Preview and Projections for the Weekend of September 24, 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 9.24.04

With the fall movie season being more disappointing than years past, the box office looks free and clear for another movie to take over the top spot. The only one with any real chance is the new Julianne Moore thriller The Forgotten about a mother trying to find her missing son. The creepy trailers should bring in younger males, although older women will be drawn to the Oscar nominated actress and the premise. Despite a more modest release, the buzz surrounding the British horror-comedy Shaun of the Dead and zombie movies in general should be enough to help it get into the Top 10 this weekend, probably somewhere amidst the returning movies. On the other hand, the lack of promotion and buzz for the Katie Holmes comedy First Daughter—finally released after a bitter feud with Mandy Moore’s similar movie—might see it bomb miserably this weekend as very few people will even know about its existence. With fewer new movies opening, expect the returning movies to pick up some of the slack.

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THE FORGOTTEN (Columbia Pictures)
Starring: Julianne Moore, Dominic West, Gary Sinise, Alfre Woodard, Linus Roache, Anthony Edwards
Directed by: Joseph Ruben (The Stepfather, True Believer, Sleeping with the Enemy, The Good Son)
Genres: Suspense, Thriller
Rated PG-13
Tagline: “On September 24^th, everything you’ve experienced, everything you’ve known…never happened.”

Julianne Moore plays a grieving mother dealing with the loss of her son, only to be told by her psychiatrist that she never had a son and that she had created false memories of him. Trying to find out the truth, she meets a man (Dominic West) who has had a similar experience and the two of them try to find out what happened to their kids.

With a premise right out of The X-Files, The Forgotten may be a good thriller for the fall, a season where this sort of movie tends to do well. Sure, it looks a lot like the April bomb Godsend, another movie about an imaginary child with an equally impressive cast, but fortunately, the trailers and commercials are a lot more interesting showing scenes of people being mysteriously yanked up into the sky by a mysterious force. That aspect of the film makes people the most curious, since it gives the movie this vague sense of suspense on what exactly is happening to those people, whether it be aliens or something more menacing. That sort of curiousity about the unknown helped Richard Gere’s The Mothman Prophecies do well back in 2002, and it makes one think that The Forgotten could be a decent thriller along the lines of The Ring and The Others. It also looks like it could be a good vehicle for the acting work of Julianne Moore, who has built up quite a group of fans over her amazing career.

Julianne Moore first got noticed with prominent roles in indie films from the likes of Robert Altman (Short Cuts), Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights and Magnolia), Todd Haynes (Safe) and the Coen Brothers (The Big Lebowski). Moore eventually tried breaking into the mainstream first by playing Clarice Starling in the Silence of the Lambs sequel Hannibal, and then by starring in the summer bomb Evolution. Returning to her roots allowed Moore to have a great year in 2002, as she received Oscar recognition for her role in the women friendly dramas, Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven and The Hours. Earlier this year, she followed her two critically acclaimed movies with Laws of Attraction, a silly romantic comedy that paired her against Pierce Brosnan, but that opened pretty poorly—against Godsend, no less. Because of her choices in roles, Moore appeals more to older women than anyone else, and while they aren’t always the best crowd for this kind of movie, her starring role will give the movie a bit more credibility with them, similar to Nicole Kidman in The Others.

Fortunately, Moore is working with Joseph Ruben, a strong director who has been behind many memorable thrillers including Julia Roberts’ Sleeping with the Enemy and Macaulay Culkin’s The Good Son. The former was a sleeper hit that earned over $100 million, helping to solidify Roberts as a solid box office draw. Most people won’t know Ruben’s background, but it does give the thriller a bit more hope at being a good one. The rest of the impressive cast includes talented actors like Gary Sinise (Born on the Fourth of July), Anthony Edwards (“E.R.”) and Dominic West (Mona Lisa Smile).

Usually, this type of thriller appeals to younger guys, but The Forgotten will probably appeal as much to women, not only because of Moore, but also because the premise of a missing child may strike a chord with them. Because of this, The Forgotten might be more of a date/couples movie than most other thrillers, and the trailers seem to be working at generating interest among a wide group of moviegoers. At this point, decent reviews will be crucial to build on that interest.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Laws of Attraction	4/30/04	2,449		$6.73	$2,748	$17.85
The Hours	1/17/03	402	$3.78	$4.64	$11,555	$41.60
Far From Heaven	11/8/02	6		$0.21	$35,213	$13.14
Hannibal	2/9/01	3,230		$58.00	$17,958	$164.97
Godsend	4/30/04	2,323		$6.80	$2,928	$14.33
The Ring	10/18/02	1,981		$15.02	$7,580	$128.29
The Mothman Prophecies	1/25/02	2,331		$11.21	$4,809	$35.23
The Others	8/10/01	1,678		$14.09	$8,397	$96.08
The Good Son	9/24/93	1,847		$12.52	$6,779	$44.46
Sleeping with the Enemy	2/8/91	1,406		$13.78	$9,801	$101.60

Bottom Line: The Forgotten looks like it could be a decent thriller thanks to its solid cast and an enigmatic premise driven by strong trailers. Chances are that it will have the greatest pull towards an older crowd than some of the other movies in theatres, but barring awful reviews, it shouldn’t have any problem taking the top spot this weekend.

Projection: $13 to 15 million opening weekend on its way to around $45 million.

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SHAUN OF THE DEAD (Rogue Pictures)
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield, Dylan Moran, Lucy Davis, Bill Nighy, Peter Serafinowicz, Penelope Wilton
Directed by: Edgar Wright (Fistful of Fingers, “Spaced”, “French and Saunders”)
Genres: Horror, Comedy, Romance, Action
Rated R
Tagline: “In a time of crisis a hero must rise…from his sofa.”

Shaun (Simon Pegg) and his best friend Ed (Nick Frost) are two London slackers whose day-to-day drudgery is complicated by an outbreak of zombies that suddenly turns them into unlikely heroes, as they try to rescue Shaun’s ex-girlfriend and mother.

American audiences probably won’t be familiar with the Channel 4 television show “Spaced”, which was the previous collaboration between Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright and its two stars, but it was fairly popular in England. Wright and “Spaced” star Simon Pegg were such big fans of zombie movies that they decided to write a movie together putting a defiantly different spin on it by making Pegg’s character being the worst zombie killer ever. The resulting movie struck home in their native country, becoming a huge hit earlier this year by making the equivalent of $10 million in a couple of weeks. It actually made more its opening weekend than both Danny Boyle’s hit 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead made in total.

The only actor in the movie that may be relatively known to American audiences is Bill Nighy, who played an ancient vampire in last year’s Underworld and stole many scenes as an aging rocker in Richard Curtis’ Brit comedy Love Actually. Otherwise, the rest of the cast are regulars from British television, who are virtually unknown here. That said, the comedy chemistry is strong between Pegg and Frost, making them quite an onscreen debut.

The lack of known stars won’t matter much, since Shaun’s unique mix of horror and comedy should be a decent draw for college age male audiences. The movie is absolutely hilarious with plenty of social satire using similar cynical humor as shows like “South Park” and BBC’s “The Office”. It’s not necessarily a spoof as much as a very loving tribute to the zombie genre, which got a resurrection here and abroad with Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and then with the remake of Dawn of the Dead earlier this year. Essentially, the movie is like a British sitcom set in a world suddenly infiltrated by zombies.

The biggest problem is that this mix of British comedy and gory horror violence has not been tried before, so few moviegoers will have any reference for it. The Scary Movie series of horror spoofs may come the closest, since they also take elements of slasher and horror films and poke fun at them. Shaun of the Dead is a bit difference as it’s a situational comedy set in a world of zombies, rather than an actual spoof of zombie flicks.

The trailer of Shaun of the Dead is very funny, but one has to wonder how many people have actually seen it and know that this movie is coming out. Rogue Pictures is the new subdivision of Universal that handles smaller genre films, and they don’t have much of a track record as of yet. Shaun is being released in just over 600 theatres nationwide, pretty minimal compared to other zombie films of the last year, Rogue has wisely given the movie sneak preview screenings last Friday night. They were well attended, and like the sneaks for 28 Days Later last year, the word-of-mouth from them can spread pretty quickly.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Dawn of the Dead	3/19/02	2,745		$26.72	$9,735	$58.99
28 Days Later	6/27/03	1,260		$10.06	$7,985	$45.06
Scary Movie 3	10/25/03	3,505		$48.11	$13,727	$109.94
Scary Movie 2	7/6/01	3,220	$13.51	$20.50	$6,367	$71.28
Scary Movie	7/7/00	2,912		$42.35	$14,543	$157.00
Love Actually	11/7/03	576		$6.89	$11,955	$59.08

Bottom Line: Despite the moderate release, positive reviews and word-of-mouth should build buzz among those who love zombie horror and British comedy. The mix of the two should bring in a fairly diverse crowd, although it will likely do better in bigger cities. Expect this one to build on word-of-mouth much like 28 Days Later, so that it will have a similarly healthy shelf life.

Projection: $4 to 5 million opening weekend and $30 to 35 million total.

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FIRST DAUGHTER (20^th Century Fox)
Starring: Katie Holmes, Marc Blucas, Amerie, Margaret Colin, Lela Rochon Fuqua, Michael Keaton
Directed by: Forest Whitaker (Waiting to Exhale, Hope Floats)
Genres: Comedy, Teen
Rated PG
Tagline: “The girl who stood out is finally getting the chance to fit in.”

Katie Holmes is Samantha McKenzie, a girl anxious to leave home and go to college, but in this case, home is the White House, and her father is the President of the United States (Michael Keaton). It may be a bit harder for Samantha to fit in at her new college, especially with the Secret Service men shadowing her every move.

I know what you’re saying. “I liked this movie better when it was called Chasing Liberty.” But that would be lying, wouldn’t it? Because after a fierce battle over the rights to use the name between Fox and Warner Brothers, the Mandy Moore movie changed its name, Fox moved their First Daughter until later in the year, and none of it mattered. Chasing Liberty had the dubious honor of being one of the first bombs of 2004, and First Daughter may not even do that well.

Obviously, the movie’s premise could be loosely based on Chelsea Clinton’s experiences in college or possibly even on the brouhaha surrounding George W’s daughters and their exploits. Who knows which, but it’s obviously a very clean and sanitized comedy based on what happens when the teen daughter of the president (in this cased played by Michael Keaton) tries to fit in with other kids her age at college.

Playing the title character, Katie Homes found legions of fans as the star of the popular WB drama “Dawson’s Creek” before making the jump to movies with forgettable films like Disturbing Behavior and Teaching Mrs. Tingle. Showing her breasts in Sam Raimi’s The Gift didn’t do much for her career, and her next thriller, Abandon, directed by Oscar winning Traffic writer Stephen Gaghan, also bombed. After low-key appearances in Colin Farrell’s Phone Booth and The Singing Detective, Katie played the title role in the Sundance comedy favorite, Pieces of April, which got far more attention and an Oscar nomination for her co-star, Patricia Clarkson. (Maybe Fox should have delayed the movie by a month so Holmes could have continued her streak of having a movie released the second week in October for three years in a row.)

While the premise may be a sound one and Holmes certainly makes sense for the role, this movie has the strangest of origins. It was written by “Sliders” star Jerry O’Connell along with Jessica Bendinger, who wrote Kirsten Dunst’s popular cheerleading comedy, Bring It On. Even odder is the fact that it’s directed by actor Forest Whitaker, who helmed the popular urban chick flick Waiting to Exhale. Whitaker seems like an odd choice to direct a comedy, let alone one geared towards young, presumably white, girls.

Fox may be trying to capitalize on the fact that many young women will be returning to school or going to college for the first time, so that they’ll be able to relate somewhat to Holmes’ character. Unfortunately, they may never even know about the movie. After the feud with Mandy Mooore back in January, First Daughter was dumped into this weekend with almost no promotion, and even the select few who have seen the trailer may feel like they have already seen the movie. Movies geared towards teen girls and younger have been bombing right and left from New York Minute to Alexa Vega’s Sleepover. Even movies with potentially stronger stars like Stiles’ The Prince and Me and Lindsay Lohan’s Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen only did moderately well, and the marketing behind First Daughter doesn’t seem as strong as either of those.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Pieces of April	10/17/03	6		$0.04	$8,070	$2.50
Abandon	10/18/02	2,341		$5.06	$2,163	$10.72
The Gift	1/19/01	805	$0.05	$3.46	$4,299	$11.95
Wonder Boys	2/25/00	1,253	$0.05	$5.81	$4,637	$19.22
Teaching Mrs. Tingle	8/20/99	1,710		$3.33	$1,947	$8.91
Disturbing Behavior	7/24/98	1,842		$7.01	$3,806	$17.49
The Prince and Me	4/2/04	2,682		$9.41	$3,507	$28.17
Confessions of a Teenage	2/20/04	2,503		$9.35	$3,736	$29.30
Chasing Liberty	1/9/04	2,400		$6.08	$2,534	$12.19

Bottom Line: Sorry, Katie, but you should have pushed to get your movie out before Mandy’s. Now not only does it seem like a rip-off, but it’s coming out at a point where this sort of fare has been rung through the wringer for an entire year. With almost no promotion and very little interest or awareness, First Daughter looks a certifiable bomb right out of the gate.

Projection: Even a $4 to 5 million weekend may be a stretch on its way to $10 million total.

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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.

A DIRTY SHAME (Fine Line Features)
HOLLYWOOD BUDDHA (YBG Productions)
INCANTATO (Northern Arts Entertainment)
INFERNAL AFFAIRS (Miramax Films)
THE LAST SHOT (Touchtone Pictures)
MOOG (Plexifilm)
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (Focus Features)
RICK (Vitagraph Films)
THE YES MEN (United Artists)

John Waters is back with a sex comedy called A Dirty Shame, in which Tracy Ullman plays a prudish housewife that becomes a sex addict after sustaining a concussion. Johnny Knoxville plays a sexual preacher who bringsher into a group of similar perverted townfolk, and Selma Blair plays her exhibitionist daughter with the obscenely enhanced breasts. Given an NC-17 rating for its full frontal nudity and descriptions of strange sexual acts, A Dirty Shame opens in limited release this weekend.

Mini-Review: John Waters’ latest is indeed A Dirty Shame, because instead of making an intelligent sex comedy, he has made a 90 minute excuse to use every euphemism for oral sex, masturbation and private parts. It’s a one-joke movie with bad, mostly unfunny performances, and it's probably the unsexiest sex comedy ever made. Rating: 2 out of 10

Hollywood Buddha is Philippe (Boxing Helen) Caland’s film about an obsessed Hollywood producer trying to get his feature film Dead Girl released, even if it means going beyond the boundaries of good taste. Opens in Los Angeles.

Pupi Avati’s Incantato is an Italian comedy about a shy academic man sent to teach at a high school by his father in hopes that he’ll find himself a wife. Instead, he gets involved with a gorgeous blind woman who turns his life upside down. Incantanto opens in New York on Friday.

Hero’s Tony Leung and Andy Lau play moles--one a police working undercover in the mob, the other a gang member within the police force—in Infernal Affairs, a high speed action thriller about a cat and mouse game between the law and organized crime in Hong Kong. A huge hit in Asian that spawned two sequels and an upcoming English language remake with Brad Pitt, Infernal Affairs opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend.

Mini-Review: Often confusing and hard to follow, Infernal Affairs takes a long time to get to the crux of what makes it an interesting crime thriller—the cat and mouse game between the two main characters. Heavily influenced by John Woo, its slightly overrated when compared to any episode of a decent American police drama like The Shield or Law and Order. Rating: 6 out of 10

Based on a true story,The Last Shot stars Alec Baldwin as an FBI agent trying to bust corrupt union leaders in Rhode Island by pretending to be a Hollywood producer making a movie. Unfortunately, he neglects to tell the young hopeful writer, played by Matthew Broderick, who doesn’t realize his dream movie is a government sting. Directed by Catch Me If You Can writer Jeff Nathanson The Last Shot opens in 35 theatres in select cities this weekend. MY REVIEW (Coming Soon!)

Hans Fjellestad’s documentary Moog is about the 70-year-old inventor of electronic music’s most important piece of equipment—the synthesizer. The film interviews Robert Moog (pronounced like “rogue”), the eccentric musical icon whose invention has been a staple in many musical movements over the last forty years, as well as some of the artists who use them. It opens at New York’s Cinema Village on Friday.

Y Tu Mama Tambien’s Gael Garcia Bernal takes another road trip. This time he plays a young Ernesto (later to become “Che”) Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries, based on the journals of the South American political leader during an eight-month trip across the continent with his friend Alberto Granado. Brazilian director Walter (Central Station) Salles’ moving drama received standing ovations at Sundance and other festivals, and it opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend. MY REVIEW (Coming Soon!)

Actor Bill Pullman plays Rick, a long-suffering executive stuck in middle management thanks to a boss a third his age, played by X2’s Aaron Sanford, who is trying to sleep with Rick’s teen daughter (Blue Car’s Agnes Bruckner). A not-for-kids fairy tale written by “Lemony Snickets” author Daniel Handler, Rick opens in New York on Friday.

Mini-Review: The snarky Wall Street satire puts Rick on a par with American Psycho, but Bill Pullman’s performance is more memorable for the wonderful father-daughter scenes with Bruckner. A bit slow and dry at times with a weak ending, Rick is destined for cult obscurity. Rating: 7 out of 10

The Yes Men, directed by American Movie’s Chris Smith, documents the exploits of a group of activists who create a mock web site for the World Trade Organization that is so real that they are asked to attend various conferences and functions. The results of said as they make the corporate organization look pretty silly. The topical documentary opens in New York and Los Angeles.

Mini-Review: The Yes Men is a rather self-serving documentary about this subversive group’s silly pranks. If you are against the WTO's ideologies, this could be seen as a sister documentary to The Corporation, complete with obligatory Michael Moore interview, but it's not nearly as interesting or informative. Rating: 6 out of 10

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THIS TIME LAST YEAR

On the last weekend of September last year, three very different comedies opened, each with their own unique star power. Peter Berg’s buddy action comedy The Rundown pitted the Rock against Sean William Scott for a decent though unspectacular opening making just above $18 million. Opening in almost a third of the theatres, Diane Lane’s romantic comedy Under the Tuscan Sun took second place with just under $10 million, showing that her new fans from Unfaithful were willing to follow her to other ventures. On the other hand, the pairing of Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore in the Danny DeVito comedy The Duplex was a major bomb, making less than $5 million in over 2,000 theatres, settling into seventh place before a quick trip to video. Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation continued to expand, holding onto the #10 spot with a weekend take of $3.7 million in under 500 theatres.

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Next week: It’s October…already! DreamWorks follows their blockbuster sequel Shrek 2 with their new computer-animated film, Shark Tale, featuring the voices of Will Smith, Angelina Jolie and Jack Black. Also, John Travolta and Joaquim Phoenix play with fire in Ladder 49.

Copyright 2004 Edward Douglas