Thursday, July 18, 2002
'Men in Black II' fends off Hanks at box office
By Dean Goodman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Men in Black II" zapped its rivals at the
North American box office for a second consecutive weekend, while the Tom Hanks
crime drama "Road to Perdition" enjoyed a gangbusters opening at No.
2, according to studio estimates issued Sunday.
The sci-fi comedy sequel sold about $25 million worth of tickets for the July 12-14 weekend, taking its 12-day total to $133.3 million. "Men in Black II" was released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp ( news - web sites).
"Road to Perdition" (DreamWorks), a gritty saga starring Hanks as a vengeful killer on the run in 1930s Illinois, grossed $22.1 million in its first three days. However, the film played in half the number of theaters as the "Men" sequel: 1,797 vs. 3,611. In fact, every other film in the top 10 played wider than "Road," which will gradually expand over the next few weeks, said Jim Tharp, the president of distribution at the privately owned studio.
Three other films debuted impressively: the Matthew McConaughey apocalyptic thriller "Reign of Fire" (Touchstone) at No. 3 with $16 million; the horror picture "Halloween: Resurrection" (Dimension) at No. 4 with $12.3 million; and family adventure "The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course" (MGM) at No. 6 with $10 million.
The top five was rounded out by the Adam Sandler comedy "Mr. Deeds" (Columbia), which fell three places to No. 5 with $11 million in its third weekend. Its total stands at $99 million.
According to tracking firm Exhibitor Relations, the combined sales for the top 12 films were about even with last weekend, and up about 20 percent from the year ago period, when "Legally Blonde" opened at No. 1 with $20 million.
'MINORITY REPORT' PASSES $100 MILLION
Along with "Men in Black II," one other film passed the century mark: "Minority Report" (Fox) with $110.3 million after 24 days. The Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller tumbled five places to No. 9 with $7.4 million for the weekend, hit hard by the similarly adult-oriented "Road to Perdition."
"Men in Black II" hit $100 million last Wednesday -- its eighth day of release, about even with its 1997 predecessor, said Jeff Blake, Columbia's president of worldwide marketing and distribution. The film, reportedly budgeted at $140 million, marks a reunion of director Barry Sonnenfeld with stars Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith.
"Perdition" represents the second feature of English director Sam Mendes, who won an Academy Award in 2000 for his debut, "American Beauty." The audience for the R-rated "Perdition" was evenly split by gender, with viewers over 35 comprising half the audience, said DreamWorks' Tharp.
Since adults do not rush theaters to see a picture on its opening weekend, DreamWorks opted for the conservative roll-out in hopes that positive word-of-mouth and reviews would underpin the movie over the long haul, Tharp said.
The spectacular $12,305 average from each theater was on par with the average for Hanks' "Saving Private Ryan," which opened with $30.5 million in 1998 on its way to a domestic haul of $216 million. The next highest average in the top 10 was $6,923 for "Men in Black II."
Paul Newman and English actor Jude Law also star in "Perdition." DreamWorks co-financed the film with Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc., which will release it internationally.
ROOKIES ON TARGET
The debuts for the other rookies generally met their respective studios' expectations. "Reign of Fire" drew mostly young males to its tale of fire-breathing dragons, said a spokeswoman for Walt Disney Co., which released the picture through its Touchstone Pictures banner.
"Halloween: Resurrection," starring Jamie Lee Curtis, cost only $13 million to make, and will be very profitable, said a spokesman at Disney-owned Dimension, the genre banner of Miramax Films. The opening was similar to that of "Halloween: H20," which revived the horror franchise in 1998.
"Crocodile Hunter," which cost between $10 million and $12 million to make, will also be very profitable, said Erik Lomis, president of domestic distribution at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. . The conservation-themed film, starring colorful Australian TV personality Steve Irwin a.k.a. the Crocodile Hunter, played well with family audiences, Lomis said.
New releases next weekend include the spider horror "Eight Legged Freaks" (a Wednesday bow); the Harrison Ford submarine thriller "K-19: The Widowmaker" and the talking-mouse sequel "Stuart Little 2" (both Friday).
Reuters/Variety
The top movies in North America -- July 12-14
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Following are the final data for the top 10 movies at the North American box office during the July 12-14 weekend, according to studio figures released Monday by Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.
Film Three-day Cumulative
Title Gross
1. Men in Black II .......... $24,410,311
BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $132,688,511
2. Road to Perdition .......... $22,079,481
BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $22,079,481
3. Reign of Fire .......... $15,632,281
BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $15,632,281
4. Halloween: Resurrection .......... $12,292,121
BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $12,292,121
5. Mr. Deeds .......... $10,842,415
BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $93,975,613
6. The Crocodile Hunter .......... $9,537,123
BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $9,537,123
7. Lilo & Stitch .......... $8,024,738
BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $118,411,367
8. Like Mike .......... $7,833,279
BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $32,819,934
9. Minority Report .......... $7,216,069
BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $110,137,457
10. The Bourne Identity .......... $5,761,380
BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $99,026,945
Reuters/Variety
John L.: Men in Black II fell sharply this week, but it is still the number one film beating out some very diverse competition. Road to Perdition is the first Tom Hanks movie since "That Thing You Do" that did not open at number one, but its $22 million take is quite respectable and shows that Tom Hanks is the most bankable star out there right now. Reign of Fire had the best ad campaign and a very good preview, but people may have thought they got all of the best moments in the 2 minute showcase. More in my review. Just like Michael Myers the character, the Halloween movie series refuses to die. My full review of Halloween 8 later in the report.
REIGN OF FIRE - FULL REVIEW
Reign of Fire was one of my most anticipated movies this Summer. The
shots of the dragons breathing fire and flying around looked awesome and it was
so fun to growl "Reeeiiingggrrnnn of
Firrrrggeee!"
Unfortunately, the preview is more exciting than the movie. Acutally the
movie is exciting, but there is only about 10 minutes of actual dragon footage
spread out throughout the film. The main focus is on us earthlings trying
to survive the dragon threat. Reign's premise is that a young boy somehow
awakens a sleeping dragon underneath a London, England construction site.
This sparks an invasion of a million dragons within a year and most of the world
becomes the ancient beasts' playground. It seems that dragons are the ones
who took out the dinosaurs oh so long ago and now it is time to cook the puny
humans. The boy grows up and becomes Quinn played by Christian Bale who is
the de facto leader of the human resistance movement against the flying
demons. After continuing to lose their spot on the food chain, in comes
possible help or possibly just as many problems with the entrance of Matthew
McConaughey as Van Zan a cocky American trying to be the top dragon
slayer. Since every movie needs female that takes control we have Izabella
Scorupco as Alex who is an expert in flying special helicopters that take on
dragons head on. Her character is pretty good and there is not time wasted
with her falling in love with McConaughey or Bale. No time, too many
dragons to catch. Character development is not a strong part of the film,
but it does spend a lot of time on Quinn's frustrations with his current life
that changed when he was a little boy and turned him into an adult way too
soon. Bale is very good here and he shows that he is a very underrated
actor who never gives a bad performance and he finally gets to use his regular
voice this time after playing arrogant Americans in American Psycho and
Shaft. The movie tries to focus more on the humans than the dragons and
that was not the way to go with this film. But the makers of Reign of Fire
had no choice since it costs quite a bit of cash to create these beasts so that
they look real on the big screen. It seems that the budgets was not enough
to have a dragon breathe fire every ten minutes so they just spread ten minutes
of dragon footage over an hour and 45 minute period. Only one dragon
attacks at a time and in the one group scene of dragons most are in the distance
and no real detail is shown. If you have seen the preview, you have seen
the majority of dragon sequences and their screen time. The special effect
is pretty good, but is a bit below what the Jurassic Park movies have done in
terms of mixing humans and pre-historic animals together. As ROF went on
it appeared that the movie funds were fading quickly as the last 15 minutes of
the movie has the worse dragon footage. Characters are supposed to be
standing in front of the biggest baddest fiercest dinosaur cooking world
dominating snaggle tooth to ever exist, but it looks like they are watching the
same movie the audience is because of the obvious glowing blue/green screen
effect
and what looks like a projection of a dragon on a wall and not a 3 dimensional
creature about to smash some leftover human interlopers. The final battle
should have definitely looked better, and its poor execution completely negates
any positive moments the film had. Because there was not enough money to
have dragons on all the time, we get to spend way too much time with people that
are never really given anything to do except to look up in the sky and wait for
the computer graphics artists to go to work. The biggest crime of all this
movie commits is having Alice Krige of "Ghost Story" and Star Trek:
First Contact" fame only in the first 10 minutes of the movie as Quinn's
mother. Her career looked so promising 20 years ago and I don't know what
happened. My suggestion is to find a copy of the full 3 minute trailer for
Reign of Fire and watch it. All of the good parts are there and you feel
you get more out of the dragons when they make up 80 percent of the preview
instead of the 10 percent in the actual film. Dragons are the most over
used creatures in fantasy fiction books and are some of the most misused
imaginary fiends in movies. The books make them cool, but the cinematic
artists still have a lot of work to do. Reign of Fire had potential, but
it did not achieve it. Final Review: 2 stars out of 5; 5 out of 10:
C; thumbs down.
HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION - FULL REVIEW
A few years ago when Scream 3 was released I did
reviews of the Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween movie
series. In my Halloween: H2O comments I said that the series was
decisively ended when Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) Strode decapitated Michael
Myers. Myers had been shot 2 dozen times, burned, stabbed, kicked, beat,
and stomped and still came back for more, but I did
not think he could actually re-attach his head to his shoulders unless Laurie
had cut off the wrong head meaning Myers was never killed in the first
place. Well, lo and behold Larry Brand, screenwriter of Halloween:
Resurrection must read my site because that is the exact explanation given to
why the 8th Halloween, technically the 7th one with Michael Myers has been
released. I know that most people will not want to see this Halloween
movie, but may have been curious about how Michael could have survived, so since
this is revealed in the first 5 minutes of the movie, it is not much of a
spoiler. Michael had switched bodies with an EMT and escaped to slash
another day and in this new movie Michael is back to take revenge on all those
who have crossed him. Oh wait, revenge was part 5, sorry. The first 15
minutes of Resurrection has your Jamie Lee Curtis "cameo" which is her
4th appearance in a Halloween movie. She makes her last stand against
Michael and if you know the rules of horror movies, you know what that
means. Laurie Strode finally falls victim to the butcher knife. Oh,
should I have put some spoiler space before I revealed that big secret?
No, not really. Like I said, no one cares and Laurie's death is a bit
suspect. If another movie is made, they could bring her back if they want
to. No one felt for a pulse is all I will say. With Laurie out of
the way, that would seemingly leave Michael with nothing to do so he goes back
to his old home to chill and live out the rest of his days. But, it seems
people will not let him rest in peace. Freddie (Busta Rhymes) is an
internet entrepreneur. You can tell that this movie was made quite a while
ago since very few people try to make money off the internet nowadays. He
wants to take a group of college students to the Myers house where Michael
killed his sister oh so long ago while she was doing her hair. The
students will have cameras "Blair Witch Project" style and
all of it will be shown on the internet for the viewing and paying public.
Of course as soon as they enter the house, Michael gets into his Marlene
Dietrich mode and wants to be left alone so he does his best to ensure
that. I am a fan of this series and Halloween 8 or 7 if you prefer since
part 3 doesn't really count is pretty good compared to some of the last 3.
Michael is his most brutal since Halloween 2 where people were getting their
faces melted and had a hypodermic needle shoved in their eyeball. Lots of
beheadings, stabbings through the chest so the victim hangs on the wall, throat
cuts, and the ever popular impaling through a sharp object that just happens to
be sticking out at the end of the hallway. The acting in this movie is sub
par, but there was not much to work with so it can't be faulted too much.
All they have to do is run and scream a lot and I am happy. Busta is an
acquired taste and he can be very annoying with his muted rap hip hop style
here, but I personally enjoyed his performance especially when he is goofing on
Michael's whole appearance and gimmick to his face. He is the only one
that stands out while the others just do their job. Tyra Banks shows up
for about 7 minutes of total screen time and even though there is a picture
circulating of Michael sneaking up behind her, that scene is not in the
movie. Her death sequence (spoiler alert... oh damn forgot again) is done
off screen and you only see the aftermath of the attack. She is probably
the worst in the film because she is given nothing to do and I wondered why they
even bothered to cast her. The internet plot is actually done very well
here and puts some good suspense later in the film when one of the students uses
a PDA to contact a watcher of the show and they are given warnings of how close
Michael is behind them. It is corny, cheesy, and a bit stupid, but it
allows the movie to have fun with some of the standard slasher movie cliches
like not going into that dark room or the ever popular "he's not dead you
idiot" bit. More spoiler stuff, but this has to do with the ending,
so I will warn you a bit. All but 2 people fall victim to
Myers
until he is electrocuted and burned again at the end. He has had worse
trauma over the years. The very last shot of the film is of Michael Myers
opening his eyes ready to strike again. I have no idea how this series
will ever end since the makers seem unable to commit to a final Michael
moment. Halloween: Resurrection is only for true die hard fans who
liked at least part 4 and H2O in the series along with parts 1 and 2. If
you only liked the first Halloween and refused to see the others or hated the
sequels then avoid this film at all costs. This version of Michael is very
similar to the one portrayed in part 2 except the Resurrection version tends to
walk a bit too fast. H:R should only be viewed by people who are fans of
the body count since there really was no reason for this film to exist past the
first 15 minutes. It is more like an episode of a television series after
that. I personally enjoyed this film since I am the only true die hard fan
left. It is the best Halloween since Halloween: The Return of Michael
Myers. So, in order of best to worse we have Halloween, Part 2, Part 4:
The Return of Michael Myers, Resurrection, H2O, Part 3 Season of the Witch
(underrated), Part 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and the worse one of all,
Part 6: The Curse of Michael Myers. Halloween Resurrection tries to give
some insight into Michael's motivations, but most of it turns out to be lies, so
we still have very little idea why Myers does the things he does. It
should be kept a mystery. Final Review: 3 stars out of 5; 7 out of
10; B; thumbs up for the freaky fans like me. For the average and above
moviegoer appalled by this stuff the Final Review is: 1 star out of 5; 3
1/2 out of 10; D; thumbs down. When it is all said and done, it should
have ended with Halloween Part 2 and at worst H2O.
REST OF THE TOP 10 IN 10:
1. Men in Black II is not very good, but the name alone has guaranteed it a decent run at the box office.
2. I could see a Men in Black television series in the future that is live action and not a cartoon.
3. Tom Hanks plays a sympathetic hitman because it would be just too hard for the audience to buy Hanks as a villain.
4. I personally would enjoy seeing if Hanks can do the Denzel "Training Day" villain stretch.
5. Adam Sandler's Mr. Deeds is the type of film that actors who were once risque make when they want to have something they can show their kids to prove that they were a star once.
6. Crikey, mate, it looks like Steve Irwin may have more trouble catching box office gold than he does those nasty crocs in the outback.
7. Elvis may have left the building, but Lilo and Stitch continues to remain in the top ten.
8. Unlike Michael Jordan, Like Mike may not make an average Jordan annual salary when its run at the cineplex is over.
9. Someone should have predicted that Minority Report needed a tighter script and then maybe it would have had a better chance of getting better positive word of mouth.
10. Congratulations Mr. Damon, you have your first starring role hit since Good Will Hunting.
Next week, more movies are released and I bet that not a lot of people care since most are saving their pennies for Austin Powers in Goldmember. Bye for now.
ABOUT JOHN L.'S KICKIN' BOX OFFICE REPORTS
THIS WEEK'S BOX OFFICE REPORT LAST WEEK'S BOX OFFICE REPORT
THE BEST AND WORST MOVIES OF 2001
JOHN L.'S REPORT ON THE MARKETING OF VIOLENCE TO CHILDREN
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