Patrick Stoner welcomes your questions about movies and the people who make them. Send your questions to pstoner@whyy.org. Here's the current question and answer:
Q: Now that we're halfway through the summer, what can you say about the film season so far?
A: Hollywood's rich.
When I glanced over the list of the top films from the seven weeks since THE LOST WORLD opened, this reworked dinosaur came off as the season's one big moneymaker -- at first. But the list is misleading. While LOST's $200 million-plus box office receipts are indeed colossal, several other films are bringing in fairly respectable profits as well.
When you consider that even SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL (a cricitical flop) has made over $40 million, then you know a lot of people are going to the movies this summer, and they're not very picky about what they're watching.
In fact, only the truly miserable GONE FISHIN' failed to do reasonable business since Memorial Day.
I'm talking about mass market films, of course. Nobody expects the marvelous, but small ULEE'S GOLD, or the charmingly British BRASSED OFF, or the hilarious, but atypical, CHASING AMY to do big bucks B.O. They are on very few screens, but they also cost very little to make, and there is no huge -- and expensive -- publicity campaign pushing people into the few theaters where they're playing. Moreover, summer is not the season for art house films, so they and others like them will be happy with figures that would make an event film blush.
For example, the award-winning and now famous little movie SLING BLADE has been out for 32 weeks and has made less than $25 million. That would put it in the red if it were a mass market film, but it probably gives it about a $24 million profit in actual fact.
So, the art house filmmakers are happy. How many smiling major moviemakers are there this summer? Keeping in mind that some of the following have only been out a couple of weeks, you have THE LOST WORLD's $220 million, BATMAN AND ROBIN's $90 million, CON AIR's $85 million, MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING's $70 million, FACE/OFF's $51 million, HERCULES' $50 million, and even OUT TO SEA's $7 (after one weekend up against all of the other biggies, plus MEN IN BLACK's blockbuster opening $51 million weekend and $85 million week). Add it up -- that's over $700 million for the big guys alone.
That's a LOT of money spread around a few studios. In fact, it almost looks like the big guys will split up the expected billion-dollar summer among them. Even based on the few preliminary numbers I just mentioned, you would expect a very happy Universal, Warners, Columbia, Paramount, Disney and Fox.
AND, there's still the rest of the world -- ready, eager and willing to change their local currency for dollars to see America's most successful product -- film!
The second half of the summer should be interesting. We still have CONTACT, AIR FORCE ONE, CONSPIRACY THEORY, and a dozen others with stars to go.
Past questions and answers.
