Sunday October 3, 1999

'Double Jeopardy' Beats 'Three Kings' At Box Office

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ashley Judd's avenging wife movie ''Double Jeopardy'' ruled the North American box office for

the second consecutive weekend, while acclaimed Gulf War comedy-drama ``Three Kings'' debuted at No. 2.

According to studio estimates issued Sunday, ``Double Jeopardy'' (Paramount Pictures) pulled in $17.2 million for the

Friday-to-Sunday period, taking its 10-day haul to $47.4 million. Judd plays a woman who sets out to kill her husband for

good, after being wrongly imprisoned for his murder first time around when he fakes his death.

``Three Kings'' (Warner Bros.), starring George Clooney, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze and Mark Wahlberg as U.S. soldiers who

plot to steal $23 million in gold bullion from Saddam Hussein, grossed $16.3 million. Dan Fellman, WB's president of

distribution, said the opening tally was within his expectations.

Critics fell over themselves to lavish praise on the $50 million movie, which marks the first major studio film for director David

O. Russell (''Spanking the Monkey''). It played strongly to upscale, review-sensitive audiences in the cities, Fellman said, but

did not do so well in smaller towns, and ``we need to do some work tomorrow'' adjusting the marketing campaign.

Noting that the film accuses the United States of abandoning anti- Saddam insurgents in Iraq, Fellman said the movie may have

seemed a little too sophisticated.

Three other films debuted in the top 10, with generally unremarkable numbers: ``Drive Me Crazy'' opened at No. 6 with $7.1

million, ``The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland'' at No. 8 with $3.3 million, and ``Mystery, Alaska'' at No. 9 with $3.1

million.

According to Exhibitor Relations, which collects the studios' data, the top 12 films this weekend grossed a combined $78.2

million, up 10.5 percent from a week ago, but down 5 percent from the year-ago period when the computer animated comedy

``Antz'' was the top attraction.

Still playing in limited release, ``American Beauty'' (DreamWorks) moved up two places to No. 3 with $8.1 million in its third

weekend, boosting its haul to $18.3 million. The film boosted its screen count by 277 to 706 sites, and would expand to

1,200-1,300 screens next weekend, said DreamWorks' distribution president Jim Tharp. By contrast, the other films in the top

five are each playing on more than 2,700 screens.

Rounding out the top five were ``Blue Streak'' (Columbia), with $8.0 million, and ``The Sixth Sense'' (Hollywood Pictures) with

$7.2 million, each down two places. The 17-day total for ''Blue Streak'' is $47.7 million, while ``The Sixth Sense'' moved up to

$234.7 million after 59 days.

``Drive Me Crazy'' (Twentieth Century Fox), an $8 million romantic comedy starring Melissa Joan Hart of TV's ``Sabrina the

Teenage Witch,'' pulled in the young girls, said Fox's distribution chief Tom Sherak. The opening was on par with expectations.

``Elmo in Grouchland,'' a ``Sesame Street'' spin-off targeted at the pre-school crowd, also performed to studio expectations,

said Columbia Pictures spokesman Ed Russell. A spokesman for Walt Disney Co.'s Hollywood Pictures banner declined to

comment on ``Mystery, Alaska,'' a hockey movie written and produced by David E. Kelley, the creator of Emmy-winning TV

series ``Ally McBeal'' and ``The Practice.''

Elsewhere in the top 10, Kevin Costner's baseball movie ''For Love of the Game'' (Universal) fell three places to No. 7 with

$3.4 million, bringing its 17-day catch to $28.3 million. The supernatural thriller ``Stigmata'' (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) fell four

places to No. 10 with $2.3 million. After 24 days, its tally is $44.3 million.

Paramount Pictures is a unit of Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA - news) Warner Bros. is a unit of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX -

news) Columbia Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE - news) Hollywood Pictures is a unit of Walt Disney Co.

Universal Pictures is a unit of Seagram Co. Ltd. DreamWorks SKG is privately held. Twentieth Century Fox is a unit of Fox

Entertainment Group Inc. (NYSE:FOX - news) The North American box office market consists of the United States and

Canada.

The top 10 movies at the Northam box office

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Following are the top 10 movies at the North American box office for the Oct. 1-3 weekend,

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

1 (1) Double Jeopardy .................. $17.2 million

2 (+) Three Kings ...................... $16.3 million

3 (5) American Beauty .................. $8.1 million

4 (2) Blue Streak ...................... $8.0 million

5 (3) The Sixth Sense .................. $7.2 million

6 (+) Drive Me Crazy ................... $7.1 million

7 (4) For Love of the Game ............. $3.4 million

8 (+) Elmo in Grouchland ............... $3.3 million

9 (+) Mystery, Alaska .................. $3.1 million

10 (6) Stigmata ......................... $2.3 million

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

The North American market is defined as consisting of the United States and Canada.

Double Jeopardy is released by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc. (NYSE:VIA - news)

Three Kings is released by Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news)

American Beauty is released by DreamWorks, which is privately held.

Blue Streak and the Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland are released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp. (NYSE:SNE

- news)

The Sixth Sense and Mystery, Alaska are released by Hollywood Pictures, a unit of Walt Disney Co.

Drive Me Crazy is released by Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc. (NYSE:FOX - news)

For Love of the Game is released by Universal Pictures, a unit of Seagram Co. Ltd.

Stigmata is released by Metro Goldwyn Mayer Inc.

JOHN L.: Welcome to the first box office report to debut on the internet. Yay. We have a lot to cover this week with several new movies debuting. Also, I have a full review for "Three Kings" since I saw it this weekend. Let’s get this started.

George Clooney has once again graced us with his presence on film. The world gave a big yawn. The backlash continues. Big TV star gets bigger head and leaves the biggest show on the public airwaves to become a movie superstar. He has had every chance in the world to get over with the fans, and it still has not happened. I saw his new movie this week which costars the chilled not shaken rapper, an underwear model, an ex-Saturday Night Live actress, a victim from "Scream," and some dude with a John Malkovich fetish. How can you miss with a cast like that. According to many critics, 3K is a successfully made film about the immediate post Gulf War effects on the Iraqi and Kuwaiti people. It shows both sides of the war, the American Soldiers trying to survive and succeed in a war they don’t fully understand the motives. A Kuwaiti population that represented some of the richest people in the world now having to face poverty for the first time. And an Iraqi military that is more afraid of their leader than the Patriot Missles aimed at their homes. A somewhat complicated plot made a little more accessible with the quest for the gold hidden in a Saddam Hussein bunker. There are several battles and action sequences, and the main characters all have their quirks and motives which makes them more interesting. Clooney is the retiring special forces guy who hopes to get the biggest score ever and live the crazy life. Ice Cube is a guy trying to escape the horrors of the Detroit ghetto by enlisting and praying to Mecca everyday with the other Muslims. The guy with the big fake dick wants to make it back home to raise his family and maybe work for a computer company. Then there is the slow witted Texan trying to better himself by emulating his hero, the brother of that guy from New Kids on the Block and maybe find some solace in a new religion. I still can’t figure out which ones were supposed to be the 3 kings, when there were four of them. There is a lot of stuff to like about 3 Kings, and for those who like this type of film, I recommend it to you. On the surface, it is entertaining, thought provoking, and makes you want to do something to help the people who were and to some extent still are victims of Saddam’s reign of terror. Personally, I looked a little deeper into what was going on and realized that 3K is for one type of person, but not for the other. So, to be fair I will present two points of view on the film. The liberal and the conservative. I am not an expert on politics or miltary strategy, I am just joe average commenting on what I have seen in life. So, let’s look at 3K from these aspects.

LIBERAL: The liberal will love this movie. It shows the horrors of war with their bomb victims and bullet wound demonstrations. It also tells us that after Saddam signed his surrender cease fire agreement in 1991, the United States pulled out and told the Iraqi and Kuwaiti people that everything else is up to them without any further support. America had a chance to invade Baghdad, but did not want to risk anymore lives in a a very dangerous encounter. How were these people, who are so afraid of Saddam, supposed to start a revolution. There was no one to lead them. No one really wanted to die for the cause. Liberals hate war and conflict of the physical kind and avoid it at all cost, and 3K shows that George Bush was just trying to increase his poll numbers and not bring Kuwait and Iraq to more democratic nations. It also showed that the soldiers had no idea why they were there. They were told to kill Arabs, no Iraquis, but the Kuwaitis look like Iraquis, how can we tell the difference. Another thing it showed was how America haphazardly dropped bombs on civilian targets killing innocent women and children. Iraqi soldiers fighting for their country were losing their families for the cause. You can’t blame them for being angry. Three Kings is an anti war and anti Persian Gulf War film, and that is right up the liberal’s alley. Liberals believe America is the greatest country in the world until they tell someone from another country that they are. Three Kings puts a human face on the war, and not just bad black and white video of buildings blowing up. Liberal review: Thumbs up, 8 out of 10, A, 3 ½ stars out of 4

CONSERVATIVE: The conservative, or what some would call, the Rush Limbaugh Faction, would say that 3K is a piece of trash. It is anti-American propaganda to once again put down our military leaders, our soldiers, and our Republican president. Conservatives are gung-ho about armed conflict. If a situation can be solved by dropping a few bombs, or shooting a few loudmouth foreigners, they are all for it (unless a democrat is in the white house). Here are the problems conservatives have with 3K. It is anti-American. Yes it is. The disenfranchised refugees are constantly begging for the U.S. to help them, but they are always being turned away. America is made to look like uncaring fools. The military is full of incompetents. They are made up of a volunteer army full of hayseeds and ghetto drive by duckers who have little education. They are also greedy. The 3 kings (4 really) of the movie are not really trying to bring back the gold to Kuwait, they want to keep it for themselves. At no point in the film is George Bush portrayed as a compassionate forceful leader. He is talked about like he is as bad a Saddam. Almost like they are in cahoots. George Bush pulled out of the war too soon, and should have continued the war into Iraq to take out Saddam Hussein permanently. Conservatives have said for years that Bush was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. If he had gone into Iraq to kill its leader, he would have probably been brought up on war crimes charges. Whatever a Republican conservative does is always considered evil by the mainstream liberal press. Three Kings thinks it is showing the military in a good light, but according to conservatives, 3K is just another case of America being the evil empire for the new millennium.

MY TAKE: I of course fall somewhere in the middle, but lean more toward the conservative view. I agree that the United States was not perfect in their handling of the war. More should have been done to help the people, but that was not the main mission. It was to get Saddam out of Kuwait, and to protect the oil supplies. 3K was one sided in its view of what America should have done and it turned me off because I am a guy who still believes that the United States is still the greatest country in the world even with its faults. Politicizing the movie may be analyzing it a little too deeply, because the main focus was to entertain. Here is my entertainment side of the review. It had some things that drive me nuts in movies. One is the use of music. No one in movies listens to modern music, it is always old songs, especially 1960s tunes. Beach Boys and the like. They also know the words to every song verbatim. I have only seen one movie where they did not know the words and it was in Naked Gun. Every young southern military guy has to be portrayed as an idiot. Ice Cube and Marky Mark are good in the film and pretty much carry it. I had no real problem with their performances. George Clooney may star, but he doesn’t do much. He plays the same character in everything he does. He is better here than he was in Batman, but he still has not impressed me since Return of the Killer Tomatoes. He has the potential to carry a film, but he still has not found the role. Out of Sight was close, but like many things he does outside of a hospital, very few saw that. His most successful film is also is most hated. Women like him, so he will continue to get paid. Another interesting thing was all of the Saddam Hussein pictures in the movie. I kept laughing throught the whole thing because I was thinking about South Park this summer. Good to see Trey Parker and Matt Stone were available to draw those pictures for the makers of Three Kings. After the movie was over, I was not too thrilled with it. I see how it will be liked by most people who see it, including moderate conservatives, but it seemed to think it was just a little better than it actually was. Question: Let’s say you steal the Kuwaiti gold, where do you convert it to cash? It had Kuwaiti writing on it, and if you go to a bank with the gold bar, won’t they know that you stole it from Kuwait and then you will go to jail. I never really bought the premise, sorry folks. I give the movie a thumbs down personally, but a thumbs up to everyone else, 2 ½ stars, B-, 6 ½ out of 10. Flame away.

American Beauty continues to make that limited release money. It may turn out to be Mrs. Beatty’s biggest hit. Congratulations, you were bound to get a hit eventually. When this movie hits $55 million, I will go out and see what the fuss is about and have my review. At this rate, it could be number one when it goes wide.

More witch activity this week with Melissa Joan Hart’s Drive Me Crazy. She drove the makers of Archie Comics with her "sexy" poses in Maxim. No one really cares about MJH, but if she had Britteny Spears in those Maxim poses with her, maybe her movie would have done better. More publicity of the teenage witch disrupting the morals of her teenage fans could have gotten them another 5 to 8 million in box office. No one know how to market anything nowadays.

Poor Jim Henson Productions. They cannot get a hit. This is their second bomb of the year, and Elmo is their most popular character at this time. I have unfortunately outgrown the muppets with my old age. That saddens me because I am still a fan of the enjoyment and thrills they gave me back in the day. I am not a fan of the Elmo character, but I have seen very little of him over the last few years. The guy who performs Elmo is Kevin Clash who did the voice and puppetry for the baby dinosaur on that classic early 90’s show "Dinosaurs." Tickle Me Elmo was the hottest toys around a couple of years back before Pokemon possessed the children. It seems though that the muppets no longer appeal to all ages, just the 2 to 5 year old set. They want to go see Ice Cube’s new movie. If the Muppets are to survive, they will have to get a little hardcore. A PG-13 rated movie or something. The Muppets could do a movie about how they are losing their audience to more adult fare and then decide to make a movie where they curse and people die and blood is shown. I don’t see that happening though. But I do see the Jim Henson house of ideas to fold within the next 5 years if they don’t change the way they make movies.

Mystery Alaska opened, and the mystery was to find an audience for it. A hockey movie comes out every year, and every year no one goes to see it. Mighty Ducks was the last successful one, and there has not been one as good since. Burt Reynolds is slumming again in a role he must have taken to help pay Loni Anderson. Russell Crowe is out of cyberspace and Kim Basinger’s pants to star in this flick. Not a good career move. Maybe the 60 Minutes movie will do better. Mary McCormick will still remain Howard Stern’s Movie Wife, because this one will not make her noticed in Hollywood. Don’t look for MA to appear in the top ten next week. Better luck next time.

Double Jeopardy retains its top spot with very little dropoff. Looks like Ashley Judd is now a star. Country music and VH1 can kiss her ass. Blue streak is streaking to profitability for the movie company. Martin L. can now afford his hospital bills. I see lots of green in people’s hands that work for Hollywood Pictures and Disney. Sixth Sense is bigger than Phantom Menace in its impact. Strike 3 Kevin, you’re out, back to playing corpses again dude. He needs a female costar like maybe Rene Russo and make movies with her like Hanks and Ryan. Stigmata has overstayed its welcome, and I will say goodbye to you Mrs. Cage.

That’s it for this premiere of John L’s Kickin Box Office Reports. It will only get better, I hope. Bye for now.

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