August 15, 1999

The Sixth Sense' Retains Strong Box Office Grip

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Demonstrating a remarkable hold at the North American box office,

``The Sixth Sense'' became the first movie in more than two months to keep the No. 1 position for a

second weekend as audiences lined up to watch a boy who can see dead people.

The dramatic thriller, which stars Bruce Willis as a child psychologist who helps a boy (played by Haley Joel Osment) deal with

his troubling powers, pulled in $26.1 million for the Friday-to-Sunday period, according to studio estimates issued Sunday.

The 10-day tally for the Hollywood Pictures release is $70 million; its per-screen average was a strong $10,901, and its

three-day haul slipped by just 2.1 percent from its opening round. By contrast, eighth-ranked ``Mystery Men'', also released

last weekend, lost more than half its audience.

The last movie to rule the box office for consecutive weeks was ``Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace,'' whose three

weekend reign ended June 4-6.

Three movies launched in wide release this weekend, but only one did well: the Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy comedy

''Bowfinger'', which opened at No. 2 with $18.2 million. The others were the Asian-set prison drama ``Brokedown Palace'' at

No. 9 with $4.0 million, and the KISS rock 'n' roll road movie ''Detroit Rock City'' whose $2.0 million tally placed it well out

of the top 10.

``Bowfinger'' stars Martin (who also wrote the script) as a never-been Hollywood movie producer who spends his meager life

savings to make a guerrilla movie starring the world's biggest action hero (played by Murphy) without the actor knowing of it.

Heather Graham and Christine Baranski also star in the Universal Pictures release, which Frank Oz directed.

Universal distribution chief Nikki Rocco noted that the $55 million movie was one of the rare adult-skewing comedies this

summer, and played strongly across North America, indicating that its inside-Hollywood humor traveled well in the heartland.

Rounding out the top five were Artisan Entertainment's ``The Blair Witch Project'' at No. 3 with $15.2 million (33-day total

$108.0 million); Paramount Pictures' ``Runaway Bride'' at No. 4 with $14.2 million (17-day total $98.4 million); and Metro-

Goldwyn-Mayer's ``The Thomas Crown Affair'' at No. 5 with $10.2 million (10-day total $31.1 million).

Fox's ``Brokedown Palace'' is a ``Midnight Express''-like tale starring Claire Danes and Kate Beckinsdale as American tourists

busted in Bangkok for acting as unsuspecting drug mules. A Fox spokesman was not able to comment.

Set in 1978, New Line Cinema's ``Detroit Rock City'' stars four Ohio high school kids who overcome numerous obstacles in

their road trip to Detroit to see their first KISS concert. The band appears at the very end in a concert scene playing the title

song. KISS frontman Gene Simmons also served as a producer of the $14 million movie.

``Nobody is thrilled, of course, but that's life,'' said Simmons, when reached at his Beverly Hills home Sunday morning. ''You

believe in something, whether it's music or art, you put on your battle gear and beat up the unconverted. It's never over.''

Asked why the same fans -- the so-called Kiss Army -- who scoop up their records appeared to avoid the movie, Simmons

said, ``Good question. We tour, we get millions of people.''

Simmons' The Gene Simmons Co. has two projects in development at New Line, and he is meeting with his attorneys Monday

to put the finishing touches on a production deal at an unidentified studio where he will have funding of more than $100 million.

Rounding out the top 10 were Warner Bros.' ``Deep Blue Sea'' at No. 6 with $6.7 million (19-day total $57.2 million); Walt

Disney Pictures' ``Inspector Gadget'' at No. 7 with $6.2 million (24-day total $76.1 million); Universal's ``Mystery Men'' at

No. 8 with $4.9 million (10-day total $19.3 million); the ''Brokedown Palace'' at No. 9 with $4.0 million and WB's ``The Iron

Giant'' at No. 10 with $3.8 million (10-day total $12.6 million).

The North American box office figures are for movies shown in the United States and Canada.

Hollywood Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures are units of Walt Disney Co. Universal Pictures is a unit of Seagram Co. Ltd.

Artisan Entertainment is privately held. Paramount Pictures is a unit of Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA - news) New Line and Warner

Bros. are units of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news) Twentieth Century Fox is a unit of News Corp.

The top 10 movies at the box office

LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) - Following are the top 10 movies at the North American box office for the August 13-15

weekend, according to studio estimates collected Sunday by Reuters. Final data will be released Monday.

1 (1) The Sixth Sense .......... $26.1 million

2 (+) Bowfinger ................ $18.2 million

3 (2) The Blair Witch Project .. $15.2 million

4 (3) Runaway Bride ............ $14.2 million

5 (4) The Thomas Crown Affair .. $10.2 million

6 (5) Deep Blue Sea ............ $6.7 million

7 (7) Inspector Gadget ......... $6.2 million

8 (6) Mystery Men .............. $4.9 million

9 (+) Brokedown Palace ......... $4.0 million

10 (9) The Iron Giant ........... $3.8 million

JOHN L.: Oh yeah, I like what’s happening this week in the box office report. A couple of jabronis tried to take the top spot and got laid out big time. For the second time this summer we have a repeat in the top spot. Let’s look at what developed this week.

Sixth Sense continues its assault on the err… senses of the public. That kid may see dead people, but this movie certainly is not dead. Some movies increase in box office from week to week, but most don’t. In fact the average is about a 30% drop in the second week. Depending on how much you made the first week, that can be good or okay. For example, Phantom Menace makes $110 million one week, and the next it makes about $50 million, no one is going to cry too much. However if your movie makes $10 million the first time out and then makes $4 million, then you have problems. 6S dropped only 2% or so in its second week which means that statistically, it stayed the same. Word of mouth fans. Bruce Willis has his best word of mouth hit since Die Hard 1. Blair Witch increased its box office some 1500% its 3^rd week in release, but it gained a 1000 theaters so it does not count. People are digging the little boy’s tag line of seeing dead people, and the movie has the don’t reveal the ending gimmick. It also has the gimmick of once you know the secret, you want to see the movie again to see if it really made sense. From what I heard, it makes great sense, and is the first movie I have heard get props for its ending. Most movie endings suck, but this one has good hype on its finish. Look for 6S to do well next week and make around $150 million at least. Also look for Bruce Willis to keep his $20 million salary for his next picture, and look for Haley Joel Osment to soon make that McCauley Culkin dough in the very near future.

Bowfinger opened in second place, and to me that is not that good. Eddie Murphy is still somewhat of a star, David Spade be damned. And Steve Martin can’t put an ass in a seat, but everyone knows who he is, Charles Grodin be damned. Heather Graham is coming out of her "breakthrough" performance in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, I’ll be damned. But with all of this so called star power, BF can only garner around $18 milliion. I would have said with all of its hype and good reviews, Schwartzbaum be damned, it would have earned around $25 to $30 million. Here is what happened. Bowfinger is a victim of the good comedy movie review. According to Entertainment Weekly, the average critic review for the film is B+. EW gave it an A for gosh sakes. Comedies that get really good reviews don’t do very well. Look at Adam Sandler’s career. Waterboy and Big Daddy are his 2 biggest hits, and the critics ripped them both an asshole a piece. South Park was meant to be hated by the mainstream press, but they kissed its "uncle fucka" ass and it stalled at $45 million. American Pie was admittedly a great flick, and EW says its critic average is a B-, and it is somewhat successful considering its production cost. However, AP should have earned over $120 million a long time ago. It should have gotten Something About Mary money, but now it is barely going to make $90 million. Dick was very well received by the "get in the movie for free and trash it crowd unless there are subtitles," but it failed worse than the Nixon Presidency. Mystery Men received poor reviews, but no one saw it because its premise sucked as well as its preview. Bowfinger may hit $100 million if word of mouth is good, but don’t expect it to do more than that. I see about $12 million for it next week. It will be Steve Martin’s biggest hit since Father of the Bride, and it will make more money than Holy Man, but don’t expect Bowfinger 2, unless Heather Graham does another Boogie Night type nude scene.

Brokedown Palace opened this week to $4 million bucks. I don’t think that is enough to break those poor slutty hoes out of their Thai jail. Claire Danes sucks, and Hollywood will one day stop giving her so much work. Romeo and Juliet made as much money as it did because of its wacky style, this movie should have stayed locked up in a Hollywood vault. You see, filmakers do this all the time. We have a story about the horrors of Thailand women’s prisons from the point of view of the fucking Americans!! How about having a Thai prison movie starring Thai women. There has to be some locked up in there. A movie about the horrors of Chinese prison starring friggin’ Richard Gere!! Where are the Chinese prisoners? Oh, the audience can only see "white" people in foreign peril. People that actually face it everyday should not be shown because Americans don’t like looking at ethnic features for more than 5 seconds at a time. A movie about the suffering of the American Indians post Civil War time starring Kevin Costner and Mary McDonnell!! The horrors of Apartheid in South Africa starring Kevin Klline, starrying Amy Irving, starring Marlon Brando!! The tragedy of racism in the 1950’s and 1960’s starring Sissy Spacek, Sam Watterson, Ally Sheedy, Gene Hackman, Matthew McConaughey (twice) and fucking Alec Baldwin? I am not being some race supremacist here. I am just saying when you want to do a story about the injustices of the world, how about for once or twice, or most of the time have it star the people who are most affected by it in real life. Maybe, just maybe a film like that could be made and be successful, or at the very least be worthy of its topic.

My favorite part of the report though is that Gene Simmons can’t figure out why Detroit Rock City bombed right out of the assembly plant. Kiss has millions of fans, but it seems that no one cares about some 70’s stoners getting tickets to see them. Another victim of the ultimate box office killer, the bad premise. This is the type of movie Jason Priestly used to make before he started directing 90210 episodes. The funniest line in the preview is the one about how porno movies start out. Nothing else in the movie is all that interesting. The guys in KISS are doing the same act they did 25 years ago. Grow up guys, its about over. You have to be at least 50 something by now and still doing the bloody mime act. You knew it was over when Tupac introduced them at the Emmys or whatever award show that was. Also, Shannon Tweed is in the movie, and that also means no money. That’s why she only does those Showtime after dark and Hulk Hogan movies. Next up for Gene Simmons is producing a product with Rena Mero. Who, you might ask. Exactly.

The rest of the top 10 is pretty standard. Blair Witch is making good money and has made over $108 million making it the most profitable film of all time. I cannot figure out what that exact profit margin is because the cost of the movie is every where from $30,000 to $16, 030,000. Huh, you ask. You see, the lowest number I have heard is $30,000, it cost Artisan $1 million for the rights, and another $15 million to market it. The sequel will open huge, but don’t expect it to answer any what really happened questions. Expect Scream 2 type of money for that one. Runaway Bride has made $98.4 million and is well on its way to standard Julia Roberts box office money. I am not a JR fan, but it seems that people don’t like to runaway from her. I was at a wedding recently where the bride sort of reminded me of JR in different ways. Fortunately there were no horses, or Richard Gere’s around, so the 2 got married in grand fashion. Thomas Crown is not making a lot of money, but it stayed pretty strong after a weak opening weekend. Welcome to Entrapment money, but don’t expect a video game out of this remake. I am the only one in the world who liked Deep Blue Sea. Expect it to show up in my best of 1999 list at the end of the year whether you like it or not. It had Sam Jackson’s best performance of the summer, Red Violin be damned. IG has made about $76 million so far which is pretty good for a Broderick masterpiece. It just might be his second most successful movie of all time next to Godzilla, Ferris B. damned. It’s a mystery how Mystery Men is still in the top 10. Expect that to change next week. Ben Stiller should stop listening to Janeane when she suggests projects they can do together. If Gene Siskel was alive today, he would have probably put Iron Giant on his list of one of the top 10 movies of 1999 based on the fact that he thought Babe 2 was the best film of 1998. Another movie that got excellent reviews, but failed to catch on to the public. The premise was even sound, with a little boy finding an alien robot to play with while the evil government and military try to destroy it, E.T. be damned. Cool animation and a good preview meant it should have at least gotten some of that Prince of Egypt type cash. So what happened here? Jennifer Aniston. Her name on the marquis still means box office death, Friends be damned. I have said it before, and I will say it again, keep JA on TV and Rolling Stone covers with her naked ass showing. That is what she is good for, Kevin Bacon and Jay Mohr be damned.

That’s it for this week. I have no idea what comes out next week, but Allah, Buddah, God, Jesus, Oracle at Delphi, Vishnu, Sun God, Gaea, and Mick Foley willing, I will be here next week to run down the box office totals and analyze why a movie worked, failed, or just was not my cup of jo. Til then, bye for now.