Preview and Projections for the Weekend of December 3, 2004
By Edward Douglas -

Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend's new movies. Tune in every Tuesday for the latest look at the upcoming weekend, and then check back on Friday for last minute updates based on actual theatre counts.

WEEKEND PROJECTIONS - final update 12.02.04

Following one of the busiest box office weekends of the year, the first week in December tends to be one where the box office is brought back down to reality, as everyone gets back to work until the holidays. If you would have asked anyone three weeks ago whether Jerry Bruckheimer and Nicolas Cage could ever have another hit, they may have laughed in your face. Now, it seems like National Treasure is gearing up to be their biggest films to date as well as the biggest movies of the holiday season, as it heads into its third weekend where it should stay firmly in the top spot. The only major new movie is Mike Nichols’ Closer, based on the British play, with an all-star cast of Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen. Despite a limited release in less than 500 theatres, it should do decently among older adults and Roberts’ many fans. Other films like Finding Neverland and Sideways should try to use the slower weekend to grab a few more theatres as they wind their way towards the Oscars. Most of the returning movies should have steep drop-offs compared to the previous extended weekend, although the lack of new movies should allow one or two to pick up some slack as well.

TW	LW	Title	Weekend (in millions)	Change	# Of Theaters	Average	Week
1	1	National Treasure	$16.0	-51%	3,243	$4,934	3
2	2	The Incredibles	$11.0	-54%	3,178	$3,461	5
3	3	Christmas with the Kranks	$9.5	-56%	3,416	$2,781	2
4	4	The Polar Express	$8.5	-56%	3,650	$2,329	4
5	5	The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie	$6.5	-63%	3,307	$1,966	3
6	6	Alexander	$6.3	-54%	2,445	$2,577	2
7	New	Closer	$5.5	N/A	460	$11,555	1
8	8	Finding Neverland	$3.6	-23%	526	$6,844	4
9	7	Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason	$3.3	-46%	2,429	$1,359	4
10	9	Ray	$2.3	-43%	1,548	$1,486	3
			Est. Weekend Total $72.50	Est. Avg. Drop-Off -50%		Est. Average PTA $3,929

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CLOSER (Sony Pictures)
Starring: Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen
Directed by: Mike Nichols (“Angels in America”, Catch-22, The Graduate, Silkwood, The Remains of the Day, Working Girl, The Birdcage, Primary Colors)
Genres: Drama, Romance
Rated R
Theatre Count: 476
Tagline: “If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking.”

Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen play four strangers in London who fall in love, and then betray their partners with each other in Patrick Marber’s adaptation of his own award-winning 1997 play brought to the screen by director Mike Nichols.

Almost forty years after directing the classic film version of Tennessee Williams’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, 70-year-old director Mike Nichols has a name for himself for turning low-key plays into powerful films and television mini-series. Most recently, Nichols adapted the award-winning play “Angels in America” into a high profile HBO mini-series starring Meryl Streep and Al Pacino. It swept the Emmys last year, winning Nichols his second Emmy and Directors Guild award, adding to his stockpile of lifetime achievements. For this reason, there may be as much excitement for Nichols’ involvement in this film among critics and theatre lovers as there is for his all-star cast. It doesn’t hurt that his latest film is based on a play that has been praised by critics both in New York and its native London.

Nichols’ already impressive resume includes films like The Graduate, Catch-22, Working Girl and others, and he is considered a top-notch director thanks to his five Oscar nominations. (He won one for The Graduate back in 1968) Despite his age, Nichols has kept busy, helming films like the election comedy Primary Colors as well as The Birdcage, his adaptation of the play “La Cage Aux Folles” starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. Closer is his first feature film since the 2000 Gary Shandling vehicle What Planet Are You From?, which was considered an unmitigated disaster.

Despite that, Nichols’ reputation as an actor’s director has allowed him to assemble an amazing cast of gorgeous and talented actors for Closer, including Julia Roberts, an actress who epitomizes Hollywood celebrity and stardom. In the 16 years she’s been in the public eye, Roberts’s films have amassed almost 2 billion domestically, right up there with her male counterpart Tom Cruise, and her status only increased after she won her first Oscar for Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich. Roberts’ film career has slowed down in recent years, having gotten married and just this weekend having delivered twins, but she did make time to work with Nichols and to appear in next week’s Ocean’s 12, Steven Soderbergh’s sequel to the hit remake of Ocean’s 11. Roberts’ last film Mona Lisa Smile teamed her with a cast of talented younger actresses like Kirsten Dunst and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It didn’t open very well, but it did good business over the holidays, as it pulled in an audience of young and older women. Much of Closer‘s early buzz comes from hints that Roberts’ performance may be the closest she’s come to an Oscar-worthy performance since Erin Brockovich.

For Closer, Roberts is teamed with another young actress, 23-year-old Natalie Portman, who appeared in Mike Nichols’ Central Park production of The Seagull. Beginning her career at the age of ten in Luc Besson’s Leon AKA The Professional, Portman played a few small roles before her career took off when she became Queen Padme Amidala, Luke and Leia’s mother, in George Lucas’ Star Wars prologues—the last of which comes out next May. She has filled her time in between those films with smaller movies like when she stole every scene in Zach Braff’s Garden State earlier this year. Any guy who didn’t have a crush on Portman before that may be still be swooning over her bikini scene, but as the stripper Alice in Closer, Portman’s presence may likely get more guys to see the movie than might normally. Although her actual nudity was cut from the film, she may get more unwanted attention from frothing guys but more importantly, it will move her one step closer to being taken seriously as an actress.

If you regularly read this column, you already know who Jude Law is. After all, this is his fourth movie to come out since September. So far, his other three movies have all underperformed expectations. Although neither the retro sci-fi action flick Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow nor David O. Russell’s quirky I Heart Huckabees did particularly well, the biggest disappointment had to be Alfie, a remake of the Michael Caine classic, in which Law played a womanizing lothario. It was a disaster on an international scale. While one would think that this wouldn’t bode well for Closer, since he plays a similar character, Law has had incredible success playing opposite stronger actresses like Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellwegger in Cold Mountain and with Gwyneth Paltrow in The Talented Mr. Ripley. He received Oscar nominations for both, and he should have better luck with Roberts and Portman pulling some of the weight.

Law’s main competition for the ladies is Clive Owen, who appeared in Marber’s original play, but was picked by Nichols because of his early breakout role in Mike Hodges’ 2000 crime film Croupier. After that, Owen appeared in BMW’s series of popular films and in Angelina Jolie’s disastrous war drama Beyond Borders, before taking on the title role in Jerry Bruckheimer’s King Arthur, which didn’t do nearly as well as expected this past summer. Few people saw Owens’ recent reunion with Hodges for the crime drama I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, but he’s sticking to that genre when he plays Dwight in Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s comic book Sin City next spring.

The Cast
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Mona Lisa Smile	12/19/03	2,677		$11.53	$4,306	$62.96
Erin Brockovich	3/17/00	2,845		$28.14	$9,891	$125.55
Stepmom	12/25/98	2,358		$19.14	$8,117	$91.03
Steel Magnolias	11/17/89	480		$5.43	$11,313	$81.00
Garden State	7/30/04	652	$2.64	$3.02	$4,633	$26.47
Alfie	11/5/04	2,215		$6.22	$2,807	$12.71
Cold Mountain	12/26/03	2,163	$4.51	$14.57	$6,738	$78.38
King Arthur	7/9/04	3,086	$8.43	$15.19	$4,924	$51.80
Beyond Borders	10/25/03	1,798		$2.08	$1,155	$4.43

Closer's credentials as far as director and cast almost makes it like an arthouse film on a more mainstream Hollywood scale. The theatre crowd should eat this up in the major cities, but it may be a harder sell outside them, since it's such a tough and honest look at sex and love. Sony is aware of this, and they’ve been going back and forth on how and when to release it. Originally, it was meant to come out over Christmas weekend like Roberts’ popular comedy The Stepmom, but it was then moved earlier in the month closer to the release date of Mona Lisa Smile. Last week, it was revealed that Sony will only be releasing Closer into just over 450 theatres this weekend, supposedly in most of the country’s big cities, and then go nationwide closer to Christmas. Roberts has starred in very few limited release films—most recently Soderbergh’s indie disaster Full Frontal—but this will be her biggest film to get this sort of release since Steel Magnolias almost 15 years ago.

This might end up working out though, since the movie will get the immediate attention in the bigger cities and then hopefully, build on the word-of-mouth and buzz from that to maintain its business. This sort of plan was attempted recently with Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, a long-awaited sequel which opened in moderate release to do big business opening weekend, but the bad reviews hurt its chances at doing well after expandingnationwide. Since that movie is losing business fast, the market is open for a movie like Closer that will appeal to older women. The best comparison for it could be the 2002 drama The Hours, a similar performance-driven drama with a strong cast, although that took a more customary approach by coming out in New York and Los Angeles first before expanding into more cities.

Despite the limited release, Closer has been getting a huge push for the holidays, almost as much as some of the bigger family movies, possibly because Sony knows it’s their best chance at the Oscars next year. This push began with Portman and Roberts appearing on the cover of Entertainment Weekly’s holiday movie preview issue, as well as an hour long show about the movie on Oprah, something that is proving to be a great way to market a movie. Sony has also been plastering the airwaves with the intriguing commercials that follow-up a well received trailer.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Primary Colors	3/20/98	1,965		$12.05	$6,132	$39.30
The Birdcage	3/8/96	1,950		$18.28	$9,374	$124.06
Postcards From the Edge	9/14/90	1,013	$0.11	$7.87	$7,769	$38.27
Working Girl	12/23/88	1,051	$0.89	$4.72	$4,490	$62.15
The Hours	1/17/03	402	$3.78	$4.64	$11,555	$41.60
In the Bedroom	1/11/02	424	$5.03	$2.85	$6,722	$35.92
21 Grams	11/21/03	291	$3.31	$1.22	$4,206	$16.43

Bottom Line: The combination of cast, director, and Oscar buzz already surrounding Mike Nichols’ drama should allow it to do well among older adults and the highbrow art house crowd in its limited release. Although the material may be a bit tough for some to swallow, it should have decent legs once it expands nationwide based on reviews and word-of-mouth.

Projection: Between $5 and 6 million opening weekend on its way to upwards of $55 to 60 million by the time Oscar season rolls around.

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UNDER THE RADAR

Do you live in a major North American city? If so, there are a number of limited release movies worth checking out. And if you don't live in one of the cities in which these movies open, look for some of them to hit your area sometime in the next few months.

Opening in Limited Release:
I AM DAVID (Lions Gate Films)

Based on the young adult novel by Ann Holm, Paul Feig’s I Am David is a PG family adventure about a 12-year-old boy (Ben TIbber) who escapes from an East European concentration camp and begins a journey across the continent to freedom. Produced by Walden Media (Holes) and co-starring The Passion of The Christ’s James Caviezel, this powerful family drama opens in 200 theatres in eight Midwest and Southern states.

Opening in New York and Los Angeles:
HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (Sony Pictures Classics)

Hero director Zhang Yimou’s second martial arts film of the year, House of Flying Daggers, stars Ziyi Zhang (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) as a blind dancer caught between two soldiers trying to use her to track down the leader of a revolutionary group, only to both fall in love with her. MY REVIEW (Coming Soon!)

Opening in California:
THIS GIRL’S LIFE (Miracle Mile Films)

In This Girl’s Life, newcomer Juliette Marquis plays a porn actress trying to balance her chosen profession with caring for her ailing father, played by James Woods. Directed by British filmmaker “Ash,” and co-starring Rosario Dawson and Michael Rapaport, This Girl’s Life opens in Pasadena and West Hollywood and then at New York’s Cinema Village on December 10.

Opening in New York:
AFTER MIDNIGHT (Avatar Films)
THE ARYAN COUPLE (Celebration Pictures)
CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE (Watch Releasing)
DESERTED STATION (First Run Features)

Set in Turin’s Museum of Cinema in Italy, After Midnight is a love story between Martino, the museum’s cinema loving night watchman and a young woman on the run from the police who finds sanctuary there until her hoodlum boyfriend shows up. A prizewinner at the Berlin Film Festival, Davide Ferrario’s romantic comedy opens at the Angelika in New York.

In 1944 Hungary, an Aryan man and his wife, working as valet and maid for a wealthy Jewish family, suddenly find themselves under close scrutiny by the Nazis when their employers are offered a deal to escape the Nazi’s “Final Solution.” John Daly’s The Aryan Couple opens at the AMC Empire 25 in New York.

In John Deery’s Conspiracy of Silence, a reporter investigates the connections between the suicide of a Catholic minister and the expulsion of a young seminary student, and he suddenly finds his life and his family put in danger. The Irish religious thriller opens at New York's Angelika theatre.

The Iranian film Deserted Station is about a photographer and a woman (Leila Hatami) who get stranded in a remote village when their car breaks down. The only adult in the town is a schoolteacher, who goes off to find help, leaving the woman behind to watch the kids. It opens at New York’s Quad Cinema on Friday.

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THIS TIME LAST YEAR

The weekend after Thanksgiving is normally slow, but Tom Cruise playing a samurai in Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai drew enough people to earn just over $24 million in its opening weekend, easily snagging the top spot. Guys are usually pretty excited to see the extremely hot Jessica Alba shaking her stuff, but her role as a hip-hop choreographer in Honey was much more interesting to teen girls. Despite low expectations and comparisons to Mariah Carey’s Glitter, the dance-related drama made almost $13 million in under 2,000 theatres for second place. After a strong Thanksgiving weekend, almost all of the movies took drastic plunges with the exception of Billy Bob Thornton’s Bad Santa, which earned another $7 million and held onto sixth place. By comparison, Mike Myer’s The Cat in the Hat took a massive plunge as its luck ran out and the bad word-of-mouth finally caught up to it.

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Next week, Julia Roberts is back! Again. She joins the returning cast of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon in Steven Soderbergh’s sequel to the hit remake Ocean’s 12, this time joined by Catherine Zeta-Jones. Also, Wesley Snipes dons the leather coat and sword for the third time in Blade: Trinity.

Copyright 2004 Edward Douglas