Wednesday, November 16, 2000

'Charlie's Angels' Fends Off Sandler's Satan Comedy

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - ``Charlie's Angels'' sent Adam Sandler's new Satan comedy to purgatory at the weekend box office as the femme crime-fighting trio easily retained the No. 1 rank with a haul of $25 million, according to studio estimates issued Sunday.

The new Adam Sandler comedy ``Little Nicky'' did even worse than originally projected at the North American box office last weekend, according to final sales data issued on Monday.

The satanic comedy opened at No. 2 with $15.26 million for the three days beginning Nov. 10, the film's distributor, New Line Cinema, said on Monday. When the studio issued projections on Sunday morning, it forecast $18.1 million.

With many schools closed on Monday in observance of the Veterans Day holiday, New Line over-estimated the number of youngsters who would see ``Little Nicky'' on Sunday, said studio spokesman Steve Elzer. Including Thursday night previews, the gross stands at $16.06 million. The film carries a reported production budget in the $80 million range.

``Little Nicky,'' in which Sandler plays the kind-hearted son of Satan (played be Harvey Keitel), is a relative disappointment for the comedian. His previous movie, ``Big Daddy,'' opened to $41.5 million in June 1999, while ``The Waterboy'' kicked off with $39.4 million in November 1998, both at No. 1.

Still leading the field was ``Charlie's Angels'' (Columbia), with a final sum of $24.60 million in its second weekend of release, down $400,000 from the Sunday projection. Producer/star Drew Barrymore's big-screen update of the 1970s TV series has exceeded industry expectations by grossing $75.01 million after 10 days of release.

``I think we would have wanted it to open higher, but you need to look at the reality of the marketplace,'' said David Tuckerman, president of domestic theatrical distribution at New Line Cinema, which released ``Little Nicky.''

The reality, observers said, was that ``Charlie's Angels'' has far exceeded expectations by grossing $75.4 million after two weekends, thus providing a lot of competition for the Sandler picture.

``'Little Nicky' did well,'' said Jeff Blake, president of worldwide marketing and distribution at Sony Pictures Entertainment, which released ``Charlie's Angels.'' ``But once you open at $40 million (as ``Angels'' did) you have a huge advantage.''

Blake predicted ``Angels'' would pass $100 million before Thanksgiving (on Nov. 23) and go on to surpass $150 million in the United States and Canada.

Additionally, ``Charlie's Angels'' enjoyed wide support from adult moviegoers as well as youngsters, while ``Little Nicky'' tended to play to Sandler's core audience of young males. New Line's Tuckerman said those young males generally see a Sandler picture several times, which could give it some extra legs.

In ``Little Nicky,'' Sandler's shovel-faced character must venture to Earth to bring his two older rebellious brothers back to hell where their father (played by Harvey Keitel) is ailing. The fish-out-of-water comedy boasted cameos from the likes of heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne, comedian Rodney Dangerfield and Reese Witherspoon, who plays Sandler's mother.

Critics have never warmed to Sandler's humor, and he in turn has not gone out of his way to court the media. A Variety poll of 33 leading critics in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C. found that only one liked ``Little Nicky,'' while 19 did not and 13 were mixed.

Sony Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp. (6758.T). New Line is a unit of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news).

The top 10 contained two other new releases. The military drama ``Men of Honor'' (Fox) opened at No. 3 with about $14 million and the sci-fi thriller ``Red Planet'' (Warner Bros.) at No. 5 with $9 million.

The acclaimed British comedy ``Billy Elliot'' (Universal Focus), about a working class boy who wants to become a ballet dancer, went into wide release in its fifth weekend and jumped four places to No. 9 with $2.8 million. Its total stands at $6.0 million.

Tracking firm Exhibitor Relations reported ticket sales for the top 12 films were $101.5 million, up 6.7 percent from last weekend, and up 15 percent from the year-ago period, when ''Pokemon: The First Movie'' opened at No. 1 with $31 million.

New releases next weekend include the Arnold Schwarzenegger genetic cloning thriller ``The 6th Day,'' the Ben Alffleck/Gwyneth Paltrow romance ``Bounce,'' Jim Carrey's ``Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' and children's cartoon ''Rugrats in Paris: The Movie.''

``Men of Honor'' gives its star, Robert De Niro, two movies in the top five, as his comedy hit ``Meet the Parents'' (Universal) fell two places to No. 4 in its sixth weekend with $10.6 million. The 38-day total for ``Parents'' stands at $130.3 million. Universal and its nascent art house arm Universal Focus are units of Seagram Co. Ltd. (Toronto:VO.TO - news).

``Men of Honor'' recounts the true story of the U.S. Navy's first black diver, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. Reviews were generally mixed, but the movie played well across the board, said Bruce Snyder, president of domestic distribution at Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc. (NYSE:FOX - news).

With its $9 million opening, Val Kilmer's ``Red Planet,'' suffered from being the second Martian epic to reach theaters this year: ``Mission to Mars'' opened to $22.9 million in March en route to an underwhelming $60.7 million. ``Red Planet'' was originally set to debut in March as well, but was pushed back first to June and then to November. Warner Bros. had hoped ''Planet'' would open in the mid-teens, said Dan Fellman, the studio's president of distribution.

The film is a co-production between Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner, and Australian entertainment firm Village Roadshow Ltd. (VRL.AX).

In the limited release arena, Paramount Pictures reissued the wry Michael Douglas drama ``Wonder Boys'' in 15 theaters, hoping to give it a second chance after it bombed earlier this year. It grossed a modest $83,000.

The Viacom Inc.-owned (NYSE:VIA - news) studio's Paramount Classics arm had better luck with sibling drama ``You Can Count On Me,'' which pulled in $114,000 from eight theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The Sundance Film Festival prizewinner widens to the top 10 markets next weekend.

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 Nov. 10-12 weekend, according to studio estimates collected Sunday by Reuters. Final data will be issued Monday.

1 (1) Charlie's Angels ................ $24,606,860

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $75,011,318

2 (+) Little Nicky .................... $16,063,904

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $16,063,904

3 (+) Men of Honor .................... $13,339,465

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $13,339,465

4 (2) Meet the Parents ................ $10,342,995

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $130,013,885

5 (+) Red Planet ...................... $8,721,296

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $8,721,296

6 (3) The Legend of Bagger Vance ...... $6,315,993

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $20,896,346

7 (4) Remember the Titans ............. $5,182,414

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $103,800,570

8 (7) Pay It Forward .................. $3,025,447

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $29,363,880

9(13) Billy Elliot .................... $2,603,380

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $5,803,845

10 (6) Bedazzled ....................... $2,510,770

BOX OFFICE SO FAR:  $34,626,487

NOTE: Last weekend's position in parenthesis. ``+'' - new release.

``Charlie's Angels'' is released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp..

``Little Nicky'' is released by New Line Cinema, a unit of Time Warner Inc., and ``Red Planet'' and ``Pay It Forward'' by Warner Bros., also a unit of Time Warner.

``Men of Honor'' and ``Bedazzled'' are released by Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc. .

``Meet the Parents'' is released by Universal Pictures, and ''Billy Elliot'' by Universal Focus, both units of Seagram Co. Ltd..

``The Legend of Bagger Vance'' is released by DreamWorks SKG, which is privately held.

``Remember the Titans'' is released by Touchstone Pictures, a unit of Walt Disney Co..

Reuters/Variety REUTERS

John L.:  Rough week to be the guy who approved the $20 million salary Adam Sandler got for Little Nicky.  It is all about the preview guys, and the LN preview showed just how uninteresting that movie looks.  For the first time in Bobby D's career, he has 2 movies in the top 5 at the same time.  No one cares about Mars in real life let alone fictionalized ones like Red Planet.  What the hell is Billy Elliot?  Oh, and I have another video nose pick of the week, "Free Enterprise."  A whole lot to cover as we inch closer to the Holiday movie season.

The art of the box office draw is fading fast.  Adam Sandler had been on a role with his last three movies, but with Little Nicky, the old adage of its the premise stupid held up.  The preview for this movie was not well received by the new school Sandler fans who liked the Wedding Singer and Waterboy.  The hardcore fans who still have their Billy Madison posters on their wall and old Remote Control episodes on tape with Sandler as Studboy all went to see Little Nicky this weekend.  Next week's box office will tell us if the fans want to give it repeat business.  It was projected that LN was going to make $18 million, but has been downgraded to $16 million.  Word of mouth seems to not be positive.  The story of a wacky childlike demon played by Sandler trying to stop his evil brothers from taking over Earth might have been something interesting but the preview showed some things that turned off the mass audience.  For one is Sandler's voice.  It is annoying to listen too and looks real forced especially his shovel smacked face which is all contorted.  People don't want to sit there for 90 minutes listening and watching Sandler do another goofy voice.  He got away with it in Waterboy because it was funny, but here it just looks cheap.  Speaking of cheap, the special effects shown also are weak.  The basketball player whose afro puffs out looks real fake and Sandler doing his Linda Blair head spin also looks too artificial.  Yeah, you can't turn your head all the way around without breaking your neck, but it looks like they didn't even try this time.  The dummy head looked better in The Exorcist.  There is one laugh in the preview when Sandler plays the Chicago record backwards and it has a satanic message.  Many of the younger fans see that and say what is a record?  The movie has an all star cast, sort of.  Harvey Keitel, Rodney Dangerfield, Patricia Arquette Cage, Ozzy Osbourne, and Quentin Tarantino all show up.  If a movie has a Tarentino cameo, you may as well stay home because the chances of the movie being good is very low.  Now there is one interesting cast member in the movie that I am a big fan of.  Tom "Tiny" Lister plays one of Sandler's brothers.  He is the guy who played the president in The Fifth Element, wrestled Hulk Hogan in No Holds Barred, and chased after Ice Cube and Chris Tucker in Friday.  Oh yeah, he is also very cross-eyed.  I almost went to see the movie when I found out he was running around in it.  It looks like Little Nicky will not be a hit for Sandler, but that won't stop Hollywood from paying him another $20 million for his next movie.  He is still a very bankable star, but if the movie does not look interesting, then no one will go see it.  Obviously, Sandler's own deal with the devil is winding down.

Men of Honor is our prestige movie of the week.  Cuba Gooding Jr. plays the real life navy diver Carl Brashear who fought to gain the respect of the navy crew and the whole military system despite being held back because of his race.  This movie has been made to show the contribution that African Americans have made to history and so forth, but it also illustrates why movies and stories like this are the worst to tell.  It is very difficult if not impossible to do make a movie that takes place in a time before 1970 that does not focus on some racial issue.  It is too bad that this can't just be a movie about a guy trying to become a navy diver and the turmoil that causes.  Robert Deniro shows up as the diving instructor who torments Gooding as well as helps him succeed.  Bobby D gets to do another one of his tough guy roles that he is type cast in.  He is also one of 2 actors in this movie who have another movie in the top 10.  Deniro's wife in the movie is played by Charlize Theron who is also in The Legend of Bagger Vance.  Looks like Hollywood is running out of actors again.  This movie has its racial overtones, but the character of Brashear is truly a hero not just for being the first black person to do what he did, but the fact that he was able to succeed when obstacles were put in front of him to fail.  The trend of the feel good race movie being a success continues.  Movies like Men of Honor and Remember the Titans are successful because the black characters remain strong and stand up in the face of racism leading to a better understanding between all persons.  Movies like Bagger Vance have the black character be more subservient to non existent which makes people turn away.  Also, Smith and Gooding are more convincing in their roles than Will Smith trying to be dramatic but still coming off too Fresh Princey.  Men of Honor will have a tough time reaching the magical $100 million level, but it should do pretty well for the studio.

In the old days like the 1930s and 1950s, Mars was all the rage with such things as War of the Worlds, Invaders from Mars, Mars Needs Women, and my personal favorite, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.  Intelligent life more advanced than our own lived on this planet and wanted to take over Earth.  Even though there has never been any proof of a civilization living on Mars that has flying spaceships and ray guns, writers and movie makers continue to fantasize.  In the last decade, the question of life on Mars has been widely discussed.  A few years back, a rock from Mars was found that may contain evidence of a life form or forms having existed on the red planet at one time.  NASA sends out little space probes and landers to investigate and the best they have come up with are some rock formations that look a lot like a face.  Creepy stuff, but still inconclusive.  Hollywood continues to make Mars movies like the Invaders from Mars remake, Mars Attacks, and Mission to Mars.  Real life interest in the fourth planet from the sun has waned over the years and the box office of recent Martian movies has failed to ignite much action.  This week, Val Kilmer and Carrie Ann Moss show up in the second Mars movie of the year, Red Planet.  The lack of support continues.  From early looks, Red Planet looked to be a pretty good movie.  There was even an evil robot trying to kill the crew running around.  However, RP seems to be a victim of there can be only one movie of the same type out in the same year syndrome.  Sort of like how those Wyatt Earp, volcano and asteroid movies came out near each other and usually one would be well received and the other would bomb either financially or artistically.  Here is the problem with new school Mars movies.  They try to be too realistic.  Mars is a very boring planet.  There is nothing there but some mountains and river scars and crummy atmosphere. Go out to the deserts of the western United States and you can see stuff a whole lot more interesting than the surface of Mars.  So, when these astronauts get to Mars, the writers have difficulty figuring out what they are supposed to do.  Mission to Mars had some weird Martian as being the origin of man plot and Red Planet has the Earth is dying and we need a place to stay plot.  Read Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles for a better telling of those stories or even rent the mini series with Rock Hudson.  Movies about real Mars should stick to IMAX documentaries and not films like Red Planet.  The public won't sit through them and they will not get critical acclaim.  Total Recall was the last movie set on Mars to be successful, but it also the flick that turned Sharon Stone into a mainstream actress.  Red Planet was supposed to come out about a month after Mission to Mars did, but the makers were afraid of confusing the audience.   The audience is not that stupid.

Billy Elliot is the story of a kid who wants to dance.  The problem is that he wants to be a ballet dancer and that does not sit well with his family who don't find that line of work the most masculine type of activity for a son of a miner in England.  This is the hot independent movie of the season that always comes out and is hyped as being an Oscar contender.  It is also released seemingly one theater at a time over several weeks until it goes wide and makes the top 10 out of no where.  Movies like this are loved by critics and the art houses in New York and Los Angeles that always gets these movies and sells them out there, but when they go wide, reality sets in.  The middle America folk are probably less apt to see the movie because it looks to be a bit boring and seeing an 11 year old boy dancing like a girl may not sit well.  That is the problem.  The people who go see this movie are your open minded liberal folk who feel sorry for the boy who must hide his interest in ballet dancing and hope he gets to fufill his dream and make his family understand and be more tolerant.  Billy Elliot is preaching to the choir.  The people that would need to see the film are the ones who feel like the father in the movie who thinks his son is acting like a girl.  BE was made to help change people's views on the subject.  Changing those ideals is very difficult and pretty much never succeeds.  Guys in ballet are treated like male nurses (see Meet the Parents), male stewards on airplanes, hair dressers, fashion designers, choreographers, and to a certain extent actors in general.  Many people consider men in those fields a bit how can I put this delicately, fey.  My personal feeling is do what you like and if you are good, then it doesn't matter if you prefer the bicycle seat on or off.  Billy Elliot is getting good word of mouth and reviews, so it might just stick around for a while.

REST OF THE TOP 10 IN 10:

1.    The angels of Charlie have soundly defeated the demons of Lucifer.

2.    Look for Charlie's Angels 2 in 2003 with cameos of Shelly Hack and Tanya Roberts.

3.    I wonder if future CA sequels will replace Angels like the TV show did?

4.    Meet the Parents is another movie that should have a sequel made soon, probably around 2002.

5.    I wonder if Ben Stiller's real life parents, Jerry Stiller and Ann Meara will play the title roles in the sequel?

6.    The Legend of Bagger Vance is quickly becoming just a myth.

7.    It took it long enough, but Remember the Titans has become Denzel Washington's second movie to cross the $100 million mark.

8.    Washington has done a basketball, boxing, and football movie which means a film about the Negro baseball leagues shoulld not be too far behind.

9.    Pay it Forward has an ending that is controversial, so it would probably behoove you to rush out to see it if you don't want it spoiled in other ways when you see articles about why this movie failed to ignite the nation on some magical crusade.

10.    Bedazzled was not the break out success for Fraser and Hurley that they originally thought it would be.

VIDEO NOSE PICK OF THE WEEK

FREE ENTERPRISE - FULL REVIEW

Free Enterprise is a movie about 2 guys who are Star Trek fanatics who meet their idol, William Shatner, and help him try to get his idea of a William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar musical off the ground.  Along the way, their love life interferes with their quest to see a reissue of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn.  William Shatner plays himself in the movie in a take off of his Saturday Night Live "Get a Life" character and his Priceline Dot Com lounge lizard commercials.  I liked the main premise of the movie when it stays with it.  The movie is full of characters who follow entertainment way too closely by quoting movie lines in response to things that go on in their real life.  Watching them do that gave me douche chills because it is pretty much showing my life.  I sit around and quote movies all day, walk through toy stores, play video games, and idolize the acting style of William Shatner.  When Free Enterprise is goofing on that, the movie works and is quite funny.  However, about halfway through the film, one of the characters falls in love with a girl who knows as much about Star Trek, Star Wars, and comic books as the guys.  I like love stories, but once it is revealed she reads "Sandman" and "Spawn" the movie forgets its strengths and becomes a generic love story turning FE into another movie.  The relationship is very basic and never takes a strange twist.  The couple break up and then get back together, period.  Shatner, who seemed to be a focus, is forgotten while the movie tries to develop this relationship that never works.  The movie worked better when the guy kept breaking up with his girlfriends because they could not remember the correct names of Trek episodes or goofed on his model sets.  The girl who is into all of this is written as the perfect dream date that sci fi obsessed fans dream about.  If she had been a bit less gorgeous and maybe a bit more obsessed, then it could have been fun to watch.  By doing this, the movie becomes difficult to recommend.  Fans of Star Trek will enjoy it because of all of the references and Shatner's self deprecating performance.  However, the love story is weak and may turn them off like it did me.  The average movie goer who does not memorize movie dialogue may like the love story, but not understand anything else dealing with the fans of science fiction and fantasy.  Also, the love story is so poorly done that the average fan may not even tolerate that.  So, if you are very familiar with famous movie quotes and situations, then see Free Enterprise.  If you like Shatner's mock singing and overly dramatic acting style then see it.  If you like basic love stories that are by the book, still avoid because the references are just too hard to understand if you are not into it.  Free Enterprise starts out real well, and the last 20 minutes are good, but the middle is weak.  Final Review:  2 stars out of 5; 5 out of 10; C; thumbs down.  See Trekkies first, and then see Free Enterprise and you may appreciate it more.

Next week we have the Grinch and the Sixth Day.  Another name for those movies is make or break a career.  If Grinch bombs, then Jim Carrey will be looking for a cameo in Scary Movie 2.  If Sixth Day bombs, then I hope Maria Shriver gets that raise.  Bye for now.