Wednesday, January 31, 2001

'Wedding Planner' Catches U.S. Box Office Bouquet

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Another weekend, another ``chick flick'' tops the North American box office.

``The Wedding Planner'' (Columbia), a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey, replaced ``Save the Last Dance'' as the most popular movie in the United States and Canada, selling about $14.0 million worth of tickets, according to movie estimates issued on Sunday.

``Last Dance'' (Paramount), an inter-racial high school romance set in the dance clubs of Chicago, slipped to No. 2 with $10.0 million. The Tom Hanks drama ``Cast Away'' (Fox) also fell one, to No. 3, with $8.9 million.

With the annual Super Bowl football contest expected to keep American men glued to the television on Sunday, ``The Wedding Planner'' marks a counter-programming effort to lure women to the multiplex.

The $28 million movie coincided with the release of Lopez' new album, ``J.Lo,'' and Lopez has been plugging both aggressively. In the film, she plays the titular nuptials expert who falls for the fianc (McConaughey) of one of her clients. Reviews were generally bad. A spokesman for Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp., predicted it would end up in the $50 million range.

The film's average of $5,027 from 2,785 theaters was the second highest in the top 10, behind $5,846 for ``Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' (from sister studio Sony Pictures Classics), which jumped two places to a new high of No. 6 with $5.1 million. The martial arts romance, which has now banked $44.4 million after 52 days, gained some enhanced visibility with its two Golden Globe wins last weekend, for director (Ang Lee) and foreign-language film.

The only other films in the top 10 to snag Globes were ``Cast Away'' (best actor in a drama, Tom Hanks) and ``Traffic'' (screenplay, Stephen Gaghan; supporting actor, Benicio Del Toro).

``Traffic'' (USA Films), a drug-war drama directed by Steven Soderbergh, slipped one place to No. 4 with $6.5 million, taking its 33-day total to $56.3 million. USA Films is a unit of USA Networks Inc. .

The top 10 contained one other new entry, ``Sugar & Spice'' (New Line Cinema), a cheerleading crime caper, which debuted at No. 5 with a not very nice $6.0 million. The AOL Time Warner Inc.-owned studio took the unusual step of canceling scheduled advance screenings for critics, an indication of its meager confidence in the film's prospects.

The top 12 films grossed a combined $76.2 million, down 16 percent from last weekend, but up 74 percent from the year-ago weekend when the Ashley Judd thriller ``Eye of the Beholder'' opened at No. 1 with $6.0 million.

New releases next weekend, the thriller ``Valentine'' and the Freddie Prinze Jr. romance ``Head Over Heels,'' both target young audiences.

After 17 days in release, ``Last Dance'' has grossed about $59.6 million, and is on track to end its U.S./Canada run in the $75 million-$80 million range, said a spokeswoman for Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc. .

``Cast Away'' has $194.1 million after 38 days, and should hit the $200 million mark next weekend, said a Fox spokesman. Twentieth Century Fox is a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc.

The top movies in North America -- Jan. 26-28

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Following are the final data for the top 10 movies at the North American box office during the January 26-28 weekend, according to studio figures released Monday by Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.

Film Three-day Cumulative

Title Gross Gross

1. The Wedding Planner .......... $13,510,293 

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $13,510,293

2. Save the Last Dance .......... $9,777,335 

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $59,323,722

3. Cast Away .......... $8,091,345 

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $193,243,499

4. Traffic .......... $6,461,920 

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $56,188,074

5. Sugar & Spice .......... $5,891,176 

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $5,891,175

6. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon .......... $5,061,767 

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $44,427,118

7. Snatch .......... $4,706,743 

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $15,713,514

8. Finding Forrester .......... $4,612,998 

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $35,677,842

9. What Women Want .......... $4,372,023 

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $168,374,587

10. Miss Congeniality .......... $4,166,128 

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $93,286,275

Reuters/Variety REUTERS 

John L.:  There is not a whole lot going on once again this week.  Jennifer Lopez is back acting her little heart out in her first romantic comedy since she used to dance on In Living Color to the scratches of Shawn Wayans.  The most typecast actress in Hollywood, Mena Suvari, tramps around as a bank robbing cheerleader.  We have to wait for Hannibal to come out before the box office gets more interesting.  I will do my best to cover the 2 new movies in the top 10 that were released this week to give the women something to do while the guys sit home and complain about how the Superbowl sucked once again.  

Jennifer Lopez is a very pretty woman.  Ever since "Out of Sight," she has been trying to convince the world that she is the hottest female to come around since Rita Moreno.  She has made a name for herself for 3 things. Her cleavage and her ass.  Besides that, J-Lo as she is being called nowadays has made movies that are strictly dramatic pieces of entertainment like Selena, Anaconda, and The Cell.  Out of Sight had some comedic moments, but that was not really the point. With the Wedding Planner the Fly Girl enters Julia Roberts romantic comedy territory on the level of a "My Best Friend's Wedding."  What we get is the standard extremely hot girl falls in love with a man she can't have because he is committed to someone else.  The hook of TWP is that Lopez plans weddings as says the title, and one day when her shoe gets stuck on a manhole, a knight in shining armor also known as Matthew McConaughey saves her from being run over by a garbage dumpster.  Unfortunately, Lopez's next wedding gig is for Matt's fiancee who has hired her to make her big day very very special.  So what will Lopez do?  She is in love with the groom and the groom seems to find her attractive.  Will Lopez ruin one woman's life just to get some strange of her own?  Hey, you will have to pay your $4.75 to $10.00 to find out.  J-Lo is on a whirlwind of publicity.  Her new album has hit number one, her movie is number one, multiple magazine covers,  and her on again, maybe off, no comment, don't believe everything you read boyfriend is still making headlines.  However, she still has that Puerto Rican accent that can become Rosie Perez annoying at times and is even worse when she tries to suppress it like she did in the Cell which causes her acting to suffer.  It also seems that her name on the marquis can get a movie studio $14 million opening weekend.  Pretty soon, she may hit that magic $20 million a movie mark that only Julia has seen.  Lopez is now the second most popular actress in Hollywood.  Lopez vs Roberts would be the money match.  Erin Gonzales anyone?

Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails make up us guys.  I have never known what the hell that means.  Sugar and spice and everything nice makes just as little sense, but it makes for a better movie title.  The movie stars a bunch of up and coming actresses and one that was supposed to be getting a bigger acting push (Mena Suvari) as a group of peppy cheerleaders who need some quick cash and decide to rob banks.  This movie has had some controversy because it shows high school girls threatening people with guns and that is number 3 on the politically incorrect hit list.  Also, the movie had to be edited down to a PG-13 to "legally" be advertised to the preferred teen audience.  The director's cut has more cursing and darker themes than this more family friendly "we won't use real guns" version.  This is very sad.  I have been complaining for months about filmmakers not being allowed to make the movies they want because they have to be afraid if kids see their movies since we can't get 100% of parents to raise their kids right.  This movie suffered because of it.  "Bring it On" swept up all the PG-13 cheerleader love last August.  If another similar looking movie was to come out, it needed to be more different and more daring.   Gratuitous sex and violence could have helped it a bit.  A white "Set it Off" if you will.  Shower scenes and no panty wearing cheerleader shots could have helped bring in more horny males and less valley girl speak and more dominating airheaded girls could have empowered more young girls to check out this film.  All the preview shows is a cheerleader flip kick into her boyfriend. Ha ha very funny.  In fact the preview probably hurt the movie the most because it seems to show the entire film except for the real reason they are robbing banks.  We even get to see them arrested and doing their mug shots.  The big punchline is whether the blonde one likes Trix cereal or not.  I was interested in seeing this at first but when I learned that there is another version out there, it is wait for the DVD time again.  It is also time for Suvari to graduate from high school.  She has to be 35 by now.

REST OF THE TOP 10 IN 10:

1.    Save the Last Dance is the first sleeper hit of the year.

2.    If this movie hits a $100 million look for that last dance to return for one more waltz.

3.    Tom Hanks proves with Castaway that he is the most popular actor around right now.

4.    Castaway is not that good a movie, but it is making mad amounts of cash proving that many people have overlooked its obvious flaws.

5.    Traffic is not getting the massive pre Oscar awards push that everyone thought it would.

6.    As long as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is in the top 10, all I will say is that Zhang Ziyi is hottest woman alive.

7.    Snatch is now Guy Ritchie's most successful movie ever released in the United States.

8.    Pretty soon it will be hard find Forrester in the top ten.

9.    Even though What Women Want is a huge hit, it still doesn't help us guys figure the females out any better.

10.    Miss Congeniality is about 3 weeks away from becoming another movie from the year 2000 to make over $100 million.

Next week's big release is Valentine with Denise Richards and some guy from some cheesy WB show.  It is getting a lot of hype but the more I see of it the more I realize I will have an extra $7.25 this weekend.  I don't expect the #1 film next week to make more than $16 million.  Bye for now.