Preview and Projections for the Weekend of July 9, 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 any last minute updates.

WEEKEND PROJECTIONS - final update 7.07.04

Only a few short days after the 4^th of July, three new movies will try to dethrone Spider-Man 2, but the sequel to the 2002 hit should continue to steam roll over the competition, as those who went away for the 4^th that didn’t see Spider-Man 2 will keep it in the top spot this weekend. On Wednesday, producer Jerry Bruckheimer will try to steal some of that business away with his historical adaptation of the King Arthur legend, starring Clive Owen and Keira Knightly, and directed by Antoine Fuqua. Disney’s luck with expensive epics has not been very good this year, and King Arthur may not be the blockbuster that they expect, because historical war dramas are not exactly big box office draws. On the other hand, Will Ferrell’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy should solidify his status as a popular box office star begun with last year’s blockbuster holiday hit Elf, as it does very good business its opening weekend for a solid second place. Alexa Vega, the female half of the Spy Kids, stars in the latest ‘tweener comedy, Sleepover, which may have trouble getting audiences away from the other two stronger movies, and it will likely have a weaker opening before being crushed by ‘tween queen Hillary Duff next week. Robert Redford's drama, The Clearing, will expand into over 200 theatres nationwide this weekend.

TW	LW	Title	Weekend (in millions)	Change	# Of Theaters	Average	Week
1	1	Spider-Man 2	$48.0	-45%	4,166	$11,642	2
2	New	Anchorman	$34.8	New	3,091	$11,258	1
3	New	King Arthur	$22.0	New	3,076	$7,152	1
4	2	Fahrenheit 9/11	$11.0	-33%	2,011	$5,470	3
5	New	Sleepover	$7.4	New	2,207	$3,353	1
6	5	The Terminal	$5.0	-37%	2,313	$2,162	4
7	6	The Notebook	$4.5	-40%	2,288	$1,967	3
8	4	Dodgeball: A True Underdogs Story	$4.4	-46%	2,444	$1,800	4
9	3	White Chicks	$4.3	-51%	2,201	$1,954	3
10	8	Shrek 2	$3.5	-40%	2,142	$1,634	8
			Est. Weekend Total $145.40	Est. Avg. Drop-Off -42%		Est. Average PTA $4,839

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KING ARTHUR (Touchstone Pictures)
Starring: Clive Owen, Stephen Dillane, Keira Knightley, Hugh Dancy, Ioan Gruffudd, Stellan Skarsgard, Ray Winstone, Valeria Cavalli, Charlie Creed-Miles, Joel Edgerton, Sean Gilder, Pat Kinevane, Ivano Marescotti, Mads Mikkelsen, Til Schweiger, Ray Stevenson, Ken Stott
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Tears from the Sun)
Rated PG-13
Tagline: “The untold true story that inspired the legend.”

The legend of King Arthur (Clive Owen) and his Knights of the Round Table is reimagined for the big screen as a historical war epic as Arthur defends Britain against the invading Saxons with the help of his former enemy Merlin and the courageous Guinevere (Keira Knightley).

Of all the mythical figures that have been adapted for the big screen, the Arthurian legend is very well known by most people, both young and old, and yet, there have not been as many live action Hollywood movies based on it as one might expect. The most recent adaptation opened nine years ago to the date, but the Richard Gere-Sean Connery stinker First Knight, directed by Jerry Zucker of the Naked Gun movies no less, was not received very well. Before then, the best known movie based on the legend was the 1967 adaptation of the Broadway musical Camelot, starring Richard Harris, which won a number of Oscars and Golden Globes. A decade later, Britain’s Monty Python troop poked fun at the legend in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a cult classic that is still quoted regularly by its fans, and 1981 saw two very different takes with John Boorman’s Excalibur and George Romero’s Knightriders, starring none other than Ed Harris as a knight on a motorcycle! Other than that, the characters have mainly been used as fodder for animated films like the 1963 Disney animated classic, The Sword in the Stone and Warner’s 1998 animated flop Quest for Camelot.

This time, Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, best known for his big budget action movies, is taking on the legend with a very different approach, teaming with Training Day director Antoine Fuqua for a version that ignores the magic and mystical aspects of the King Arthur story in favor of a straightforward war movie in the vein of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. Apparently, this movie shows the “true story” of Arthur that inspired the better known legends. Antoine Fuqua may not seem like the obvious choice to bring the Arthurian legend to the big screen considering his previous films, but the screenplay by David Franzoni, who wrote Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, gives the movie a bit more weight among fans of historical drama.

The film’s approach may sound familiar to anyone who saw Wolfgang Peterson’s recent blockbuster Troy, which took another literary story and gave it a more realistic historical reworking. Unfortunately, this type of movie does not always fare well among mass audiences. Despite earning over $130 million, Troy didn’t make nearly as much as expected its opening weekend. The same goes for Tom Cruise’s last film, the samurai epic The Last Samurai and even Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, all of which opened lightly and then built audiences based on word-of-mouth.

Films set during medieval times have not done that much better in recent years. The last film set during the period was the Michael Crichton time traveling tale Timeline, which didn’t do very well Thanksgiving, and two years before, Martin Lawrence’s medieval comedy Black Knight only did slightly better. The best signs of possible success for King Arthur comes from Heath Ledger’s 2001 action film A Knight’s Tale, which grossed around $56 million, but King Arthur might also remind medieval fans of the 1991 Kevin Costner vehicle, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, only without a star of Costner’s stature.

War Epics + Medieval Times:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Troy	5/14/04	3,411		$46.86	$13,739	$130.92
The Alamo	4/9/04	2,609		$9.12	$3,497	$22.20
The Last Samurai	12/5/03	2,908		$24.27	$8,346	$107.46
Gladiator	5/5/00	2,938		$34.82	$11,852	$186.61
Braveheart	5/26/95	2,035	$2.64	$12.91	$6,344	$75.59
Timeline	11/28/03	2,787	$3.98	$8.44	$3,028	$19.44
Black Knight	11/23/01	2,571	$4.31	$11.10	$5,993	$33.41
A Knight's Tale	5/11/01	2,980		$16.51	$5,541	$56.08
Quest for Camelot	5/15/98	3,107		$6.04	$1,944	$22.73
First Knight	7/7/95	2,161		$10.86	$5,025	$37.36
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves	6/14/91	2,369		$25.63	$10,819	$165.49

Instead, King Arthur has Clive Owen, a British actor who hasn’t been prominent on these shores, who takes the prestigious title role of Arthur. Owen first got attention as the star of Mike Hedges’ 1998 casino crime flick Croupier, which was a minor independent hit when released here in 2000, earning $6 million, and he attracted even more female fans for his role in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park. Even more people first discovered Owen from his series of BMW short films, each directed by a well known director, which began rumors circulating that Owen would eventually replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. After a small role as an assassin in Matt Damon’s The Bourne Identity, Owen starred opposite Angelina Jolie in the box office bomb Beyond Borders, and neither that nor his less successful second collaboration with Hedges, the recent crime drama I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, bodes well for his star power.

It’s doubtful that anyone will see King Arthur for it star, but the same can’t be said for his co-star, the lovely Keira Knightley, who is getting all the attention for the movie. A true breakout star of 2003 after starring in three successive hits, she first got noticed in the British hit sports comedy, Bend It Like Beckham, that did decently over the summer due to its originality. Knightly next appeared opposite Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, which became one of 2003’s highest grossing blockbusters, earning over $350 million after making $70 million in its first five days. Knightley’s popularity likely helped bring people in to see her next film, Richard (Notting Hill) Curtis’ romantic comedy, Love Actually. Playing Guinevere may be the perfect role for Knightley—even her name is appropriate for her playing this part—as it allows her to play a well known character without giving up the tough tomboyish nature of her previous roles in Beckham and Pirates.

Filling in the cast is Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd (Black Hawk Down) as Lancelot, the third part of the classic love triangle, while Hugh Dancy, last seen as Anne Hathaway’s love interest in Ella Enchanted, plays Galahad.

Keira Knightley/Clive Owen/Antoine Fuqua

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Love Actually	11/7/03	576		$6.89	$11,955	$59.08
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl	7/11/03	3,269	$24.00	$46.63	$14,264	$305.41
Bend It Like Beckham	4/4/03	117	$1.39	$1.17	$10,001	$32.54
Beyond Borders	10/25/03	1,798		$2.08	$1,155	$4.43
The Bourne Identity	6/14/02	2,638		$27.12	$10,281	$121.38
Croupier	4/28/00	116	$1.50	$0.29	$2,563	$6.20
Tears of the Sun	3/7/03	2,973		$17.06	$5,737	$43.63
Training Day	10/5/01	2,712		$22.55	$7,315	$76.26

Obviously, Disney is hoping to recapture the success of Bruckheimer’s 2003 hit, Pirates of the Caribbean by using a similar marketing approach and release date for King Arthur. The big difference is that Pirates had Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, two popular stars in their own right. It was released by Disney proper rather than being released by Disney’s Touchstone subsidiary, as is the case with King Arthur. It also was released against the weaker League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as opposed to facing the one-two punch of Spider-Man 2 and Anchorman.

Despite having a great 2003, Disney has been having problems this year with its big budget period pieces, as both The Alamo and Jackie Chan’s Around the World in 80 Days earned a fraction of their $100 million budget. Bruckheimer’s track record is a bit stronger thanks to his back-to-back 2003 hits, and attaching his name to a project is usually enough to be a big draw to action fans, although this was not the case with Touchstone’s 2002 action-comedy Bad Company which gave us the odd pairing of Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins.

Unlike Troy, Touchstone made sure that King Arthur received a PG-13 rating, which will allow it a much wider and possibly younger audience, although turning the legend into a historical war drama is not something that might help King Arthur find the younger audiences of Pirates. The appeal of the movie will be geared more towards older crowds in their 20’s and 30’s, as well as more appeal towards women some of Bruckheimer’s previous fare due to the romanticism of the time period and due to Knightley’s stronger role in the film. (Update: So far, reviews for King Arthur have not been very good, and the confidence in this movie by theatres just isn't there. Despite its wide release into 3,000 plus theatres, it's generally getting only one or two screen in these theatres.)

In its first two days, King Arthur will be facing the continued onslaught of Spider-Man 2, and then come Friday, it will have even more competition as comic star Will Ferrell’s Anchorman hits theatres. With that in mind, it may have a harder time finding an audience outside of the diehard fans of Arthurian legend, although even they might not be happy with this interpretation. This audience should help King Arthur make $9 to 10 million in its first few days, but its weekend business will likely peter off a bit due to the early opening, leaving it with a weekend take under $23 million.

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ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY (DreamWorks Studios)
Starring: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Steve Carell, Fred Willard, Chris Parnell, Kevin Corrigan, Chuck D, Tara Subkoff, Maya Rudolph, Steven Root, Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller
Directed by: Adam McKay
Rated PG-13
Tagline: “His news is bigger than your news.”

It’s the 70s and Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is the quintessential television anchorman for a San Diego television station, but his world is turned upside down when an ambitious female reporter (Christina Applegate) infiltrates his territory when she tries to become the network’s first female anchorperson. Will this be a battle of the sexes turn into all-out war or will love conquer all?

2004 has been a great year for comedies with Ben Stiller proving three times that he has what it takes to bring people into theatres. Despite not being so lucky the fourth time, Stiller has proven that one can find success by finding your own niche in comedy, whether it be retro-comedies like the remake of Starsky and Hutch or high concept comedies like Underdogs. Even before Stiller’s trifecta, comedies were doing bigger and better business as comic actors like Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler began to lay down the groundwork for a new breed of comics. At the top of that heap is former “Saturday Night Live” star Will Ferrell, whose career reached a new plateau when he starred in the 2003 surprise holiday hit Elf.

Although “Saturday Night Live” has lost a bit of its audience in recent years, the show has produced huge comic stars like Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy and Michael Myers. A few years ago, Will Ferrell was getting the biggest laughs on the show with his hilarious sketches, making it obvious that he had what it took to be a star. Although turning Ferrell’s popular SNL sketch into the movie A Night at the Roxbury didn’t work, that didn’t stop him from taking a scene-stealing role in Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back. Early in 2003, his less than fully clothed performance in Todd Phillips’ Old School solidified his audience of teen and college age males, but Elf still took many by surprise, since it not only got Ferrell’s normal audience, but it became a huge family hit with its homage to holiday films, instilled with the broad humor that Ferrell does best. With a solid opening and an astounding run over November and December, Elf expanded Ferrell’s audience raising him to the level of popularity of Sandler and Carrey, both of whom have starred in comedies that have grossed hundreds of millions of dollars. The role of Ron Burgundy is perfect for Ferrell’s skills as a character actor, and the popularity of high concept retro comedies like Starsky and Hutch almost guarantees that Anchorman will be box office gold.

Will Ferrell:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Starsky and Hutch	3/5/04	3,185	$28.10	$8,824	$86.04
Elf	11/7/03	3,337	$31.11	$9,324	$172.70
Old School	2/21/03	2,689	$17.45	$6,491	$75.16
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back	8/24/01	2,765	$11.02	$3,985	$30.06
A Night at the Roxbury	10/2/98	1,865	$9.61	$5,153	$30.32

Although Ferrell is the main draw for the movie, he won’t have to carry this movie alone, as he has an even better supporting cast than he did in Elf. Anchorman’s secret weapon is Steve Carrel. A veteran of Comedy Central’s popular news spoof, “The Daily Show”, Carrell stole the show from no less than Jim Carrey in his 2003 blockbuster comedy hit Bruce Almighty, in which Carrel also played a news anchorman. This is a big week for Carrell, as he also plays a security guard in Alexa Vega’s comedy Sleepover (see below).

Ferrell’s love interest is played by Christina Applegate, whose claim to fame came from playing the slutty daughter Kelly in “Married with Children”. Since then, she has had the most questionable career after appearing in three bombs, three years in a row. How an actress goes from making career choices like Just Visiting, The Sweetest Thing and A View from the Top to co-starring in possibly the biggest comedy of the summer is one for the record books.

Ferrell collaborated with first-time feature director Adam McKay on Anchorman’s script, but their history goes back to McKay’s days directing short films for Saturday Night Live. That connection has allowed them to enlist a number of SNL players including Christ Parnell and Maya Rudolph. (Someone in casting must have had a Dr. Seuss complex to assemble a cast made up of a Ferrell, a Parnell and a Carell.) Having appeared in an uncredited role in Starsky and Hutch, Ferrell also recruited Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller to appear in Anchorman, although their parts are being played down.

Anchorman also stars Fred Willard as Ron Burgundy’s boss. Most will remember Fred Willard from the popular sitcom “WKRP in Cincinatti”, but in recent years he’s been cracking people up with his appearances in Christopher Guest’s documentaries Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. Whether or not he’ll bring people to Anchorman is questionable but he is popular, as seen by the gushing praise at Fametracker.

The Rest of the Cast:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Underdogs	6/18/04	2,694		$30.07	$11,162	$86.30
Bruce Almighty	5/23/03	3,483		$85.73	$24,614	$242.60
A Mighty Wind	4/18/03	133	$0.62	$2.11	$15,880	$17.58
Best in Show	10/20/00	497	$4.61	$2.16	$4,346	$18.52
A View From the Top	3/21/03	2,508		$7.01	$2,795	$15.61
The Sweetest Thing	4/12/02	2,670		$9.43	$3,745	$24.43
Just Visiting	4/6/01	1,590		$2.27	$1,429	$4.78

Taking an odd approach to marketing, DreamWorks has invited actual news anchormen to screenings of the movie, which could create a very odd word-of-mouth buzz from the movie being mentioned on their news shows. But that shouldn’t matter, since the movie will set itself with its hilarious trailer and commercials, using a similar non-stop laughs approach as Starsky and Hutch and Underdogs. Most of these laughs come from Ferrell’s usual deadpan delivery, and the fact that he takes himself really seriously will make the movie’s broad comedy even funnier. It’s another great vehicle for Ferrell and his type of humor, although people who don’t like high concept comedy and physical humor will probably give this a wide berth. Considering the success of Underdogs, those people are in the minority.

Ferrell’s growing fanbase since Elf and the strength of the gags in Anchorman should give it a strong push this weekend, allowing it a slightly bigger opening than Elf and some of this year’s other comedies, even if that’s not enough for it to dethrone Spider-Man 2 this weekend. Look for a decent opening in the range of $35 million and strong legs over the rest of the month with no other comedies to speak of.

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SLEEPOVER (MGM Studios)
Starring: Alexa Vega, Mika Boorem, Scout Taylor-Compton, Kalli Flynn Childress, Sam Huntington, Steve Carell, Jeff Garlin, Jane Lynch, Eileen April Boylan, Sean Faris, Alice Greczyn, Brie Larson, Thad Luckinbill, Hunter Parrish, Sara Paxton, Evan Peters, Katija Pevec, Ryan Slattery, Douglas Smith, Johnny Sneed
Directed by: Joe Nussbaum (George Lucas in Love)
Rated PG
Tagline: “The rules are set. The game is on."

When Julie (Alexa Vega) decides to throw a summer slumber party with her best friends, it quickly degenerates into mayhem, when they challenge their rival classmates, the popular girls, to a scavenger hunt, leading them to sneak into clubs and cause all sorts of trouble.

While this year has had its share of comedies and action movies, the genre that truly defines 2004 are the movies geared exclusively towards teen and ‘tween girls. There have been at least seven or eight of these movies so far, all starring 15 to 16 year old female actresses, and they don’t look to be stopping anytime soon. Sleepover is yet another attempt by Hollywood to cash in on a burgeoning trend, in this case, the ‘tween market generated by Disney’s Stepford teens Hillary Duff and Lindsay Lohan. While other studios have tried to create their own clones to bring girls into theatres, none of them have found quite the right formula for success just yet.

Many consider Duff the most popular of this group after the success of her Disney channel show and the resulting movie, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, but she also had a top selling album and at least one hit single. Lohan is quickly catching up to her arch-rival, having already starred in two movies this year, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen and Mean Girls. The latter is currently the highest opening movie in the genre, earning $24 million opening weekend on its way to over $83 million. Mean Girls worked, because it looked funny enough to appeal to older audiences with the help of “Saturday Night Live” writer Tina Fey’s dark humor. Others that have made plays for this crowd include Anne Hathaway, star of Disney’s 2001 hit The Princess Diaries, and Nickelodeon star Amanda Bynes, neither of whom have reached quite the level of fame, even though Hathaway’s return to Genovia in the August sequel The Princess Diaries 2 should give her a leg up on the competition.

Tweener Chick Flicks:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
New York Minute	5/7/04	3,006	$5.96	$1,983	$14.02
Mean Girls	4/30/04	2,839	$24.43	$8,606	$83.48
Ella Enchanted	4/9/04	1,931	$6.20	$3,195	$22.69
Confessions of a Teenage	2/20/04	2,503	$9.35	$3,736	$29.30
Catch That Kid	2/6/04	2,847	$5.82	$2,046	$16.70
Chasing Liberty	1/9/04	2,400	$6.08	$2,534	$12.19
The Lizzie McGuire Movie	5/2/03	2,825	$17.34	$6,138	$42.67
What a Girl Wants	4/4/03	2,964	$11.43	$3,858	$35.99

15-year-old Alexa Vega is the latest in a long line of teen actresses being groomed for stardom. Kids will already know her from her appearance in Robert Rodriguez’s three Spy Kids movies, which in total, have earned almost $300 million domestically. That’s a lot of kids, and at least some of them must have enjoyed Vega in them. Like Lohan, Duff and the Princess Diaries’ Anne Hathaway, Vega also has counterbalanced her acting with a recording career, just, having provided a song for the Spy Kids 3-D soundtrack, although she has not had the hits that Hillary Duff had. Whether there’s enough room for another ‘tween queen is another story and Vega just doesn’t have the presence and charisma to pull it off.

Alex Vega

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over	7/25/03	3,344		$33.42	$9,993	$111.76
Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams	8/9/02	3,307	$8.30	$16.71	$5,053	$84.94
Spy Kids	3/30/01	3,104		$26.55	$8,552	$106.26

Despite the relative success of the genre, there have been just as many failures this year. After appearing in the first Princess Diaries movie, pop singer Mandy Moore got into the game with her 2002 film A Walk To Remember. Despite its success, her next two movies, How to Deal and this year’s Chasing Liberty did awful, although her dark indie comedy Saved! has done better, proving that these actresses may do better playing outside their normal demographic.

The attempt to turn Alexa Vega into another female teen star might be compared to the similar attempt by Fox to increase the visibility of Kristen Stewart (from David Fincher’s The Panic Room) by placing her in the Spy Kids rip-off, Catch That Kid. It didn’t pay off, and even Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who have had a lot of luck with the younger female crowd with their videos, weren’t able to get them into theatres for their second big movie, the similar New York Minute. Like Mandy Moore’s last two movies, neither of them made more than $6 million opening weekend.

Few of Vega’s adult co-stars will do much to help this movie out even though both Jeff Garlin from Larry David’s HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “The Daily Show” regular Steve Carell, who appears in Anchorman this week may have some appeal towards parents of younger girls.

However you cut it, promotion for the movie has been weaker than the other two new movies this week—besides the typical sneak preview a few weeks ago, the best MGM could do was sleepover screenings of the movie?—and the young female audience that may see a movie like this might just as well see King Arthur, Anchorman or even last week’s Spider-Man 2 instead. Opening in fewer theatres than the other comparable movies, there probably won’t be enough interest in Vega outside the Spy Kids franchise to sustain a movie, especially in such a busy market. The summer opening might help it make $6 or 7 million before Hillary Duff’s A Cinderella Story destroys it the following week, but otherwise, Sleepover looks like another ‘tweener dud.