Forecast

With diminishing returns for Bringing Out the Dead, 8MM and Snake Eyes threatening his $20 million-per-picture pricetag, Nicolas Cage returns to the safe Jerry Bruckheimer/June action pictures that launched him into superstardom a few years ago. With Ferraris, Porsches, Angelina Jolie and other sweet rides in tow, he shifts into an even lower gear with Gone in 60 Seconds, the latest video game posing as a movie. But will its title become a self-fulfilling prophecy for how long it will last in theaters?

This remake of the 1974 cult classic of the same name hopes to take advantage of the fact that there haven't been any car movies in ages, like Gladiator did so successfully with the sword-and-sandals epic. To many, it may be about damn time for a movie that not merely has car chases, but fetishizes the automobile like in the Burt Reynolds pictures Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run (though not quite in the auto-erotic way of David Cronenberg's Crash). The only other car movie in the past ten years was another Bruckheimer production, Days of Thunder, but that was just Top Gun on the race track. The only real fix for this kind of thing came in the 1998 spy thriller Ronin directed by car chase maestro John Frankenheimer.

The ad campaign ends with a sound-effected woman's voice saying "directed by Dominic Sena," begging the question, "Who the hell is Dominic Sena?" His only other credit is the 1993 flop Kalifornia, so this is a non sequitor as he's essentially an unknown that adds nothing to the marquee value other than a cool sounding name intended to make people think this is more substantial stuff than it is. The director doesn't really matter here anyway. After all, this is a Jerry Bruckheimer picture, the uber-producer responsible for the orange-filtered gloss, quick editing and inane "plotlines" of such dreck as Bad Boys and Armageddon.

Back in 1996, the first Cage/Bruckheimer collaboration, The Rock, opened on this same frame against the first Mission: Impossible's third weekend. It grossed $25.1 million on its way to $134.1 million. The following June, Con Air landed with $24.1 million en route to $101.1 million total. Both were rated R, while Gone is PG-13, which seems odd and may mean less mayhem.

Those two pictures benefited from a relative lack of competition for the core male demographic. Gone faces significantly more from other action pictures Mission: Impossible 2, Shanghai Noon and Gladiator and less directly from Big Momma's House and Road Trip.

Nonetheless, adrenalin is pumping and the marketplace is expanding enough for it to take pole position this weekend with an opening in the mid-to-high twenty million range from 3,006 theaters.

Oh so crazy Martin Lawrence found his biggest opening ever in the crevices of Big Momma's House. The cross-dressing, fat suit comedy rang up a massive $25.7 million. In a baffling bit of demographics, 60% of its audience was not male as one might expect, but female. Maybe for some reason they thought it was about misogynist Martin changes his ways after learning what it's like to be a woman. His last picture, Blue Streak, dropped 35% in its second weekend. Given the 80% definite recommend rating Big Momma scored, a similar drop could be in store for around $16.5 million this weekend.

Faced against The Rock, the first M:I dropped 32% to $14.7 million, proving that more than one action picture can reside in the marketplace without necessarily cannibalizing each other too much. Last weekend M:I-2 was down 53% to $27 million, about the same as the 52% hit the first one took in the same frame. Combine the $140 million it has already grossed with mixed word-of-mouth and increased competition and this saturation release could burn-off another 40%. That would give it around $16 million this time out.

Dinosaur is becoming extinct at an alarming rate, especially for a Disney animated picture with minimal direct competition. It was down 52% to $12 million last weekend. It passed the century mark on Wednesday, but with a production budget at a reported $200 million, it is a long way from profit. However, as more and more kids get off from school, it could enjoy somewhat of a leveling off, gobbling up around $7.5 million.

Now, it's time for the obligatory revelry in Battlefield Earth's failure. After plunging 80% to $205,745 last weekend, John Travolta's $73 million pet project is on its way to a final tally of a little over $21 million. And it's bombing overseas as well. Predictable given that there are fewer Scientologists and Travolta fans abroad, but it's not even opening half-way decently like it did here. It scraped up just $1.1 million from seven European markets, including a mere $313,071 and seventh place finish in the United Kingdom.

On the comparable weekend last year, the Austin Powers sequel shagged its way to an amazing $54.9 million opening, more than the original made in its entire run, and ended up with $206 million total.