..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

WEEK FIVE
Counting Your Expectations Before They Hatch

Last week, I posted a Hot Blog entry asking what readers thought would be a painful number for Mission:Impossible 3. I already had some idea of what Friday was going to look like and, after taking a lot of heat for writing the first significantly negative review the week before, I was setting myself up to gloat a little. I was honestly surprised at how low blog respondents set the bar. And I was/am shocked by how vicious the press was about the same.

The media is drooling over the prospect of being to push the slump agenda again. It would be confirmation of being "right," even if the whole conceit was convoluted to begin with, pushing one statistic over all others. Right now, we've have seven straight weekends of box office increases and this year has improved on last year in twelve of eighteen weekends of this year. This has not lead to stories about The Bump. Perhaps 11 straight up weekends will inspire Bump stories. That's where we were - 11 straight weekends in - last year when the New York Times started talk about The Slump this very week last year.

Of course, last year offered a much more significant target than M:I3. Kingdom Of Heaven was the worst start to the season, box office-wise, since Deep Impact marked the new territory in 1998. The week before had seen the launch of one of the three major business disasters of the period, with xXx: State Of The Union opening to just under $13 million. The week after Kingdom of Heaven didn't offer a dramatic improvement either, with Monster-In-Law and Kicking & Screaming combining to do less than M:I3 did on its own this last weekend. Monster-In-Law was a strong film for New Line, a precursor of the phenomenon of Wedding Crashers, the power of which would be lost in the slump obsession. (The historic performance of Hitch was also unreported, as was 40 Year Old Virgin, in a relative way.) The industry saw it and we are thick in comedies this summer because of it. But not the press.

So, before we get any further in, I thought it might be a good idea to lay out some landmarks for the season before we see the films or their marketing campaigns.

Let's start with this upcoming weekend. Take a look at the recent history of the slot.

2001 - A Knight's Tale - $16.5 million
2002 - The New Guy - $9 million
2003 - Daddy Day Care - $27.6 million
2004 - Troy - $46.9 million
2005 - Monster-In-Law - $23.1 million

As you can see, a Wolfgang Petersen movie jumps out at you as the outlier. When Troy opened to "just" $46.9 million, the boo birds came out. This was, as you may remember, the weekend after Van Helsing opened to what was seen as a disappointing opening of $52 million. Yeah, it was almost $20 million more than any second weekend movie had ever managed, but it was Brad Pitt and a fat budget film and the guillotine was at the ready.

Poseidon's budget is about $75 million less than Troy turned out to be. So would that make a $38 million opening a significant disappointment? Would $30 million, still the second highest launch in this slot ever, be okay?

So hack gossips are pushing the idea that it is some kind of change of heart that WB is expecting Poseidon to do more business overseas than here. That has been a key part of the WB strategy for years now. Peterson's last film, Troy, which also launched in this slot, did 73% of its business overseas. For that matter, the last Harry Potter film did 68% of its business overseas. To play devil's advocate, Petersen's The Perfect Storm and Air Force One did less business overseas than here. So it's risky business.

The other big question mark for Poseidon is Just My Luck, which I think could be a real surprise this weekend. The danger is that men and women could make completely divergent choices of what they want to see this weekend and Saturday night date night could see the women winning and the men willing to watch Lindsay in a mini.

The next two weekends in May are, historically, a bit of a mess to analyze. One thing is simple… the numbers are huge. They have gotten significantly larger in the last four years as studios have been less shy about piling up at the end of May. So the first massive year ($141 million openings on those two weekends) was 2002 with Star Wars: Episode II following the still strong Spider-Man and still facing four other wide releases in those two weekend. In 2003 ($169 million), it was Finding Nemo and Bruce Almighty smashing records. 2004 set a the standing record of $193 million with Shrek 2 and The Day After Tomorrow dominating. Last year, it was Star Wars: Episode III, Madagascar and The Longest Yard opening to the vast majority of $173 million.

This year, it's The Da Vinci Code, Over The Hedge, and X-Men: The Last Stand. It seems likely that the trio will open to no less than $150 million between them, or there really will be panic in the streets. (Note: The gossip about M:I3 being the cause of further employment cuts at Paramount is mostly bull. There will be cuts, but right now, they are still cuts that were planned for. If the summer continues to come up short of expectations, that could lead to more changes that could come sooner than expected.)

I don't think it would shock anyone to see Da Vinci open between $50m and $60m, X3 opening to around $70 million, and Over The Hedge… well, the worst wide May animation opening to date is Spirit's $18 million start… next is Dinosaur with $38m, Madagascar with $47 million, Finding Nemo's $70 million and the top ogre, Shrek 2 with $108 million. So $40 million to start seems completely reasonable. Add that up as the low end and you have $160 million, which wouldn't be great, but okay. Of course, if the real numbers are $65m for Da Vinci, $80 million for X3 and $50m for Hedge, you're looking at a new record. We'll see.

This June has a lot of potential, with The Break-Up, Cars, The Omen, Nacho Libre and Click all before the last-June-weekend-July 4 slot that is really something else altogether. The big June of all time was 2002 with four $120 million-plus domestic films (The Bourne Identity, Minority Report, Lilo & Stitch, and Scooby Doo). In the last two Junes, there have been more than $400 million in June releases, again, before the pre-July-4 slot. Are The Break-Up, Cars, and Click all $150 million-plus grossers?

Then you have Superman Returns in the July 4 slot. The recent history is not as good as you might expect. War of the Worlds opened to $65 million and totaled out at $234m domestic. Spider-Man 2 - the curve killer - started with $88m and tolled $374m domestic. Terminator III did a tough $34mm to get to $150m. 2002 saw Mr. Deeds in the pre-slot ($37m/$127m) and Men In Black II on top of the weekend ($52m/$190m). Sequels and superstars. Superman Returns is neither, given the length between Superman films. $70 million would be a very impressive start for that film. But how would that be perceived.

The last major attack is Pirates of The Caribbean 2 on July 9. The first film opened to $46.6 million here at home and ended up joining Independence Day and Spider-Man 2 as the only $300 million grossers ever to open in July. The top five best July openings ever are $88 million (Spider-Man 2), $73 million (Goldmember), $68 million (Planet of the Apes), $65 million (War of the Worlds, which started on June 29 and ended July 1 and $56.2 million (Charlie & The Chocolate Factory). Anything under $70 million would be a bit of a disappointment and anything over $90 million is huge. Given that there have only been seventeen films to open to $70 million or more, the standard is high. (FYI, there have been twelve over $80m and seven over $90m.)

There are other significant hopefuls in July, including Miami Vice, Monster House, Super Ex-Girlfriend, You, Me & Dupree, and Lady in the Water. Julys in recent years have had at least three openings over $20 million… last year, two over $55 million and the year before three over $50 million.

August is looking a little soft this summer… that is, unless Ant Bully and World Trade Center step up in significant financial ways.

But that is a long way from now. Let's get through the next eight weeks… we'll talk again.

This Week's Box Office Chart

THE BOX OFFICE CHART
Week Four - 5/4
Week Two - 4/20
Week One - 4/13

THE COLUMN
Week Four - 5/4
Week Three - 4/27
Week Two - 4/20
Week One - 4/13

- Email David Poland