Forecast

With summer tickets sales lagging 6% behind last year, the marketplace sure could use a boost. Fortunately, this Fourth of July weekend has the potential to be a record breaker, as it will be the first time that this holiday has seen more than one event picture open at the same time. Usually, it has been one plus some counter-programming, most successfully pulled off in 1996 when the event, Independence Day, opened to $50.2 million en route to $306.2 million, while Phenomenon opened to $16.2 million on its way to $104.6 million. However, this time, there seems to be a troubling amount of demographic crossover between two releases, though overall each picture has strong appeal. The fact that for the first time since 1995, the 4th doesn't fall on the weekend could ease this as well.

After a plethora of World War II and Civil War pictures, it's about damn time that the Revolutionary War got some attention. Perhaps the stench from that 1985 Al Pacino bomb Revolution turned off producers for these past 15 years. Now, Sony is filling the void with The Patriot.

The picture wisely plays to Gibson's strengths, the reluctant hero who's on the edge. It recalls one of his most beloved pictures, Braveheart, with the parental concern of Ransom thrown in for good measure. When a star's persona and the material converge to such a degree, box office lightning is likely to strike, such as with Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire or Harrison Ford in Air Force One. Plus, the trailer features that pseudo-operatic music that helped Romeo Must Die open so well. And perhaps most importantly, what better time to release this picture than on this weekend?

Unfortunately, rather than dealing with the Revolution in a meaningful way, the picture is essentially a revenge action flick. Another problem is uber-hack and Spielberg-wannabe, director Roland Emmerich. He is responsible for two of the worst pictures of all time, Independence Day and Godzilla '98. This is his first attempt at something more dramatic, sans aliens and what not. Given the unoriginality, cheesiness and insincerity of his previous attempts that pop up in his other pictures, this does not bode well. Gibson probably had to exert some of the control that his star power brings him to get things at least somewhat right.



The R rating won't help either, but Gibson's best openings have had the same. Ransom snagged $34.2 million while Lethal Weapon 3 and 4 scored $33.2 and $34 million respectively. The more comparable Braveheart was one of those pictures that are more popular than their initial theatrical grosses indicate. It opened to just $12.9 million over a four-day weekend and ended up with $75.6 million total. The similarly long and R-rated Saving Private Ryan opened to $30.6 million back in 1998.

The Patriot opened on Wednesday with $5 million from 3,061 theaters. While not in the league of past starts, it was strong given that it was a workday for its older skewing audience, who would also find a 164-minute picture daunting in the evening, and who wouldn't want to miss Survivor anyway. Word-of-mouth should help, making a $30 million weekend feasible.

George Clooney reteams with his Three Kings co-star Marky Mark in The Perfect Storm, a $120 million disaster picture from director Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Air Force One). Composer James Horner (Titanic) wrote the music and with John Williams (Star Wars) having done The Patriot, this weekend could also be considered the battle of the bombastic scores.

This may not have been the perfect time to release The Perfect Storm. Sure, other disaster pictures that opened on this frame include Armageddon, Independence Day and Apollo 13, but they had little in the way of direct competition. Storm plays to just about the same audience as The Patriot. Which means that the two will cannibalize each other to a degree, though Storm's PG-13 rating is certainly more inclusive. Also in Storm's favor is that it's the first disaster picture of the season.

The ad campaign which Warner Bros. has been waging since Battlefield Earth flopped hasn't been as focused as The Patriot's. It has been trying to appeal to everyone, from the heroic "take it by storm" ad to the misguided everyman ad that comes off as a truck or beer commercial with that cliched gruff voiceover.

*SPOILER WARNING* The media and the stars themselves have freely admitted that everyone dies at the end, so the people who want to see it knowing this would have to be sadomasochists. The reason being is that there is no thematic necessity, no tragic flaws why these people have to die. All the picture seems to say is that a random natural disaster can squash you at any time, a rather malevolent view. Then again, to allow the characters to survive would have been a cheesy rewriting of history. Perhaps it just should have been a documentary if anything at all. The ending could affect the picture's long term prospects as well. Another disaster picture, Deep Impact, had a downer ending and that fizzled after its $41.2 million opening to a $140.5 million total. Then again, that was also just a bad movie. *END OF SPOILER*

Opening at 3,407 theaters, Storm may encounter troubled waters, but should still give The Patriot a run for its money with an opening in the high twenty million range.

Blending live action and animation, Jay Ward's beloved moose and squirrel finally make it to the big screen in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

The trailer has sort of an Austin Powers vibe to it. After all, Rocky and Bulllwinkle are sixties icons unleashed into the modern world here. Plus, it's chock full of pop culture references, and it has its own super villain with a funny accent, Robert DeNiro as Fearless Leader, who even spoofs his famous "You talkin' to me?" lines from Taxi Driver. However, most of the jokes fall flat.

The closest comparison and one that the teaser trailer itself mentioned is obviously Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which opened at about the same time in the summer of 1988. It ultimately grossed $156.5 million or about $193 million adjusted for inflation. Recent live action/animation combos include Space Jam ($90.4 million total), Small Soldiers ($55.1 million) and Stuart Little ($140 million). Other Jay Ward characters to make it to the big screen were both released in the summertime and starred Brendan Fraser, the 1997 blockbuster George of the Jungle ($105.3 million) and the 1999 bomb Dudley Do-Right ($9.8 million).

Direct competition will come from Chicken Run, which has the momentum behind it to enjoy another gross in the mid-teens. With a weak ad campaign, Universal seems to have given up on Rocky and Bullwinkle, which early on was touted as an event. Opening at about 2,457 theaters, it might land in fifth place with a gross in the low teens.

Among holdovers, mixed word-of-mouth and an inherently front-loaded nature should cause Jim Carrey's Me, Myself & Irene to tumble by around 40% to about $15 million and third place finish.

Over the same frame last year, Will Smith lost his "Mr. 4th of July" title when the much hyped and mega-budgeted Wild Wild West opened to a disappointing $27.7 million and stumbled its way to a $113.8 million. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut opened solidly with $11.3 million and ended its run with $52 million, while Spike Lee's Summer of Sam was yet another financial bust for him, opening to $6 million en route to $19.3 million.

In 1998, Armageddon was the only new wide release, yet it opened to a slightly disappointing $36.1 million. Disney sure as hell wasn't going let it peter out before hitting $200 million, so their marketing became even more aggressive. Its holds in later weeks were perhaps too remarkable, as it ended up with a controversial $201.6 million.

In 1997, Men in Black opened with a whopping $51.1 million and zapped up a $250.2 million total, the crown jewel in a rare boffo year for Sony. The only other wide entry was the Lemmon/Matthau starrer Out to Sea, which opened to $5.9 million en route to $28 million.

Perhaps most comparable to this year, 1995 saw three pictures open simultaneously, but only one broke out. Apollo 13 blasted off with $25.4 million and rocketed to $172.1 million. Kiddie fad picture, Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, managed $13.1 million sputtering out at $37.8 million, while Sylvester Stallone's Judge Dredd could muster only $12.3 million petering out at a dreadful $34.7 million.