Military 'Rules' Halt Roberts' Streak at Theaters
By Timna Tanners
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Military thriller ``Rules of Engagement''
brought to a halt the three-week winning streak enjoyed by
Julia Roberts' ``Erin Brockovich,'' to triumph in the North American box office battle over the weekend, according to studio
estimates on Sunday.Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones helped ``Rules'' gross an estimated $15.3 million in its opening weekend. The
Paramount release made a sturdy $4,849 per theater.
The courtroom drama about friendship involves a tough Marine colonel (Jackson), who is court-martialed after a mission he leads
to free a besieged U.S. embassy fails. His Vietnam War buddy (Jones), now a mediocre military attorney, defends him at his trial.
``Erin Brockovich,'' Roberts' tale of a brassy whistle-blower, grossed about $10 million over the weekend to come in at No. 2 at
the box office. The Universal film saw a 27 percent decline from the previous week, for a total of nearly $90 million in its fourth
week.
The movie is based on the true exploits of a single mother who gets a job at a law firm and stumbles upon a case of water
contamination by a water utility, winning a record $333 million settlement for the victims.
DreamWorks' animated ``The Road to El Dorado'' fell a notch in the rankings, pulling in $8.9 million for a total $25 million in its
second week of release. The movie features the voices of Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh in the quest for the legendary city of
gold.
New romantic comedy ``Return to Me,'' distributed by MGM, weighed in at No. 4, grossing $8 million and capturing a sizable
$3,986 per theater. In the picture, Minnie Driver and television ``X-Files'' star David Duchovny fall in love only to find out
Duchovny's dying former-wife donated her heart to Driver.
``The Skulls'' (Universal) held on to fifth place, despite a 42 percent decline in gross in its second week, drawing some $6.4 million
over the weekend. The teen secret society drama slipped from third place the previous week, when it opened to poor reviews.
Other major releases of the week were wrestling spoof ''Ready to Rumble'' (Warner Bros), which landed the sixth best gross at
$5.6 million approximately, and ``Black and White'' (Sony), which opened at 11th place with $2.3 million.
According to Exhibitor Relations Co., which collects the studios' data, the top 12 films this weekend grossed an estimated $74
million, down 3 percent from last weekend, but up 6 percent from the year-ago period. Last year sci-fi thriller ''The Matrix'' topped
the charts.
Rounding out the top 10 were ``Romeo Must Die'' (Warners) at No. 7 from last week's No. 4 spot with $4.4 million (three-week
total $45.7 million); and ``High Fidelity'' (Buena Vista) at No. 8 down from No. 5 with $4.2 million (four-week total $12.8 million).
``Final Destination'' (New Line) took in $3.9 million in the ninth spot, down from seventh, after four weeks (four-week total $34
million), and Oscar favorite ``American Beauty'' (DreamWorks) slipped to 10th place from sixth with $3.3 million after grossing
some $121 million in 30 weeks.
Paramount Pictures is a unit of Viacom Inc., Universal Pictures is a unit of Seagram Co. Ltd., Warner Bros. and New Line
Cinema are units of Time Warner Inc., Touchstone Pictures and Buena Vista are units of Walt Disney Co., Columbia Pictures is a
unit of Sony Corp., and DreamWorks SKG is privately held.
depended on Jones
to get them through 2 hours of hell. Samuel L. Jackson continues to be the
hardest working man in the movie business by showing up in his third high
profile movie in less than a year. It seems if a guy needs to be accused
of a crime he did not commit unless under extreme duress or just plain did not
do it then SLJ is the guy to get. He was on trial in Time to Kill, he was
framed in the Negotiator, and now he is accused of firing on
"innocent" civilians violating the rules of military engagement.
This movie opened pretty well driven mostly by the lead actors and the preview
that established the plot pretty well. You see Jackson making a
questionable judgment call during combat, being accused of violating the rules
of engagement, Jones deciding to defend Jackson in his court martial, and Jones'
old enemy from Double Jeopardy, Bruce "I still say that if you shoot me it
is still a crime" Greenwood is hiding some tape that may show that Jones
did not fire first on a crowd of civilians, plus you get the patented Samuel
Jackson witness stand 
outburst as well as his best line of delivered dialog
since "... and you believe its this boy?" in which he said
"murder (5 second pause) sir?" I say $15.3 million is about
right. Military court dramas usually do well like that "You can't
handle the truth!" movie. Tommy J. and Sam Jack are 2 actors that
tend to come out with a movie every 6 weeks or so. Putting them together is like
a dream team of the likes of Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks and Mel
Gibson, or Beauty and Mulan, or Elton John and K.D. Lang, or Ice Cube and Ice T,
or 'NSync and 98 Degrees and Backstreet Boys, or Britteny Spears and
Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson in a three way.... hmmm, pardon me for a
second....or Liv Tyler and Gwyneth Paltrow, or Bill Gates and Janet Reno, or
David Koresh and Jim Jones, or Bill Clinton and JFK, or Barbara Walters and
Gilda Radner, or Star Jones and Tracy Morgan, or Angela Bassett and Pam Grier,
or Jim Cameron and George Lucas, or the Wachowski Brothers and the Farrelly
Brothers and the Cohen Brothers putting Keanu Reeves, Ben Stiller, and William
H. Macy in the same movie. 
Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan. Minnie Driver once again tries out her American
accent on the United States to show up Bob Hoskins I guess. She is coming
off her 2 high profile movies last year. She had a big hit with Tarzan, and had
a popular cult hit with her cameo voice over in South Park Bigger Longer, and
Uncut. The premise of Return to me is somewhat interesting and romantic in
a way that helped attract audiences. Duchovny plays a guy whose wife is
killed and her heart is donated to Minnie Driver. Duchovny meets her at
her waitress job and seems to have an instant rapport with her and he and she
for that matter don't realize why. How will their relationship change when they
find out that she has a piece of his late wife? Good plot, but the latest
previews advertise it as a generic romantic comedy without telling anyone what
the movie is actually about. It made no sense and probably hurt the
opening box office. The producers did not seem to have confidence in their
story when constructing the television promos and the heart transplant was never
mentioned in any 30 second spots just the main 3 minute preview you would see in
a movie theater. I believe if the heart angle was stressed more, then it
would have established the romantic tension that would keep you interested in
whether these two would get together. Another thing that may have hurt the
movie is that when Duchovny was being interviewed about the film he said that
there is no sex between him and Driver in the movie and they kiss very little in
the film. Talking about how little obvious traditional romantic
moments occur in the film won't encourage people to put down the cash to see
it. The PG rating probably did not help either. I think a quick
PG-13 worthy Minnie Driver skinny dip scene or the scene where she has to take
off her shirt to show her heart surgery scar and Duchovny touches it and then
kisses it would have been pretty cool. A quick nude shot less than 3
seconds can still get a PG-13, just ask the makers of Tomboy or Sheena or
Beastmaster all of which had topless nude scenes and did not receive an R
rating. Return to Me has a chance to make about $35 to $40 million, but
with a little stronger ad campaign and a body double for the shy Minnie Driver,
they could have hit a $60 to $70 million level. Looks like Duchovny
might just stick it out one more season on X-Files after all. If he
doesn't, looks like we might be seing Kalifornia 2, The Rapture 2, Playing God
2, or a DEA Agent Dennis/Denise Bryson tv series. 
the mainstream movie, Ready to Rumble (tm Michael Buffer), to
be an outrageous satire of a couple of crazy World Championship Wrestling
fans. The movie includes several actual wrestlers who can be seen on the
WCW programming shown on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. It is
supposed to be on the level of "Dumb and Dumber" with a lot of poopy
jokes and goofs on the behind the scenes antics of pro wrestlers.
There is a small Scream 1 reunion with David Arquette and Rose McGowan Manson
having an on screen relationship. James Caan's son, Scott shows up as
Arquette's goofy buddy who try to revive the wrestling career of Jimmy King
played by Oliver Platt. Wrestling is very popular right now, well at least
a bit more mainstream than it used to be. In actuality it is not watched
by as many people as the media would like you to think, but it does make quite a
bit of money. However, during the making of this film, WCW was going
through many changes. They were getting beaten in the ratings by the WWF
and were trying to do crazy things to bring back the fans who had left when they
had become tired of the Nitro product and switched over to WWF's raunchier and
more outrageous style. I watch both wrestling shows and remember when the
wrestlers in WCW had to be off the shows to film the movie so what happened was
guys like Diamond Dallas Page would get hit with a chair from behind and be 
stretchered out as an excuse to be off the air while he filmed his scenes in the
movie. You see when a wrestler is shown getting hurt on purpose on
television, it is fake, or a work. That wrestler either has a legit injury
from a previous time that needs to be fixed or they need time off for personal
reasons. For about 4 weeks, several of the more popular wrestlers were off
the shows to film the movie causing WCW to lose a lot of its steam. In
fact, one wrestler, Rey Mysterio re-injured his knee filming a wrestling stunt
during filming and is not cleared to wrestle until about June or this
year. Ready to Rumble was supposed to expose more people to the WCW
product and hopefully increase the ratings with new fans coming out of the
movie. Unfortunately several wrestlers became injured at the same
time earlier this year like Goldberg, Sting, Diamond Dallas Page, and Kanyon who
are all in the movie so more people turned off WCW programming dropping the
ratings to an all time low. So, when Ready to Rumble came out to promote
World Championship Wrestling, no one cared. WCW meant nothing to the
average fan who had stopped watching it due to lack of good angles and few
compelling wrestlers on screen. Also, the typical crazed fan of wrestling
looking at the preview feels that they are being goofed on so they avoid the
film. Poor reviews did not help, but a movie like this is not expected to
be liked by the critics so the the ones who are inclined to see it would tend
not to be influenced by thumbs and stars reviews. I am a big wrestling
fan. I follow the sports entertainment quite closely and I do want to
check it out since I like the real wrestlers involved and I want to see if it is
as really bad as I have heard. I am a mark for this stuff and bathroom
humor makes me laugh. However, the movie just has a look of being a bit
too silly and unfunny with its are you fluent, no I feel fine humor.
Comedy previews usually show some of the better jokes and it did not do that
well. I will say the Nitro dancing girls look good for the 2 seconds they
are shown in the trailer. Oh, and the other thing that might have turned
off people is that Oliver Platt may be a somewhat roly poly guy, but he does not
have the look of a wrestler, let alone one of the most popular ones. Looks
like there will be a lot of stuntman work in those wrestling scenes. RTR is
destined for a quick journey to Blockbuster.