Preview and Projections for the Weekend of May 14, 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 5.13.04

Just like Van Helsing was the only true contender for the top spot last week, Wolfgang Peterson’s big budget Greek war epic Troy, starring Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana, is a lock for that honor this weekend. As one of the most anticipated movies of the summer, Troy should break the stigma of an R-rating and a 2-and-a-half hour running time to bring in around $65 million this weekend. Four years after his flop Held Up, comedian Jamie Foxx returns to comedy with a vengeance in Breakin’ All the Rules with romantic comedy regulars Gabrielle Union and Morris Chestnut. With a moderate release, it could offer decent counter-programming to Troy, but it will likely end up in fourth place. Bad reviews kept Van Helsing from breaking any records last weekend, and bad word-of-mouth should kill off its chances at maintaining any legs. It will have a significant drop-off down to second place, while other April movies like Mean Girls and Man on Fire should continue to get any spill-over business from Troy. Also, expanding into 113 theatres, look for Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me to end up just outside the Top 10 with another million.

TW	LW	Title	Weekend (in millions)	Change	# Of Theaters	Average	Week
1	New	Troy	$65.0	N/A	3,411	$19,056	1
2	1	Van Helsing	$21.0	-59%	3,580	$5,866	2
3	2	Mean Girls	$8.2	-41%	3,015	$2,720	3
4	New	Breaking All the Rules	$6.5	N/A	1,300	$5,000	1
5	3	Man on Fire	$4.5	-45%	2,650	$1,698	4
6	5	13 Going on 30	$3.5	-40%	2,656	$1,318	4
7	4	New York Minute	$3.4	-43%	3,006	$1,131	2
8	6	Laws of Attraction	$2.1	-45%	2,003	$1,048	3
9	7	Kill Bill Vol. 2	$1.4	-52%	1,401	$999	5
10	8	Godsend	$1.1	-60%	1,291	$852	3
			Est. Weekend Total $116.70	Est. Avg. Drop-Off -48%		Est. Average PTA $3,962

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TROY (Warner Brothers)
Starring: Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, Diane Kruger, Peter O'Toole, Brendan Gleeson, Rose Byrne, Brian Cox, Julie Christie, Saffron Burrows, Garrett Hedlund
Directed by: Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, The Perfect Storm, Air Force One)
Rated R
Tagline(s): “For honor” “For victory” “For love” “For Troy” (For Peter’s Sake)

The epic movie based on Homer’s “The Iliad” tells the story of the beautiful Helen of Sparta (Diane Kruger), who leaves her husband for the handsome Paris of Troy (Orlando Bloom), causing a great and bloody war between the two nations. At the center of the war is the conflict between the warrior Achilles (Brad Pitt), who fights more for his own glory than Sparta, and Prince Hector (Eric Bana), the defender of Troy.

If there’s any doubt that the summer movie season is upon us, the most anticipated movie of the summer with the exception of Spider-Man 2 hits theatres this weekend, looking to break through the boundaries of blockbusters by being neither science fiction, superhero or Pixar animated movie. There may never have been a more unlikely candidate for blockbuster than this Greek war epic, as it’s neither a sequel nor a potential franchise like Spider-Man, The Matrix, Star Wars or Harry Potter. Instead, Homer’s epic masterwork is a piece of literature read and studied by many people at school, and the very nature of the story is what makes it perfect for being a big budget blockbuster. With a budget that reached $200 million, Troy's success might be determined by the sum of its parts, combining a stellar cast and a respected director to try to attain the box office of some of those other big movies.

First and foremost, Troy is Pitt’s first full non-cameo movie role in three years. True, he did provide the lead voice for DreamWorks’ animated bomb, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas last year and had cameos in movies by his pals George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh, but this will be his first full on-screen role, since 2001. That was a big year for Pitt, as he starred in four movies, beginning with Guy Richie’s Snatch, followed by the action-packed romantic comedy The Mexican with Julia Roberts, Spy Game with Robert Redford, and the highest grossing movie of his career, Ocean’s 11, also with Julia Roberts and George Clooney. Although Pitt is considered among the echelons of box office stars, he hasn’t had nearly as many big box office hits as others ranked in the same range, most notably the two Toms, Hanks and Cruise. Only three of Pitt’s movies have grossed over $100 million and two of them, Ocean’s 11 and Interview with the Vampire, teamed him with another big box office star. Troy seems like the perfect vehicle to remind everyone what a big star he can be, since he will be carrying a lot of the movie’s big battle scenes.

Brad Pitt:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Ocean's 11	12/7/01	3,075		$38.11	$12,393	$183.13
Spy Game	11/23/01	2,770	$8.88	$21.69	$7,830	$62.34
The Mexican	3/2/01	2,951		$20.11	$6,814	$66.81
Interview with the Vampire	11/11/94	2,604		$36.39	$13,975	$105.26
Se7en	9/22/95	2,441		$13.95	$5,715	$100.12

Brad Pitt won’t have to go it alone in Troy, as he has an amazing supporting cast across the board, but most important, the movie features young Orlando Bloom as Paris. The young British actor has become hugely popular, especially among younger women, for his roles in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and last year’s Disney hit, Pirates of the Caribbean. Essentially, that’s four movies in less than three years that have grossed over $300 million domestically, and that’s all before the age of thirty. While Bloom can’t be given full credit for any of those movies hitting that lofty mark, it has raised the public knowledge of him to the point where he is considered almost as important to the movie as Pitt.

Eric Bana is another star from down under that has gotten a lot of attention stateside. After appearing in the Aussie indie film Chopper, he received a small role in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, a movie in which Bloom also had a small part. Bana’s big break came when he was cast by Ang Lee to play Bruce Banner in the big screen version of The Hulk. Although that made over $60 million opening weekend, its bad word-of-mouth kept it from making much after that.

The rest of the cast is equally impressive. It includes Sean Bean, another Lord of the Rings vet; Brian Cox, best remembered for his roles in The Ring and The Bourne Identity; Brendan Gleeson of 28 Days Later, Cold Mountain and Gangs of New York; and legendary actor Peter O’Toole.

Orlando Bloom/Eric Bana:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	7/11/03	3,269	$24.00	$46.63	$14,264	$305.41
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	12/19/03	3,703	$51.47	$72.62	$19,614	$345.33
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	12/20/02	3,622	$40.04	$61.50	$16,980	$337.26
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	12/21/01	3,359	$27.91	$47.21	$14,055	$304.11
The Hulk	6/20/03	3,660		$62.13	$16,975	$132.12
Black Hawk Down	1/18/02	3,101	$1.85	$33.63	$10,844	$108.58

Having directed television in his native Germany for many years, Peterson first got attention in the States for his 1981 war movie, Das Boot. After a lengthy absence, he returned in the 90s with a number of prominent Hollywood films like In the Line of Fire and Air Force One, both starring Harrison Ford. The latter ended up making over $170 million in this summer of 1997. In 2000, his biggest movie to date, The Perfect Storm, starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, became one of the summer’s biggest hits, grossing over $180 million after a $40 million plus opening weekend. Peterson has earned a lot of respect for his quality blockbusters, both in the industry and from movie goers, and Troy looks to be the masterpiece that every good director has in them.

Wolfgang Peterson:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
The Perfect Storm	6/30/00	3,407	$41.33	$12,131	$182.60
Air Force One	7/25/97	2,919	$37.13	$12,720	$172.65
Outbreak	3/10/95	2,215	$13.42	$6,059	$67.82
In the Line of Fire	7/9/93	1,903	$15.27	$8,024	$102.31

Unlike Homer's original, Troy takes a realistic look at the Trojan War, leaving out the involvement of the Greek gods to make it more of a historical war epic. Ridley Scott’s 2000 Roman epic Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe, is a good comparison, although its $35 million opening is fairly unimpressive by today’s standards. That said, it did end up grossing $186 million over the summer and earned many Oscar nominations. Troy has several distinct advantages over Scott’s movie, being based on a well-known piece of literature, and the box office has changed a lot in the four years since. Nowadays, more people rush out to see movies opening weekend, so Troy could do a similar amount of business but have more of it up front. Besides its cast, Troy has other similarities to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in that they're both based on well-known pieces of literature and feature vast war scenes; Warner Brothers is taking advantage of this by using a similar marketing campaign with the posters and ads. Since Troy isn't opening on a Wednesday before a pre-Christmas weekend, it has the potential to get more business in its first three days than the first Lord of the Rings did. Bloom’s other movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, was also an unlikely blockbuster, but it proved that audiences were looking for new and original ideas, rather than the same old tired Hollywood formula movie. Troy is unlike anything else out there, and coming out after the wrap-up of the hugely successful Lord of the Rings trilogy will make it enticing to people anxiously awaiting the next big movie epic, something that Troy fills to a “T”.

Historical War Epics:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
The Passion of the Christ	2/28/04	3,043	$38.30	$83.85	$27,554	$367.12
Pearl Harbor	5/25/01	3,214		$59.08	$18,382	$198.54
Gladiator	5/5/00	2,938		$34.82	$11,852	$186.61
Saving Private Ryan	7/24/98	2,463		$30.58	$12,416	$216.12
Braveheart	5/26/95	2,035	$2.64	$12.91	$6,344	$75.59
Gladiator	3/6/92	1,295		$3.31	$2,556	$8.21

The best thing going for the movie is its amazing trailer which has impresse moviegoers with its shot of the 1,000 ships and the war scenes. Warner Brothers has been promoting the movie everywhere, getting both the covers to “Premiere Magazine” and “Entertainment Weekly”, and awareness is high enough that it has been on ComingSoon.net’s list of Top Previews for months now, just below Spider-Man 2, Star Wars: Episode III , and Harry Potter.

There was a time when an R-rating might prevent a movie from doing well at the box office, so studios tended to shy away from it. After movies like Hannibal and Eminem’s 8 Mile proved there were enough movie goers over 17 to allow $50 million plus opening weekends, the studios began to relent. Last year, The Matrix Reloaded new box office record for an R-rated opening, followed by a more summer movies to earn over $100 million with the same rating. This year, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ became the highest grossing R-rated film ever, although its subject matter had more of a universal appeal.

Another hurdle for Troy’s success might be its excessive running time of 2 hours and 40 minutes, although plenty of other movies like the three Lord of the Rings movies, Pearl Harbor, and others have proven this to not be a factor, since studios get enough prints made to allow enough showings to meet the demand. (Update: Or at least you would hope so. Quick check of local theatres has the movie showing on three to four screens, but that only counts for 12 showings per day per theatre, which might make it hard to do huge box office.)

Despite the rating and the length, Troy has the perfect premise and cast to get a wide range of audiences from older teen girls to older adults, and it has a lot more anticipation and buzz than Van Helsing, which skewed towards a younger, mainly male crowd. The reviews and word-of-mouth shouldn’t be as bad for Troy either, although expectations are so high that decent reviews will be important to its extended success.

As one of the most anticipated movies of the summer, Troy is going to pick up the pace from Van Helsing’s opening week, and with a much wider audience, it has the potential of earning between $65 and 70 million its opening weekend with decent business right through Memorial Day.

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BREAKIN’ ALL THE RULES (Screen Gems/Sony Pictures)
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Morris Chestnut, Gabrielle Union, Jennifer Esposito, Peter MacNicol
Directed by: Daniel Taplitz (Commandments)
Rated PG-13
Tagline: “When it comes to getting dumped…he wrote the book!”

After being dumped by his fiancé, Quincy Watson (Jamie Foxx) becomes a best-selling author by writing a book on how to break up with women, and he proceeds to give his friends advice on doing the same.

This being the summer box office season with potential blockbusters being released every weekend, studios often try to offer something different for audiences to those big budget movies. This weekend, that choice is Breakin' All the Rules, a romantic comedy geared towards the urban audience, starring a lesser comic who has not exactly made waves at the box office.

Jamie Foxx first got attention as a late addition to the popular FOX comedy sketch show, “In Living Color”, the show that helped make the careers of Damon Wayans, the Wayan Brothers, Jim Carrey and even J-Lo! After a couple of small movie roles, Foxx got his own television show in 1996 called, you guessed it, “The Jamie Foxx Show”, and the following year, he teamed with his “Living Color” cast mate Tommy Davidson for the urban sex comedy, Booty Call. While it didn’t do that well at the box office, it became a cultural phenomenon, with the phrase "booty call" still being coined in modern society. Almost exactly four years ago, Foxx teamed with Nia Long for the comedy Held Up, which tanked opening in half as many theatres as Breakin’, and a few months later, his action thriller Bait followed suit. Foxx did have notable dramatic roles in movies like Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday and Michael Mann’s Ali, and he will be appearing with Tom Cruise in Mann’s next thriller, Collateral, with Tom Cruise in August, but so far, there is nothing to prove that he’s a bankable star on his own.

Jamie Foxx:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Ali	12/28/01	2,446	$20.03	$14.71	$6,014	$58.18
Bait	9/15/00	2,352		$5.49	$2,334	$15.09
Held Up	5/12/00	688		$1.91	$2,776	$4.69
Any Given Sunday	12/24/99	2,505	$7.05	$13.58	$5,421	$75.53
Booty Call	2/28/97	1,272	$1.58	$6.43	$5,055	$20.07

Foxx is joined by a great African American cast, including two actors whom have appeared in a fair share of urban romantic comedies, Gabrielle Union and Morris Chestnut. Union is becoming one of the most sought after young black actresses due to her versatility. After building a career in popular teen movies like She’s All That and Bring It On, she began starring in comedies like Two Can Play that Game and The Brothers, both with Chestnut. Union’s most prominent role to date has been starring opposite Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in last year’s Michael Bay buddy cop hit, Bad Boys 2, and she probably has as many male fans as women. Like Taye Diggs, Chestnut is a black actor that has gotten many romantic lead roles in movies like The Brothers and The Best Man. In Breakin’ All the Rules, he is taking a back seat to Foxx, as he’s not even mentioned in the ads or trailer. That be as it may, he’s been trying to branch out in recent years with movies like the family flick Like Mike, the Steven Seagal action flick Half Past Dead, and the upcoming Anacondas: The Hunt for the Black Orchid. Both stars may offer Foxx some much needed support if they bring in some of the audience from their previous movies.

Morris Chestnut/Gabrielle Union:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Bad Boys II	7/18/03	3,186	$46.52	$14,602	$137.26
Deliver Us From Eva	2/7/03	1,139	$6.65	$5,837	$17.57
Two Can Play That Game	9/7/01	1,297	$7.72	$5,953	$22.24
Bring it On	8/25/00	2,380	$17.36	$7,294	$68.25
Half Past Dead	11/15/02	2,113	$7.82	$3,701	$15.36
The Brothers	3/23/01	1,378	$10.30	$7,477	$27.46
The Best Man	10/22/99	1,345	$9.03	$6,714	$33.29

Many of the movies above are good representations of romantic comedies that have appealed to audiences of African American women, despite negligible star power and moderate releases. Most of those movies averaged between $5,800 and $7,500 showing that there is definite interest in this type of movie, and many of them did well even in busy weekends.The marketing for Breakin’ All the Rules has been a bit minimal, which might hurt it from getting as much business, but its charming premise will be one that many women will be able to relate to.

With almost no crossover audience with Troy--possibly the whitest movies of the summer--Breakin’ All the Rules seems like suitable counter-programming that hopes on finding some stray business. Foxx has not proven himself to be a draw in past movies, but the genre and the inclusion of Union and Chestnut, two favorites of that genre, will give Breakin’ All the Rules a fighting chance to make $5 to 7 million this weekend.

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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.

CARANDIRU (Sony Pictures Classics)
COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (United Artists)
A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN (Televisa Cine) last minute addition!
A SLIPPING DOWN LIFE (Lions Gate Films)
STRAYED (Wellspring Media)

Sao Paulo’s Carandiru is the largest prison in South America, overcrowded with over 7,000 inmates. A doctor brought to the prison to educate the men about AIDS brings a positive attitude to the dreary prison life of drugs and violence, but his visit is marred by a revolt that leaves 111 inmates dead. Based on a true story as told by Dr. Drauzio Varella, this prison drama by Hector Babenco (Kiss of the Spider-Woman) became Brazil’s entry for the 2004 Oscars after competing at Cannes. It opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend. MY REVIEW

New York indie director Jim Jarmusch returns with Coffee and Cigarettes, a collection of his short films from the last fifteen years with six new pieces added. The movie features humorous and sometimes awkward conversations between Iggy Pop and Tom Waits, Steve Buscemi with Joie and Cinque Lee, Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan, and Cate Blanchett with herself. It opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend. MY REVIEW

A Day Without Mexican is an odd comedy about the disappearance of 1/3rd of the population of California--all of those with a Hispanic background--and how it affects those left behind, as the state begins to fall apart. The movie by Sergio Arau opens in 48 theatres in California on Friday.

Lili Taylor plays an awkward and shy woman so obsessed with a brooding singer/songwriter (Guy Pearce) that she carves his name into her forehead in Toni Kalen’s A Slipping Down Life, based on the Anne Tyler novel. It opens in New York and Los Angeles.

Andre Techine’s wartime romance, Strayed, stars Emmanuelle Beart as a Parisian refuge with two children who gets involved with a delinquent youth while trying to survive an escape from Nazi occupied France during World War 2. Based on a novel by Gilles Perault, Strayed opens in New York on Friday.

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THIS TIME LAST YEAR

With only one new movie, Eddie Murphy’s Daddy Day Care, the previous weekend’s blockbuster sequel, X2: X-Men United, remained in the top spot with a second weekend take of $40 million, a significant 53% drop. That left Daddy Day Care to enter the Top 10 at #2 with an impressive $27.6 million as Eddie Murphy’s first big hit since The Nutty Professor 2. Surprisingly, Hillary Duff’s The Lizzie McGuire Movie had an even larger drop than X2, dropping down to third place with $7 million—a drop of almost 60%. Christopher Guest’s folk mockumentary A Mighty Wind expanded nationwide, earning $3 million over the weekend to enter the Top 10 at #7, while the Brit comedy Bend It Like Beckham continued to do well as it expanded wider, moving up a spot to #9.

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Next week, the sequel to the biggest non-Disney animated movie, Shrek 2, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, and Eddie Murphy!

Copyright 2004 Edward Douglas