Forecast

It's Shaft's duty, to bring in that box office booty. Like the Mission: Impossible pictures though, about the only thing Shaft seems to have in common with its source material is the theme song. This Shaft is bald and the production looks way too glossy. Worst of all, he's no longer the "black private dick who's the sex machine to all the chicks" as he doesn't get any chicks.

Jackson actually plays the nephew of the original Shaft, Richard Roundtree, who is present to pass on the mantle. But if the purpose of getting a new Shaft was to have a young buck to carry on the franchise, the 51-year old Jackson is only about seven years younger than Roundtree. Why didn't they just make this movie starring the real Shaft? Any lost marquee value would have surely been made up for by lower production costs.

Jackson is certainly one bad mother... (shut yo mouth!), but he's kind of an odd choice for this role. His "furious anger" just doesn't jibe right with the character's smooth operator persona. Off hand, Wesley Snipes would have been a more obvious (and appropriately younger) choice. What's next, Dolemite starring Denzel Washington?

Jackson's previous solo star turns, such as 187, failed to generate much business. When teamed up with a fellow character actor he has fared pretty well. Earlier this year, Rules of Engagement with Tommy Lee Jones opened to $15 million and has grossed about $60 million so far. Perhaps more comparable was 1998's The Negotiator with Kevin Spacey, which opened to $10.2 million en route to $44.7 million. Then again, none of those had the iconic oomph that Shaft has.

Gone in 60 Seconds and Mission: Impossible 2 are the major competitors for the action audience, while Big Momma's House shares the urban one. Shaft, though, is distinctive enough and the marketplace expansive enough that this shouldn't be much of a factor at all.

Playing at a relatively low 2,337 theaters, Shaft don't need them extra venues to get the job done. He could deliver a $20 million plus start and first place finish.

From the director of She's All That (and a Bag of Chips) and the writers of the Dennis Rodman starrer Simon Sez, comes the latest teen sex comedy, Boys and Girls. Quite the pedigree there, eh?

Teen heartthrob Freddie Prinze, Jr. stars in his third picture of this kind in less than a year and a half. He seems like an affable guy with his Keanu Reeves vibe and all, but, dude, he should, like, learn to pick scripts. She's All That came off as a 40-year old writer trying to sound young, using scattershot lingo he's heard through the years such as "copacetic," but coming off as pandering and painfully unoriginal. Nonetheless, it opened in January 1999 to $16.1 million and ended up with $63.4 million total.

Suggesting that that may have been the peak period for this sort of picture, Prinze, Jr.'s next romantic comedy, Down to You, came out a year later amidst no competition. It opened to just $7.6 million and managed just $20 million total. Unlike She's All That, it was set in college and not high school, as is Boys and Girls.

In real life, his love interest in his new picture, Claire Forlani, is about four years older than he is. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but their characters are supposed to be about the same age. Prinze, Jr. looks and acts far younger than his 24 years, making the match-up seem rather bizarre.

The studio seems to assume that it already has the girls engaged with the presence of Prinze, Jr., so they're focusing all of their marketing dollars to convince the guys. So Jason Biggs, the pie poker from American Pie as the wacky womanizing roommate, gets more airtime in the ads. His part was actually beefed up after the picture was finished specifically with the addition of the supermodel scene that is the focal point of the ad campaign.

1998's Can't Hardly Wait was the only teen picture in recent memory to be released at this time of year, when the teens are just getting out of school. It had a punchier ad campaign than Boys but still opened to only $8 million and could hardly wait to leave theaters, petering out at $25.4 million. The marketplace is friendlier to this genre now though, as that was during the infancy of the current teen craze. The reason that studio's tend not to release these kinds of pictures in June is that teens don't want to see a picture set in school when they are just leaving it themselves and are still burnt out by it. Give them a month or so to get over it, and you can have a hit, such as with past July school-set comedies, Clueless and American Pie.

Road Trip, which grossed $4.9 million last weekend, represents the closest competitor. Regardless, Boys and Girls will likely do only modest business in the neighborhood of $10 million from its 1,983 theaters.

Fox's second animated feature Titan A.E. since 1997's Anastasia has the misfortune of having a similar story and tone to last month's debacle, Battlefield Earth. The risky $90 million production blends traditional cell animation for the main characters with CGI for the backgrounds and what not. The studio hopes this and the paucity of sci-fi will attract teen males, an audience that is inclined to regard this as simply a kid's movie. They have plenty of other options as well.

The commercials proclaim that "it's like nothing you've ever seen before," yet then contradictorily say it's like Star Wars meets The Matrix.

If this picture hits, it would be the first of its kind to do so. 80's cult classics Heavy Metal and The Transformers bombed theatrically. Last summer's The Iron Giant was a box office midget for Warner Bros, managing just $23.2 million. Though not animated, last year's Wing Commander went after the same audience and tanked with just $11.6 million total.

This picture sure could have used a bloated screen legend as one of the voices. The Transformers' had Orson Welles as the villain Unicron for Christ's sake! They could have gotten Marlon Brando. He's not too busy. Even Rod Steiger would have sufficed. And instead of using Creed's wannabe power ballad "Higher", they should have used its similar forerunner, the Damn Yankees' "Can You Take Me High Enough." Hell, if you're going to blow a ton of dough on something like this, at least do it in grand cheesmo style. But I digress.

The closest competitor is Dinosaur, which, after dropping precipitously initially, leveled off with $8.8 million last weekend. With the widest launch of the new releases, 2,733 theaters, a modest opening of about $10 million looks to be in store.

Disney re-issues Fantasia 2000 at 1,313 normal theaters after a stunning $49.6 million IMAX run earlier this year. This move, of course, is designed to maintain their animation domination by squelching Fox's Titan A.E. as The Little Mermaid re-issue was designed to do but didn't quite do to Fox's Anastasia. Since it has already made a significant amount of money, its prospects are rather limited. What's more, the IMAX format imbued an event status to this otherwise iffy commercial prospect. In 35mm, this is gone, especially since the first one was more beloved for its unusualness than for actually being entertaining. A gross in the $6 million range and seventh place finish seems to be in store.

Gone in 60 Seconds stole $25.3 million last weekend from 3,006 theaters to take the top spot. The spin machine proclaimed this to be Nicolas Cage's biggest opening and uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer's biggest non-holiday one, edging out The Rock's $25.1 million. However, adjusting for inflation puts the latter's opening at around $29 million and from 614 fewer theaters. Even Con Air's $24.1 million opening adjusts to about $27 million. Gone's opening was still quite strong, but whether it will reach the century mark remains to be seen. Judging by word-of-mouth, Gone's pattern should follow more closely that of Con Air, which had a 35% second week drop, than the leggy The Rock. Throw in the saturation release and direct competition, and a 40% drop sounds about right, giving it $15 million and a second place finish.

Mission: Impossible 2 was down 36% to $17.23 million last weekend. That's slightly more than the original's 32% drop in the same frame. If it continues to follow a similar pattern, it could drop around 40% this weekend, adding another $10 million in its coffers. Proving its crossover appeal, Big Momma's House was just a smidgen behind, down 33% to $17.22 million. With the comedy market still mostly to itself, it should continue to hold well and gross around $11 million this weekend. That would be enough to push it past Blue Streak's $68.2 million total, making it Martin Lawrence's highest grossing picture yet.

On the comparable weekend last year, Tarzan swung into the top spot with $34.2 million on its way to $171.1 million total, while it was better times for John Travolta as The General's Daughter opened to $22.3 million en route to $102.7 million.