Summer's more dreck than 'Shrek'

By STEVE PERSALL

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 13, 2001

Pearl Harbor bombed, no matter what Disney's spin doctors say. The Mummy returned, but not for long. Atlantis sank almost as fast as Tomb Raider got buried.

Hope you're enjoying the summer of 2001 at the movies. Most of the suits in Hollywood aren't.

Last year at this time, Gladiator, a May release, was still slaying them. Scary Movie, Mission: Impossible 2 and The Perfect Storm had "legs" at the box office. Megaplexes juggled screens to handle the sustained business and accommodate new releases.

This is the summer of cash-and-burn at the box office, when the studios are banking on movies that open with enormous ticket sales followed by a steep dive. This week's must-see movie is becoming next week's I'll-wait-for-home-video.

Studio executives are nervous. They boast about opening grosses, but they depend on follow-up business. Only Shrek and, to a lesser degree, The Fast and the Furious have kept cash registers ringing.

Pearl Harbor opened Memorial Day weekend with $75.1-million in ticket sales, the second highest opening ever. Then the numbers started dropping. Disney president Michael Eisner bragged earlier this year that Pearl Harbor would be Disney's highest-grossing live action film ever. Instead, Pearl Harbor is staggering toward $200-million, a far cry from The Sixth Sense ($293.5-million).

Keep in mind that the World War II love story cost a reported $152-million to make and another $100-million to advertise and distribute to theaters. Overseas box office and home video will eventually make Pearl Harbor profitable, but not the hit Disney would have you believe.

Same goes for The Mummy Returns and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, two expensive projects that left the gate fast, then faltered. Dr. Dolittle 2 and Atlantis: The Lost Empire never reached the top of the box office rankings as their creators expected. We'll soon learn if Cats and Dogs, Jurassic Park III or Planet of the Apes can reverse this trend.

Hollywood has only itself to blame. This summer's movies generally aren't good enough to make viewers wish to see them again or give hearty recommendations to friends.

There are core audiences for every kind of movie, particularly ones that are preceded by well-produced preview trailers. John Travolta fans turned Swordfish into the No. 1 box office draw for one week in June, a week when all ticket receipts declined. Swordfish's $18.4-million opening is the lowest leading weekend gross of the summer. Video game devotees rushed to see Lara Croft: Tomb Raider but didn't return.

Once those target audiences are serviced, a movie needs positive word of mouth or something else that immediately sparks wider appeal, such as a breakthrough star or rave reviews. Otherwise moviegoers get distracted by hype for the next weekend's offerings.

Only Pearl Harbor and The Mummy Returns -- which have been plugged since the Super Bowl -- have spent more than one week among the top-ranked films since May. They didn't have much competition. Both films were the lone new release when they opened. Other studios conceded the second week of their runs by scheduling larks such as A Knight's Tale and The Animal, which didn't have a chance.

Pearl Harbor and The Mummy Returns are both poised to reach the $200-million box office mark, mostly due to their unopposed, rapid beginnings.

For the first time, three summer movies may break that barrier. Moviegoers fell in love with Shrek after The Mummy Returns and stayed loyal to the ogre through the Pearl Harbor attack.

DreamWorks' animated fable only claimed the top spot in its opening weekend, but it's now the 18th-highest grossing movie ever, and this summer's most consistent performer, with $240-million.

Ticket sales almost always decline after a movie's first week. The velocity of the fall is what matters. Generally, a 40 percent drop in a single week means trouble. When a movie drops more than 50 percent, as A.I. Artificial Intelligence did last weekend, it's practically dead in the water.

Shrek has posted the smallest box office drops by far of any film this summer, never more than 33 percent. Last weekend -- two months after its debut -- Shrek's audience decreased by only 22 percent from the previous weekend. Expect Shrek to stay in theaters at least until Labor Day.

Why? Because it's a quality production with a PG rating, not squeaky clean but not too suggestive. Certainly more fun and less violent than Atlantis: The Lost Empire. Families can hang out together and not feel embarrassed in the dark. Cats and Dogs used the same formula to win last weekend's box office race by a whisker over Scary Movie 2.

That R-rated comedy's $21-million weekend was barely half of the original's July holiday debut last year. Poor reviews aren't to blame; devotees of the Wayans brothers' raunchy humor won't pay much attention to critics.

But in the wake of all the controversy over children seeing R-rated movies, my bet is that vigilant theater owners helped keep Scary Movie 2 from the top spot.

Studio executives, already planning the 2002 summer movie season, are closely watching these box office developments.

Knowing theater owners are serious about checking IDs may cause studios to reconsider banking on R-rated movies with youth appeal. DreamWorks will push hard for its animated Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron to complete a one-two punch to Disney's suddenly soft belly. The Mouse House is probably punching up its animated Lilo & Stitch with more jokes after Shrek's bonanza and the sinking of Atlantis.

Scooby Doo and Stuart Little 2 may get more loving care since talking animals appear to be moneymakers. Star Wars Episode II, Spider-Man, Steven Spielberg's Minority Report and Men in Black 2 are ripe for hype, since opening numbers obviously mean so much. The second weekend will probably be up for grabs.

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