Weekend Forecast
Pictures formerly scheduled for December, such as Scream 3, Hanging Up, and The Beach, have been dominating the charts, certainly opening strongly at least. It's as if the box office is making up for the relatively slow holiday season, skewing what would have been the normal results. Even family pictures, such as The Tigger Movie and the bafflingly successful Snow Day, have been doing excellent business, when in the past nine years, none have made more than $60 million and most have fallen in the $10-30 million range during this time of year. It will be interesting to see if the box office continues in this trend as summery movies such as Mission to Mars and Erin Brockovich spill over into the spring.
Reindeer Games marks Ben Affleck's first top-billed role in a major motion picture and his first without the support of another big star. This will be the true test of his drawing power, and though he doesn't appear to have a home run on his hands, it looks like at least a double. After all, there haven't been any pure action pictures released since November, and, with director John Frankenheimer (Ronin, Seconds) at the helm, Miramax was able to pack in some excitement into the ad campaign. The Whole Nine Yards and Pitch Black, which had strong openings of $15.9 and $13.5 million respectively last weekend, will provide the most direct competition for the intended male demographic. Playing at 2,204 theaters, Games should still come out on top though.
Michael Douglas may be considered the luckiest man around by many for his engagement to Catherine Zeta-Jones, but that luck will not likely translate into spectacular business for Wonder Boys, his first picture in nearly two years. Looking back, Douglas has built his box office clout off of mostly thrillers such as Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct. In fact, since his rise to major stardom in 1987, nine of the twelve movies he's made were essentially thrillers. The three that weren't, the topical drama Wall Street, the black comedy The War of the Roses, and the romantic comedy The American President, were all decently-sized hits. The common persona that he developed through most of his hits is that of a man in a position of power who loses his grip on it. His Wonder Boys character seems to have already lost it manifested in his scraggly appearence. So it is kind of a change for him, which audiences may not be interested in. Also, since Boys is a quirky comedy/drama the ad campaign has had some trouble selling it, and it feels more like a Fall release than a February one. Appealing most to the older female demographic, direct competition will come from Hanging Up and The Cider House Rules among others. Opening at a modest 1,253 theaters, look for it to garner modest business as well.
The Cider House Rules expands from 857 to about 1,500 theaters in order to take advantage of is Oscar nominations. Last weekend it enjoyed a sizable boost of 123% to $3.4 million, bringing its total to $27 million. Obviously, it will also enjoy another sizable increase this weekend, though it most likely won't rank higher than eighth place. Coincidentally, the Cider stars Tobey Maguire and Charlize Theron also appear in Wonder Boys and Reindeer Games respectively.
The Whole Nine Yards had a surprisingly strong opening last weekend, scoring $15.9 million over the four-day President's day weekend. Sure, it had a big star in Bruce Willis, but he was playing a mob hit man, something he's not iconic for and therefore had nothing to play off of as Robert DeNiro did in last spring's smash Analyze This. Not only that it appeared that the whole mob comedy type thing seemed to be getting old, with Analyze This, Mickey Blue Eyes, etc., and Matthew Perry's track record suggested that his name on a marquee was more deterrent than anything else. What appeared the most damning for its box office success though, was the lack of laughs in its generally awkward ad campaign. If its anything like director Jonathan Lynn's previous pictures, such as My Cousin Vinny and Trial and Error, the comedy is derived from a sustained and snowballing situational wackiness rather than one-liners, that's difficult to translate well into trailers. Anyway, positive word-of-mouth should help it hold up well enough for a second place finish this weekend.
Hanging Up had many of the chick flick trappings that made The First Wives Club a hit, and with a $13.6 million three-day, gave Meg Ryan her biggest opening yet sans a big male co-star. However, word-of-mouth has been mixed, so it should fizzle similarly to last February's Message in a Bottle, which also opened on President's Day, grossing $18.9 million en route to $52.8 million.
Two smaller pictures with little marquee value performed quite well. Pitch Black enjoyed the highest per theater average of the top ten, as it earned a strong $13.5 million from 1,832 theaters. True to the genre, though, a steep drop is in store. Boiler Room grossed $6.7 million from 1,335 theaters, solid given its subject matter.
American Beauty grossed an impressive $6.6 million in its re-release after its numerous Oscar nominations. Impressive because the picture had already grossed about $75 million prior to that. Generally speaking, pictures that have already been widely seen just don't get this kind of boost from awards nominations. For example, Braveheart had grossed about the same amount when it was nominated, yet ended its run with $75.6 million.
Scream 3 had another precipitous drop to $9.9 million and should see another one this weekend, making its chances at hitting $100 million low. The Beach starring the overpaid Leonardo DiCaprio fared even worse, plunging 46% to $8.3 million ($7.2 million over the three days) and $28.7 million total. The pattern is actually similar to fellow Hollywood golden boy Brad Pitt's Meet Joe Black, which also grossed about $15 and 7 million its first two weekends. That picture petered out at $44.6 million domestically, but racked up about $90 million overseas. The Beach appears to be on about the same course, as it has already grossed $25.2 million overseas from just a handful of countries.
