW - NOV/DEC
For the second half of the fall, I've decided to take another approach. Instead of looking at the season by date, why not take a look by genre?COMEDY
You can see the impact of 2004 pretty clearly in the comedy genre this year. Not only is there an increase from six releases to eight, but half of them are currently scheduled for "The Fockers Slot."First, in November, you have two double dates. On November 4, Fox puts out what is sure to be the best reviewed comedy of this year and beyond, The Family Stone. The Weinstein Company, which defies quietly held expectations across the industry, is scheduled to release their Sundance pick-up, The Matador, on the same date. But how many screens can they find and how well will a comedy about Bond as a drunk hitman track? We'll see.
It's three full weeks before the next two comedies arrive with Focus' Harold Ramis film, Ice Harvest, with Billy Bob Thornton and John Cusack and New Line's Roger Kumble comedy, Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds, Chris Klein, Anna Farris, and Amy Smart. Both films seem to be angling for the edge of Bad Santa.
Then it is a month before the onslaught of three major comedy releases and one likely-to-move indie. Jim Carrey will be hard to beat in Fun With Dick & Jane. The much-troubled Jennifer Aniston film, Rumor Has It, has Warner Bros. hoping that people want to see Our Jen do the dirty with Kevin Costner as much they did Brad & Angie. Johnny Knoxville will be dumber than a Duke in Fox Searchlight's The Ringer, a comedy about an able bodied guy who enters the Special Olympics. Lions Gate's Hard Candy was the edgiest of the Sundance comedies this year, but there's not a lot of room to work this Christmas.
FAMILY MOVIES
There were five family films last holiday season and the same is true this year. They are decently spread out this year, though you have to wonder if Sony is pushing it a bit, putting Zathura just a week after Disney's first in-house CG animation, Chicken Little, arrives on November 4. It may turn out that Chicken Little is a weak player, but if it isn't, it could face a $25 million second weekend against its opening and have to face Harry Potter the next weekend.Paramount's counter to Fox's Cheaper By the Dozen franchise, Yours, Mine and Ours, arrives on November 23, the day before Thanksgiving, five days after Potter 4 lands.
These titles have got a lot of room to play before Cheaper By The Dozen 2 and the announced Weinstein Company animation pick-up, Hoodwinked, are due. The choice to try to keep Hoodwinked in that slot may be influenced greatly by the numbers on Disney's pick-up Valiant, opening late this summer.
FOREIGN
There are only two foreign language films currently scheduled by the majors or dependents or the high profile indies this season. The Weinstein Company plans of releasing The Promise from Chen Kaige. And Sony Classics releases Michael Haneke's Cache on December 23.URBAN
Likewise, there are only two urban films due this season. The first is Jim Sheridan's 50 Cent drama, Get Rich or Die Tryin', which will try to separate the power of its music from the Broadway wails of Rent, opening on the same day, November 11. Two weeks later, Lions Gate works the Romeo & Juliet turf with Usher as the black guy who falls for mafia Don Chazz Palmenteri's hot daughter in Dying For Dolly.ACTION
There are really only three action movies hitting the cineplexes in the holiday season without franchise credentials. First up is the Wachowski Bros' graphic novel adaptation of the intense and political V for Vendetta on November 4. There is a little taste of Dimension post-Disney, as they may or may not release Wolf Creek, a pitch black Texas Chainsaw wannabe from the Aussie outback, on November 18. And then Paramount takes its one shot at a big holiday season movie with the MTV-inspired Aeon Flux, featuring Charlize Theron in tight rubber.OSCAR CHASERS
This year, as so many before it, features a large number of films that hope to be box office successes, but have one eye glued on Oscar's shiny gold butt. I count eighteen such holiday releases this year, nine in November, nine in December.Jarhead gets the jump on the other late season entrants, arriving on November 4, competing commercially with V for Vendetta for the imagination of serious moviegoers.
Fox Searchlight recently moved Bee Season to November 11, which only makes sense because there really is no good date in November. But the wave of direct competition will come from Sony's Rent, which will try to reach the middle of the road awards audience, much like Bee Season. Meanwhile, New Line drops Terry Malick's The New World into the mix, hoping that this is the moment in which people are ready to look at the birth of this country and to get behind the Native Americans emotionally.
Breakfast on Pluto is a smaller film directed by a major director, Neil Jordan. Focus Features moved Keira Knightley's debut in the Jane Austen game, Pride & Prejudice on to that same November 18 date. The only awards focused film without a British accent that weekend may be the most aggressive competitor, Fox's Walk The Line, which features near-lock Oscar nomination performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon.
Arriving five days later, in time for Thanksgiving, are the James Ivory film, White Countess, a wartime period drama which features three Redgraves and is the last film produced by Ismael Merchant ,and the other George Clooney title of the season - this time exclusively as an actor/producer, Stephen Gaghan's CIA thriller, Syriana.
December promises to kick off with Harvey Weinstein's Best Actress candidate, Felicity Hoffman, as a pre-op transsexual in Transamerica, scheduled for December 2.
Things really heat up on December 9, as Sony unleashes Memoirs of A Geisha on America, hoping that audiences and voters alike are in the right mood for a period drama about women. Focus, on the other hand, hopes we're ready for gay cowboys who prove they are gay on screen, as Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain arrives with Heath Ledger as the top and Jake Gyllenhaal as the bottom. Yee haw!
Sony unloads its other awards barrel seven days later with the Sean Penn/Jude Law/Kate Winslet/James Gandolfini remake of the classic All the King's Men.
The next ten days offer the last five major entires. First Universal unwraps its fifth Oscar-seeking present with The Producers, the film version of the stage musical of the film. Just two days later, Steven Spielberg's arrives, though its Oscar credentials will be well established by critics groups even before it is released. On Christmas, Disney uses one of the Weinstein's favorite Oscar fishermen, Lasse Hallstrom, and Heath Ledger as the ultimate heterosexual, Casanova. Woody Allen returns to form with a drama for DreamWorks, Match Point, which could also be the last film released by DreamWorks as a standalone company. Finally, Harvey pulls one of his favorite awards candidates, Dame Judi Dench, as the proprietor of a male strip theater in Mrs. Henderson Presents.
FRANCHISES
There are three holiday season films for which $100 million is only the beginning. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire arrives six days before Thanksgiving. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe hits screens December 9, hoping to be the launch of the next Lord of the Rings-like franchise. And the Lord of the Rings himself, Skinny Pete Jackson, brings his very own 8000 pound gorilla to the gate, King Kong. 'Tis the beast that hopes to suck up all the beauty-ful money.
