Hot Button Archive for May, 2002

Spider-Man Opens & Early Bourne Review

By David Poland - Monday, May 6th, 2002

What does the estimated $114 million start for Spider-Man mean?
Why beat around the bush by writing about anything else first, even if Mike Ovitz’ exit from AMG is a bigger story in the overall framework of the industry? Of course, your never-modest correspondent might point out that the Spider-Man story is really just an extension of the ongoing insanity in this industry as covered in this column for the last couple of years in particular.
The story of this weekend is not likely to be one that lasts very long. It’s not so much a matter of Star Wars: Episode Two beating the Spider-number in two weeks. The truth is, it is really up to George Lucas and Fox to decide whether the record falls. Yes, I am saying that George Lucas can decide for himself whether he wants to have the next record-breaking opening. All he and Fox has to do is to allow enough theaters enough flexibility to show Attack of the Clones on more than 6000 actual screens, just as Sony did on this opening weekend. (The screen count/per-screen statistic is now the most abused number in box office analysis.)
Everything else that LucasFilm and Fox have done in preparation for Clones is right on target. Besides masterminding the buzz on the supposedly independent internet and newsmagazines, they have now taken the amazing step of opening the media floodgates by screening the film for the press this Tuesday, more than a week before opening night and close enough to the Spidey opening to shift the buzz a full week ahead of schedule. There have even been reports that Fox has released the embargo rules – something they have since denied. However, the fact that the alleged memo freed the press to review as of this Wednesday – the day after the press screenings – suggest that it was real… and that Fox is expecting the door to open regardless of what the rules are.
After all, what else can be expected after last week’s Time Magazine review by Jess Cagle, which misleadingly suggested that Time’s film critic, Richard Schickel, had seen and approved the picture, and the parade of internet reviews that has started appearing, as per LucasFilm’s plan (they all saw the film weeks ago). Don’t even get me started on the most clever (ab)use of Ain’t It Cool since DreamWorks used the site to beat the Gladiator drum early.
But what about Spider-Man? Oops… I already forgot about the record-shattering weekend. Spider-Man is a good movie. The most amazing part of this weekend’s record-breaker – and I know some of you will get a quizzical look on your face when you read this – is how quiet it was. Yes, there was a whole lot of cross promotion and hype. But it was nothing in comparison to the Harry Potter hype… not even close. More pointedly, I was floored by how easy it was to get into the movie this weekend. My nephew, who went to see Spidey as part of a birthday party on Sunday, was amazed by the line that snaked down the street. But it was a third the size of the lines for Episode One and a quarter the size of weekend lines for Batman. And seats were available for a 4:15 show. You’ll notice that most of the “look at these sell-out” stories are about Saturday.
Sorry, Spider-Man just isn’t one of those industry-changing franchises. Of course, it’s not X-Men either… solid but not stunning. It’s a terrific franchise. To my mind’s eye, it’s a better franchise than the Harry Potter franchise (fewer percentage players with smaller percentages for the those who exist). In some ways, it is better than the Lord of The Rings franchise (it’s not limited to three films and the sequels don’t inherently have to feel like continuations).
But it’s just not Star Wars or Indiana Jones or even a Batman. It just isn’t. The $411 million worldwide scored by Batman thirteen years ago would likely be over a billion these days. Of course,
the production and P&A costs would be treble as well.
Remember, the film whose record Spider-Man just broke, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, had a hard time passing the $300 million mark domestically after a $90 million opening weekend and no major franchise opposition (Lord of the Rings) for over a month. And while Lord of the Rings opened with a little better than half the number that Potter did, their final domestic tally will be separated by less than $10 million total.
Titanic, the highest domestic and worldwide grosser of all time, opened to under $29 million. And Star Wars: Episode One, which opened to less than $65 million, a number that lingers in the record books behind four separate openings from last summer (Pearl Harbor, Planet of the Apes, The Mummy Returns and Rush Hour 2), but still became the fourth highest grossing film domestically, the
second highest domestic grosser ever if you don’t count re-releases and the third highest grossing film of all time worldwide. We can all whine and bitch about Jar Jar Binks, but understand something… audiences did not turn their backs on The Phantom Menace and its box office was not a phenomena of a massive opening weekend. Episode One was the leggiest franchise movie since Jurassic Park hit in 1993… back when second-run houses actually made money and a film could run for over a year in first and second run.
Of course, I feel a little silly dissing Spidey just as it becomes the first film with a $100 million weekend. But it’s about perspective. Sony execs are quite smart not to start guessing, as Warner Bros. execs did, that Spider-Man could end up doing Titanic numbers. They know that a domestic haul of $350 million is more likely and that $400 million would be a stunning triumph in today’s (or any day’s) marketplace. Chasing Titanic’s $1.8 billion theatrical haul will require a true freak of movie nature. Harry Potter is now #2 all-time, coming just short of the billion-dollar mark. Think about that. The number two film of all time is more than 44 percent behind number one.
So, does Spider-Man have a legitimate shot at $1 billion worldwide? Not really.. Attack of the Clones is the only film with a legitimate shot at the billion mark this year. My bet is that the next Harry Potter movie will drop slightly and the next Lord of the Rings movie will rise slightly. If there really was
a disappointment factor on The Phantom Menace and if Attack of the Clones is really that much better, making up the $78 million that TPM was short of a billion shouldn’t be that difficult. Additionally, Clones has the advantage, as did Spidey, of a 50 cent ticket increase across much of the nation marking the start of summer. When you are talking about these numbers of tickets sold, the increase can account for $5 million to $7 million in additional gross on opening weekend and as much as $50 million in total gross numbers.
Oh yeah… Spider-Man. Look for a final number between $650 and $750 million worldwide. And there is nothing wrong with that. Anyone who writes about next weekend being a disappointment when Spider-Man slides to $52 million is an idiot. And when Attack of the Clones opens to $78 million – $97 million with Thursday included – anyone who writes about Star Wars being in trouble is also an idiot. I anticipate
that Lucas and Fox will plan a huge, but not record-chasing opening and plan on being the leggiest film of the summer, outgrossing Spider-Man by $100 million or more domestically and by $200 million or more in
foreign territories. That’s the plan I anticipate. The reality? Who knows?

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon