'Hollow' edges 'Cowboys' in sophomore showdown

By Roger Cels

LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- The domestic marketplace fell further into a funk during the weekend as the three titles opening in wide release struggled and most veteran product stumbled.

Receipts generated by the 109 features tracked by The Hollywood Reporter in North America slipped 15.5% from year-earlier levels and 15% from the previous weekend to $108.9 million.

Two sophomore sensations, Sony's "Hollow Man" and Warner Bros.' "Space Cowboys," staged a dogfight for first place, with "Hollow's" $13.04 million three-day take narrowly edging "Cowboys' "$13.01 million tally. "Cowboys" retained a much greater share of its opening-weekend business, though, easing a top 10 best 28% compared with a 50% collapse for "Hollow," the previous weekend's top-performing picture.

The Clint Eastwood-directed "Cowboys" has $39 million in the till after 10 days. "Hollow," a thriller starring Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue, sports a 10-day total of $50.3 million.

The contest for third place was nearly as close. Warner Bros.' "The Replacements" opened to $11.03 million and MGM's "Autumn in New York" debuted to $10.98 million. The "Replacements" performance came in at the high end of expectations based on prerelease indicators of marketplace sentiment, while "Autumn" met projections that accounted for the dearth of romantic dramas in circulation this summer.

"Replacements," a football film featuring Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman, scored a solid 91% favorable response in moviegoer polls conducted Friday night by CinemaScore.com. Its patron profile was likewise positive, with all market sectors represented. Together, these factors suggest that the film's theatrical season should be extended.

Audiences were not nearly as impressed with "Autumn," bestowing a 69% approval rating in surveys. Word-of-mouth will not be supportive based on that grade, indicating that the studio probably made the correct call in not offering the feature for preopening review.

Older women comprised the core patrons, which makes sense given "Autumn's" story line of an aging playboy (Richard Gere) who falls hopelessly in love with a younger, terminally ill woman (Winona Ryder). That noted, the one-two punch of narrow appeal and negative sentiment could KO continued commerce.

Paramount's "Bless the Child" opened in seventh place with $9.4 million. The thriller starring Kim Basinger and Jimmy Smits played to all audiences while garnering a good 83% favorable score.

Universal's "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps" was fifth with $10.2 million, off a sharp 43% during its third weekend. The Eddie Murphy comedy has coined $94 million to date.

DreamWorks' leggy "What Lies Beneath" was next with $9.7 million, a modest 29% decline during its fourth frame. Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford star in the thriller, which stands at $112 million.

Decidedly less durable during its second weekend was Buena Vista's "Coyote Ugly," which imploded 54% to $7.8 million and eighth place. The ensemble entry about young women working at a hot New York bar has amassed $34.3 million.

Fox's "X-Men" claimed the ninth spot with $4.1 million, off 38% during its fifth foray. The superhero action-adventure has earned $143.9 million to date.

Warners' "The Perfect Storm" rounded out the top 10 with $2.7 million, down 30% during its seventh session. Grosses for the disaster-at-sea saga starring George Clooney total $170.5 million.

In limited-release action, Artisan's "Cecil B. Demented" returned a rousing $127,141 from only nine situations. First Look's "The Opportunists" earned $46,987 from five theaters. Zeitgeist's "Aimee & Jaguar" returned $42,919 from seven houses, and Fine Line's "An Affair of Love" earned $30,281 from four screens.

The top movies in North America -- August 11-13

(Exhibitor Relations corrects cumulative totals for Space Cowboys and The Perfect Storm)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Following are the final data for the top 10 movies at the North American box office during the August 11-13 weekend, according to studio figures released Monday by Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.

1. Hollow Man $13.05 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $50,304,216

2. Space Cowboys $13.02 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $39,023,971

3. The Replacements $11 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $11,039,214

4. Autumn in New York $10.9 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $10,987,006

5. Nutty Professor II: The Klumps $10.2 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $93,986,150

6. What Lies Beneath $9.7 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $112,004,876

7. Bless the Child $9.4 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $9,413,684

8. Coyote Ugly $7.8 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $34,261,478

9. X-Men $4.1 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $143,918,535

10. The Perfect Storm $2.7 million

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $170,483,052

JOHN L.: Ahhh, it is that time of year I like when the box office grosses have fallen to Hades.  The top 2 movies are in a virtual tie for first place, but they still did not make that much money for a second week release and with the number of "big" names between them.  Keanu returned for the first time since becoming the chosen one and no one seemed to care. I guess they are waiting for his next movie to come out,  "The Watcher."  Richard Gere returned to familiar territory and that is molesting very young women.  Kim Baldwin is back for the second time in 3 months and she is still doing only slightly better than her husband's railroad movie.  There is a chance that after the number one film next week that all the rest will make less than $10 million.  For the first time in several weeks, there was no movie for me to see live in the movie theater.  But, it is my job to look at what may have went wrong this week with the 3 new movies in the top 10.

The Replacements was released this week to a lukewarm reaction.  It has 2 big stars in Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman, and a tv soda pop can pitchman in Orlando "Make 7Up Yours while watching Mad TV" Jones.  They are here to put over the plot of scab football players replacing striking pro guys.  Unfortunately for the makers of this movie, it is coming a little too close to another football movie that was a huge hit, and that is Adam Sandler's "Waterboy."  That looked funny and was funny, but Replacements is supposed to be a comedy (I guess) but is not funny or dramatically interesting to get people excited about seeing it.  The makers of the movie saw that they may be having some problems selling the movie, so in the week before its release they focused more than half of the preview on the cheerleaders prancing around.  It sort of looked like a ripoff of Coyote Ugly but on the gridiron.  Keanu always looks in a dazed state in his acting mannerisms, something he picked up making the Bill and Ted movies and has never gotten over.  He looks especially bored walking through this flick.  If you want to get people to see a Keanu movie you have to have the inevitable moment in which he goes "whoa."  That one line sold about $20 million tickets to The Matrix.  Gene Hackman is one of my favorite actors.  He has never given a bad performance and was the only thing in "Unforgiven" that was watchable in my opinion.  He has played a coach before in "Hoosiers" but he did not look convincing here in Replacements.  In fact the whole film looks like a made for tv movie on UPN.   Maybe, if they waited a couple of years it could have been turned into a story about how the XFL was formed.  As it is now, Reeves will have to wait for Watcher to bomb, and then get back on track to make the next 2 Matrix movies.  Hackman will continue to work as long as he wants to and is able.  And as for Orlando, the tv spokesman for 7UP, he will probably go back to playing in traffic with vending machines.  

Romance is in the air, and as usual, only the women seemed to show up.  Autumn in New York is a movie in the classic romance mode that "Love Story" was back in the day.  Guy falls in love with dying babe.  Bring out the Kleenex.  I believe I read a statistic that said that nearly 70% of the audience was female.  Here is a tip to guys looking for a date, go to a screening of AINY.  Your chances are pretty good you might be able to find a date to go see Hollow Man or X-Men again.  Now, the gimmick here is Gere is old, 50ish.  Winona Ryder is very young, 28ish, and very sick from the quick glimpses of her gurney rides in the preview.  When Gere falls for Ryder, Gere finally learns what true love is.  It is going out to parties and riding in limos while watching the leaves change color during the Fall in the Big Apple.  It is a wonder the human race continues.  It seems that women love movies like this, but guys cannot stand them and only go to them when forced or they want to "get some" later that night.  Guys goof on movies like this and say you are a wimp if you treat a girl romantically like holding hands in the park and ice skating just to be nice and not with any prurient ulterior motive.  Women love this because they seem to not be getting anything like a Richard Gere fawning all over them in real life.  The men they choose in their lives all fool them.  As soon as a relationship becomes stable, then the boyfriend is always trying to go out with the guys, and the girls have their night out as well never a dozen roses shall meet.  However, people have to realize that these movies that are so sappy suck if you try to imitate them for reality.  Courtship still exists in real life, but if you are lucky you won't have to go through life threatening diseases, drug lords, car crashes, electrical storms, paralysis, amnesia, betrayal, cheating, trapped gerbils (sorry), murder, plastic surgery, Fabio's accent, or the tight, uncomfortable outfits worn in Merchant Ivory films.  It seems that the happiest people in real life are the ones who have settled into a pattern that makes them happy like the bratty kids, fighting over the remote control, soccer camp, eating out on the weekends at a fancy restaurant, car vacations, going to McDonalds with no pressure to impress, holding hands for the hell of it, kissing because you really want to, and never ending up on a daytime talk show.  Autumn in New York is a fantasy that women get into like guys get into the fantasy of say an X-Men movie.  It's cool, but the women really don't want to get sick, and the guys really wouldn't want Mystique kicking them between the legs.  

Stop it Hollywood!  Stop I say!!  It is enough already.  Please, no more supernatural children movies.  We are sick of them.  The Sixth Sense has ended the genre for the foreseeable future.  Any movie that even remotely looks like M. Knight Shamamydongislong's movie will bomb at the box office.  And it certainly does not help that Kim Basinger Baldwin is in the film since her name on the marquee means let's stay home.   This genre of the end of the world is not very popular either.  Arnold Schwarzenegger had a modest failure with his movie "End of Days" last year and this one too looks like it with overtones of satanic activity.  Hollywood has to stop making movies just because a similar one has just made a $150 million to $200 million.  Things only work one time unless you do a sequel with most of the same cast.  Most imitations fail to work.  This movie looked okay in its preview, but it was too cliched and looked like it might be predictable.  Kiss of death for a preview.  Jimmy Smits seems to be slumming as  cop in this movie.  He'd say hi to David Caruso, but DC has wasted away long ago.  Basinger has been making movies for almost 20 years and in that time she has had a total of one financially successful film and that was Batman.  Not even Mrs. Baldwin could make that movie lose money.  She won an Oscar for her fairly minor role in L.A. Confidential.  Basinger was fine in the movie, but the part was not strong enough to get an Academy Award in my opinion.  She had not worked for a couple of years, but this year she has come out with 2 ill received movies.  "I Dreamed of Africa" is on a short list of worst movies of the year on many a critics forum for those few that did see it.  It is in fact a bigger bomb than "Battlefield Earth."  Bless this Child will do better than IDOA, but that is not saying much. The supernatural horror film will usually open in the top 10 somewhere but if it sucks, then it is ignored in its second week.  I think it is time for Basinger to play a few more supporting roles in mainstream movies.  She should probably team up with a Meg Ryan or a Julia Roberts to help get her career on track.   Her only consolation prize is that I believe her movies have made more than her husband's Alec over the total of their careers.  I think Roberts and Ryan's last 3 movies have grossed more than all of the movies Basinger and Baldwin made in the 1990s put together.  If only Kim had made "Boxing Helena" and not tried to get out of it.  It could have been her breakthrough role.  Oh, if a time machine could be invented.

REST OF THE TOP 10 IN 10:

1.    Hollow Man barely held on to the top spot this week.

2.    For much of the weekend HM was tied with the Space Cowboys for the top spot with around $13.1 million.

3.    Neither Hollow or Cowboys is going to cross the $100 million barrier though.

4.    Nutty Professor 2 is on its way to joining the $100 million club that has become pretty crowded this year.

5.    However, it looks like Klumps may squeak by the box office total of Big Momma's House which should save Eddie's ego.

6.    What Lies Beneath did not look that interesting, but it seems to have caught on and keeps Ford steady and helps Michelle Pfeiffer get some major negotiating power for her next film contract.

7.    If you are going to have girls pour water on themselves while working at a bar, make sure they are wearing white t-shirts and you might attract more guys to plunk down $7.50.

8.    They say the real Coyote Ugly bar is a lot racier than the movie and I say it would have to or it would have closed down long ago.

9.    X-Men is on its way out of the top 10, but at nearly $145 million, it was a solid hit that did much better than anyone expected it would a year ago.

10.    Perfect Storm gets the "I was sure this movie would bomb, but became a huge hit, so now I have to eat crow yet again" award for the year 2000.

Weak crop of movies this week and next week is not going to get much better.  I hope to see "The Cell" and "Godzilla 2000" either this coming weekend or the next and will have full reivews. Also, in the coming weeks will be my special Summer of 2000 at the movies review where I will go over what the hell just happened over the last 4 months.  And coming on the last box office report of August, I will give my thoughts on the biggest entertainment phenomenon of the Summer if not the year.  Is it raunch comedy? No.  Is it the lack of action in action movies?  No. Is it guys dressing up like gals?  No.  Is it why movies suck?  No.  Is it Angelina and Billy Bob?  Hell no.  Is it the popularity of Gladiator?  No.  Is it the debauchery of Battlefield Earth?  No.  It is none of those things.  No, this will be a very unique analysis that has never been done in the Kickin' Box Office Reports.  This time, I will be taking on television for the first time.  I will leave you with just one word:

SURVIVOR

Bye for now.

LORETTA YOUNG

1913 - 2000