Coming Soon! - The Weekend Warrior

Preview and Projections for the Weekend of January 28, 2005
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 1.27.05

January’s closing weekend is turning into a competition between two horror movies and two Oscar contenders, deciding the age-old question whether movie going audiences want quality filmmaking or will settle for easy high concept entertainment. The lead-off in the latter category is the horror thriller Hide and Seek starring Robert De Niro and Dakota Fanning, which should scare up a first place victory this weekend. That should put it just ahead of Clint Eastwood’s boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, starring Golden Globe winner Hilary Swank, which has generated enough interest from its Globe wins and Oscar nominations to do very well as it opens in hundreds of new markets in its seventh weekend. On the other hand, Uwe Boll’s adaptation of the video game Alone in the Dark, starring Christian Slater and Tara Reid, looks like a disaster waiting to happen, making it this month’s biggest bomb. (Update: Check out the mini-review below.) Alexander Payne’s Sideways also finally expands nationwide into its most theatres since opening three months ago, hoping to take advantage of its multiple Oscar nominations. It should end up somewhere in the range of the other returning comedies, Meet the Fockers and In Good Company. Also, look for Martin Scorsese's The Aviator to have a nice jump, as people go to see why it received 11 Oscar nominations on Monday.

TW	LW	Title	Weekend (in millions)	Change	# Of Theaters	Average	Week
1	New	Hide and Seek	$19.3	N/A	3,005	$6,423	1
2	12	Million Dollar Baby	$14.5	806%	2,010	$7,214	7
3	1	Are We There Yet?	$11.5	-39%	2,710	$4,244	2
4	11	Sideways	$6.5	120%	1,694	$3,837	15
5	2	Coach Carter	$6.1	-43%	2,574	$2,370	3
6	8	The Aviator	$6.0	24%	2,503	$2,397	7
7	3	Meet the Fockers	$5.7	-42%	3,015	$1,891	6
8	4	In Good Company	$5.0	-38%	1,960	$2,551	3
9	New	Alone in the Dark	$4.7	N/A	2,124	$2,190	1
10	5	Racing Stripes	$4.5	-35%	3,185	$1,413	3
			Est. Weekend Total $83.80	Est. Avg. Drop-Off 94%		Est. Average PTA $3,455

ALONE IN THE DARK (Lions Gate Films)
Starring: Christian Slater, Stephen Dorff, Tara Reid, Will Sanderson, Ed Anders, Robert Bruce, Daniel Cudmore, Mike Dopud, John Fallon, Catherine Lough Haggquist, Ho Sung Pak, Malcom Scott, Darren Shahlavi, Francoise Yip
Directed by: Uwe Boll (House of the Dead, Blackwoods, Sanctimony)
Genres: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Rated R
Theatre Count: 2,124
Tagline: “Evil Awakens.” (…and audiences go to sleep.)
Mini-Review: You have to feel bad for Uwe Boll, as he continues his run as a bargain-rate Paul Anderson, except that this is so abysmally bad that it makes Resident Evil look like Shakespeare. Then again, it's definitely worth seeing to catch the debut of Tara Reid, "Serious Actress." She gets more laughs than she does in comedies. Rating: 1 out of 10

In this movie based on the Atari video game of the same name, Christian Slater plays a supernatural detective who comes across evil demons while investigating the death of a friend on a place called “Shadow Island.”

Horror, action and video games have gone hand on hand for years with games like Resident Evil, Castlevania and Silent Hill finding many fans. Of course, it makes sense that they also made the perfect fodder for horror-action films, something proven by Resident Evil, which has proven to be almost as viable a movie franchise, although other poor imitators have failed. One of those failures was the movie version of House of the Dead, helmed by German horror director Uwe Boll, who makes Alone in the Dark his second video game based movie, before he proceeds to his second video game based movie with Alone in the Dark, before completing the trilogy with a movie based on BloodRayne. In many ways, Boll has become the poor man’s Paul W.S. Anderson, the director behind many successful video game movies including the aforementioned Resident Evil and movies based on Mortal Kombat and Alien vs. Predator.

This video game isn’t exactly on a par with Resident Evil. Instead of zombies, the antagonists of Alone in the Dark are strange creatures that look like they were stolen directly from Aliens or Pitch Black. Even the promotional poster for the movie rips off Alien with an image that looks like it was done by Alien designer H.R.Giger. Alone in the Dark doesn’t have nearly the production budget of some of those other movies, and the cast leaves a lot to be desired. If there’s such a thing as a “box office kiss of death” than Christian Slater, Stephen Dorff and Tara Reid are a veritable ménage e trois of actors that have appeared in far too many box office duds. Whether this is because they’re bad actors or just that they don’t have very many fans of their work is debatable, but it doesn’t bode well for the film’s quality or chances at getting an audience.

Christian Slater almost had a promising career. Having started out at a young age in the ‘80s with The Name of the Rose and teen classics Heathers and Pump Up the Volume, he then tried his hand as an action hero with movies like John Woo’s Broken Arrow and Hard Rain. Fortunately, he spent much of the latter half of the ‘90s in courtrooms or jail on various charges or else he might have made some even worse career choices than Very Bad Things. His attempted comeback in John Woo’s WWII stinker Windtalkers, were followed by a number of low-key and straight-to-video movies. (Mindhunters, a spy thriller he did with Val Kilmer, has now been delayed for over a year, and I wouldn’t hold my breath that it actually comes out this summer as planned.)

In the last few months, Tara Reid has become better known for her inability to control her own breasts than for her acting abilities, although her career also started out promising enough with a small role in the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski. After doing a bunch of teen thrillers, she had a key role in the hit movie American Pie, but from there, it all went downhill. She had two back-to-back flops in 2001 with Just Visiting and Josie and the Pussycats, and since then, only one of her movies has earned over $20 million in theatres. (She did have a small appearance in American Pie 2, but it was literally a phoned-in scene.) Her last film was My Boss’ Daughter, the long-delayed Ashton Kutcher bomb.

Actor Stephen Dorff’s career is nothing to brag about either, peaking when he played the villain in the first Blade movie. After starring in John Water’s Cecil B. Demented, he played the lead in two 2002 movies—the gangster film Deuces Wild and the horror flick feardotcom—both which bombed, followed by the Dennis Quaid-Sharon Stone thriller Cold Creek Manor. There’s very little chance that he can bring much to a table that has already been splintered into pieces by the presence of Slater and Reid.

The Box Office Terror Trio
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Windtalkers	6/14/02	2,898		$14.52	$5,010	$40.91
3000 Miles to Graceland	2/23/01	2,545		$7.16	$2,813	$15.74
Very Bad Things	11/25/98	1,260		$4.66	$3,698	$9.90
Hard Rain	1/16/98	2,107		$6.76	$3,208	$19.86
My Boss's Daughter	8/22/03	2,201		$4.86	$2,206	$15.55
National Lampoon's Van Wilder	4/5/02	2,022		$7.30	$3,612	$21.01
Josie and the Pussycats	4/13/01	2,556	$1.53	$4.56	$1,784	$14.25
Just Visiting	4/6/01	1,590		$2.27	$1,429	$4.78
American Pie	7/9/99	2,507		$18.71	$7,463	$101.74
Cold Creek Manor	9/19/03	2,035		$8.19	$4,025	$21.38
fear dot com	8/30/02	2,550		$7.09	$2,779	$13.21
Deuces Wild	5/3/02	1,480		$2.70	$1,827	$6.04

That scary chart alone would give most hesitation in backing these stars, so I don’t expect whoever cast this movie to be getting much work in the future. A good horror or action film should be able to transcend its stars’ box office draw—the success of Michael Keaton’s White Noise earlier this year proves it—but this looks like too many other winter horror films like Relic or the Vin Diesel sci-fi film Pitch Black. It also looks a like the recent Alien vs. Predator, which ultimately disappointed despite a cool premise. Alone in the Dark looks like a pale imitation of all of them, and early buzz from test screenings say that the movie is absolutely terrible.

Boll’s last film House of the Dead was released by Artisan Films, so it’s safe to assume that this project was inherited by Lions Gate when they bought Artisan’s library a few years ago. This doesn’t mean that the movie is getting the studio’s full support, and the lack of promotion and press by the principals is not a good sign. This is the type of movie that studios try not to screen for critics before it opens, but Lions Gate has made an extra effort to invite them to see it, maybe in hopes that they can use the terrible reviews as an excuse when the movie bombs this weekend. The fact that it’s opening against Hide and Seek, a much stronger horror film with much better promotion certainly won’t help much either.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
House of the Dead	10/10/03	1,520	$5.68	$3,734	$10.20
Alien vs. Predator	8/13/04	3,395	$38.29	$11,279	$79.22
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever	9/20/02	2,705	$7.01	$2,592	$14.29
Resident Evil	3/15/02	2,528	$17.71	$7,004	$39.53
Pitch Black	2/18/00	1,832	$11.58	$6,321	$39.24
Relic	1/10/97	2,095	$9.06	$4,325	$33.94

Bottom Line: While a schlock horror film like this might be the best thing to get the guys back into theatres, especially now that football season is over until the Super Bowl, this looks like such a horrible rip-off of so many other bad movies that people likely won’t bother to waste their money or time.

Projection: $4 to 5 million max opening weekend. It will be lucky if it makes more than $10 million total.

HIDE AND SEEK (20^th Century Fox)
Starring: Robert De Niro, Dakota Fanning, Famke Janssen, Elisabeth Shue, Dylan Baker, Robert John Burke, Alicia Harding, Amy Irving, Melissa Leo, James McCaffrey
Directed by: John Polson (Swimfan)
Genres: Horror, Thriller, Drama
Rated R
Theatre Count: 3,005
Tagline: “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

Emily Callaway (Dakota Fanning) is a young girl whose games with her imaginary friend Charlie quickly turn deadly as they dispose of anyone who questions his existence. It’s even more troubling for her widowed father, played by Robert De Niro, who thinks Charlie may have something to do with the death of his wife.

With the horror genre continuing to do well, it’s no surprise to see yet another horror movie coming out this early in the year. What makes this one stand-out from other recent offerings is that this one features a few name stars in Dakota Fanning and Robert De Niro. Fox is so confident in these stars that their promotional posters merely state the name of the movie, the names of the stars and their faces, something that hasn’t been done very much with one exception being the Michael Mann thriller Collateral which had posters just showing its two stars, Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx.

11-year-old Dakota Fanning has become quite the young starlet, but considering her professionalism and screen smarts at such a young age, many find her to be quite scary. It makes perfect sense that she is finally cast in a movie where she is meant to be scary, playing one of those creepy kids we’ve seen so much in successful horror thrillers like The Sixth Sense and The Grudge. Having only been making for a few years, Fanning has already held her own opposite two Oscar winning actors, something that Haley Joel Osment only did after the success of The Sixth Sense. Last year, she starred opposite Denzel Washington in the action-thriller Man on Fire, a big hit for both of them, but she got her start in the comedy-drama I Am Sam with Sean Penn, who got an Oscar nomination. Of course, she’s had a couple slip-ups since then like playing a “mere kid” in Universal’s adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat with Mike Myers, but even Uptown Girls, her comedy with Brittany Murphy, did surprisingly well based on Fanning’s way-too-smart-for-her-own-good kid. Fanning will continue her successful run starring opposite Mr. Tom Cruise in Steven Spielberg’s high profile remake of War of the Worlds, continuing her career as the new Drew Barrymore (only successful and sober).

Then again, not all spooky kid movies do well, and the best example of this is Robert De Niro’s 2004 thriller Godsend, in which he played only a marginal role; it did rather poorly in a busy weekend last April, but since it also was about a creepy kid, the comparisons are hard to avoid. On the other hand, De Niro’s other thrillers like the Cape Fear remake by Martin Scorsese and Neil Jordan’s Angel Heart—he played the bad guy in both--have found many long-term fans. De Niro’s workload has slowed down a bit in recent years, as he alternates between blockbuster comedies like Meet the Fockers and the animated Shark Tale and more dramatic work like this. Obviously, his fan base has gotten older in recent years, but young moviegoers certainly won’t let that affect their enjoyment of a few good scares and an eerie premise like this.

Dakota and De Niro
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Man on Fire	4/23/04	2,979	$0.04	$22.75	$7,637	$77.86
Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat	11/21/03	3,464		$38.33	$11,065	$100.45
Uptown Girls	8/15/03	2,495		$11.28	$4,500	$37.10
I Am Sam	1/25/02	1,268	$0.19	$8.32	$6,562	$40.27
Godsend	4/30/04	2,323		$6.80	$2,928	$14.33
City by the Sea	9/6/02	2,575		$8.94	$3,470	$22.43
Cape Fear	11/15/91	924		$10.26	$11,104	$77.31

Director Jon Polson is no newcomer to thrillers having helmed the stalker’s handbook Swimfan, which happened to beat De Niro’s City by the Sea when they opened against each other in early September 2002. He came on board when Albert Hughes of the Hughes Brothers (From Hell) left the project due to creative differences.

This should be a good follow-up, since ghost films with creepy kids have proven successful in the past especially after the success of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, which paired Bruce Willis and a young Haley Joel Osment in a similar “I see dead people” set-up. Some might see this as little more than another rip-off, but other movies that used this formula like The Others, The Ring and The Grudge, all did surprisingly well. Then again, this seems a bit closer to Johnny Depp’s 2004 thriller Secret Window, based on the Steven King story, which failed to make $20 million its opening weekend despite strong buzz for the actor.

The biggest difference between Hide and Seek and previous horror hits like The Sixth Sense and White Noise is that it has been given the much-feared R-rating. Most true horror fans should be sick of watered-down PG-13 horror movies by now, but that will just make it harder for the younger teen audience who usually flocks to movies like this to see it n theatres, something that could ultimately hurt its opening weekend. Also, De Niro’s appeal tends to lean more towards an older audience, many of whom might have to choose between seeing this or Oscar nominated films like Sideways and Million Dollar Baby. At least the commercials and trailer are scary enough to intrigue those who quickly lost interest in White Noise. (Update: In a last minute move, Fox has created a great gimmick for this movie. In order to keep the end ofthe movie a secret, they have shipped the last reel separate to all playdates at great expense. This is something that has never been done before and it could help to generate even more interest.)

Creepy Kids and Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Swimfan	9/6/02	2,856		$11.33	$3,966	$28.56
White Noise	1/7/05	2,261		$24.11	$10,665	$50.00
The Grudge	10/22/04	3,245		$39.13	$12,058	$110.18
Secret Window	3/12/04	3,018		$18.24	$6,043	$47.78
The Others	8/10/01	1,678		$14.09	$8,397	$96.08
Bless the Child	8/11/00	2,754		$9.41	$3,417	$29.33
The Sixth Sense	8/6/99	2,161		$26.68	$12,346	$293.50

Bottom Line: The horror genre is still going strong although the premise for Hide and Seek looks so much like The Others and The Sixth Sense that it may be met by some skepticism. Its R-rating and the appeal of De Niro to older audiences may make some of them have to choose between this and the higher profile Oscar films, although it should still be #1 when all is said and done.

Projection: $18 to 20 million opening weekend on its way to roughly $50 million.

MILLION DOLLAR BABY (Warner Brothers)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman,
Directed by: Clint Eastwood (Mystic River, Blood Work, True Crime, Absolute Power, Space Cowboys, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The Bridges of Madison County)
Genres: Sports, Drama
Rated R
Theatre Count: 2,010
MY REVIEW

A young woman named Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) is taken under the wing of a crotchety boxing trainer (Clint Eastwood) and his long-time friend, a retired boxer played by Morgan Freeman, as she tries to become the women’s boxing champion.

It’s hard to believe, but this year, Clint Eastwood will celebrate his 50^th year making movies, and what better way to do it than to get a few more Oscar nominations? This time around, he shifts gears a bit, exploring a genre that has found great critical and commercial success, the boxing drama. Clint started making this one just a few short months after his last film Mystic River was recognized for its Oscar caliber performances, and he finished it so quickly that Warner Brothers was able to get it on the schedule in time to be considered for last year’s awards. Coming out of nowhere like this, it took many critics by surprise, since his powerful drama harks back to some of the classic films of yesteryear with its tone.

Then again, anyone familiar with Eastwood’s long career should have expected this to be a decent movie, since the former California mayor has directed over 26 films from comedies like Space Cowboys to crime dramas like True Crime, Absolute Power and Mystic River. Despite Eastwood’s vast back catalog, he only started getting recognized by the Academy in 1993, when he won his first Oscar as director for the Western Unforgiven, which also won for Best Picture. Eastwood didn’t get an Oscar for his acting in the movie, but he did receive a lifetime achievement award in 1995. After a few more films with mixed commercial and critical success, Mystic River got him another nomination as director and for best picture, as well as getting its stars, Sean Penn and Tim Robbins,their first Oscars. Many consider Eastwood to be one of Hollywood’s finest filmmakers and the success of Mystic River proves that he hasn’t lost a step ever since his early days playing Dirty Harry and making spaghetti Westerns. Although Million Dollar Baby has a smaller cast than Mystic River, his two co-stars are both very strong actors. (Update: Not only that but Clint got two Oscars nominations for the movie!)

Hilary Swank will always be remembered for the surprise Oscar win five years ago for her gender-bending role in the independent drama Boys Don’t Cry, based on the story of Brandon Tina. Although that film only grossed $11 million, it also never got into more than 300 theatres before Swank won the Oscar. After that prestigious honor, Swank appeared in Sam Raimi’s The Gift and Charles (Alfie) Shyer’s period piece The Affair of the Necklace with Adrien Brody, who would go onto his own Oscar surprise win a few years later. Neither movie did very well, and after a small supporting role in Al Pacino’s Insomnia, directed by Christopher (Memento) Nolan, Swank made the odd choice of starring in the disaster flick The Core. She has yet to prove herself as a box office draw, but Million Dollar Baby will be her second chance at an acting Oscar and as an early favorite to win, it could mean the big difference between whether Swank goes back into obscurity or moves up a notch in the acting ranks.

Eastwood and Swank
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Mystic River	10/17/03	1,467	$3.09	$10.45	$7,121	$90.13
Blood Work	8/9/02	2,525		$7.31	$2,896	$26.20
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil	11/21/97	824		$5.23	$6,347	$25.11
Absolute Power	2/14/97	2,568		$16.77	$6,530	$50.07
Bridges of Madison County	6/2/95	1,805		$10.52	$5,828	$71.52
Unforgiven	8/7/92	2,071		$15.02	$7,253	$101.16
The Core	3/28/03	3,017		$12.05	$3,995	$31.11
Insomnia	5/24/02	2,610		$20.93	$9,988	$67.26
The Gift	1/19/01	805	$0.05	$3.46	$4,299	$11.95
Boys Don't Cry	10/8/99	365	$8.34	$0.98	$2,697	$11.54

One shouldn’t forget what actor Morgan Freeman brings to the table, as he is a solid actor who has built up his fanbase with strong roles in movies like David Fincher detective film Se7en and playing James Patterson’s Alex Cross in two hit movies, Kiss the Girls and Along Came A Spider. Few will forget Freeman’s stint as God in Jim Carrey’s blockbuster comedy Bruce Almighty either. Having received three acting Oscar nominations without having won an Oscar, Freeman has repeatedly proven that when given the right vehicle, he can be brilliant, and he is very likely to get another Oscar nomination for his prominent role in Eastwood’s latest. It’s a great way to kick off another banner year where he’ll be appear in a number of films including the highly-awaited Batman Begins.

Besides having a great cast, Million Dollar Baby’s genre as a boxing drama also makes it a strong draw, since the genre has spawned many classic films, as well as plenty of Oscar fodder. The best known cases of this are Sylvester Stallone’s breakout hit Rocky in 1976 and Martin Scorsese’s biopic about boxer Jake LaMotta, Raging Bull, which quite ironically, opens at New York’s Ziegfield Theatre on Friday to celebrate its 25^th Anniversary. Both of them received multiple Oscar nominations with Rocky winning for best picture and director and Raging Bull getting actor Robert DeNiro his second Oscar. Rocky did far better at the box office, spawning a slew of sequels that were more concerned with making money than receiving awards. Michael Mann joined the biopic game with 2000’s Ali starring Will Smith, which also got him a nomination, creating many strong precedences for Eastwood’s latest to do well. (Of course, there’s also stuff like Bad to the Bone and Undisputed, but for Clint’s sake, we’ll pretend they never existed.)

Essentially, Million Dollar Baby will be targeting older audiences, boxing fans, and cinephiles who enjoy quality moviemaking. With strong buzz and 93% of Rotten Tomatoes critics giving it the thumbs up, it shouldn’t have much of a problem finding them as it expands nationwide into over 1,800 theatres this weekend. Warner Brothers had great success opening Mystic River in limited release in October 2003, expanding it wider and then taking advantage of its Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. Since opening on December 17, Million Dollar Baby has grossed over $8 million without ever having played in more than 150 theatres, and its performance in the last few weeks has been nothing short of amazing, keeping a high per-theatre average from week-to-week.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Along Came a Spider	4/6/01	2,530		$16.71	$6,606	$74.06
Kiss the Girls	10/3/97	2,271		$13.22	$5,821	$60.50
Se7en	9/22/95	2,441		$13.95	$5,715	$100.12
Shawshank Redemption	10/14/94	944	$4.75	$2.40	$2,542	$28.24
Ali	12/28/01	2,446	$20.03	$14.71	$6,014	$58.18
Rocky V	11/16/90	2,053		$14.07	$6,853	$40.11
Rocky IV	11/27/85	1,325		$19.99	$15,087	$127.87

Bottom Line: With the amount of critical recognition and awards nominations Eastwood’s powerful boxing drama has gotten so far, there is a lot of interest nationwide from people who haven’t had the chance to see it yet. Expect a strong first weekend as older movie lovers and boxing fans flock to see it and strong legs as it continues to rack up the honors on its way to the Oscars.

Projection: $13 to 15 million on its way to over $65 million.

SIDEWAYS (Fox Searchlight)
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh, M.C. Gainey
Directed by: Alexander Payne (About Schmidt, Election, Citizen Ruth)
Genres: Comedy
Rated R
Theatre Count: 1,694
Tagline: “In search of wine. In search of women. In search of themselves.”
MY REVIEW

Failed writer Miles (Paul Giamatti) goes on a tour of California wine country with his actor friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) as a pre-wedding present, but it quickly turns into an excuse for Jack to have one last fling when they meet a couple local women, played by Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh.

The fourth movie from Nebraska native Alexander Payne takes another interesting turn, taking him out of his home state and into California for a dramatic comedy that has been making more waves among critics and moviegoers alike than any of his previous films. Payne’s work is quite remarkable in that each of his successive movies has been targeted towards a different demographic with Election getting a strong MTV push, About Schmidt being more about aging and the elderly, with Sideways falling in the middle with people suffering from mid-life crisis.

Of his small ensemble cast, Paul Giamati is the best known among mainstream moviegoers as a character actor in dozens of movies including Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes, the Howard Stern biopic Private Parts, and others. He turned a lot of heads in 2003, when he starred as Harvey Pekar in the comic book based biopic American Splendor, which got him nominated for a bunch of awards. With Sideways, Giamatti follows in some mighty big footsteps, since Payne’s last leading man was Jack Nicholson, a veteran actor who received a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for his title role in About Schmidt. Giamatti received Critics Choice and Golden Globe nominations for his role in Sideways, and many feel he will finally get his much-deserved Oscar nomination. (Update: Giamatti was robbed!!! The Academy has snubbed him, the fools!!!)

The rest of the cast aren’t that well known by name, although both Thomas Haden Church and Payne’s wife Sandra Oh, who play a couple in the comedy, will best be known to television audiences, Church from “Wings” and “Ned and Stacy”, Oh from her lengthy run as Rita on the HBO sports sitcom “Arliss.” Church is getting more attention for his emotional role as Miles’ philandering buddy Jack, which gets most of the movie’s best laughs. Critics have already hailed Haden Church for the role, and after being awarded with the Critics’ Choice, he’s likely to get an Oscar nomination despite already missing out on the Golden Globe for which he was nominated. Just as many kudos have been paid to Virginia Madsen for her supporting role as Miles’ love interest, since she gives two stirring speeches that many viewers have savored. This attention Madsen is getting comes after years of obscurity in smaller films before completely disappearing until Payne revived her career.

Sideways opened in New York and Los Angeles in mid-October, earning $12 million as it slowly expanded into just under 500 theatres over the next few weeks. By early December, it seemed to have run its course, but then it started showing up on many critics’ lists as their favorite movie of the year. Numerous Golden Globe nominations as well as a sweep of the Critics Choice awards has greatly helped its business, and it now expands into almost 1,000 theatres in hopes of capitalizing on its Oscar nominations. Fox Searchlight has done a great job promoting the movie, making it their third big hit after last year’s Garden State and Napoleon Dynamite, as it has earned over $30 million, almost twice its production costs. Because it has been open in so many cities for months, it will be relying mainly on the new areas where it hasn’t played to maintain its business. Certainly, its terrific success among critics and moviegoers—96% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with 80% of IMDb viewers rating it 8 or higher--should create enough buzz for these new audiences who haven’t seen it yet.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
American Splendor	9/12/03	272	$3.03	$0.83	$3,091	$6.00
Duets	9/15/00	581		$2.00	$3,442	$4.70
About Schmidt	12/13/02	816	$3.49	$8.53	$10,457	$65.00
Election	5/7/99	827	$0.53	$3.16	$3,821	$14.88
Adaptation	1/10/03	560	$6.55	$2.64	$4,709	$22.50
American Beauty	10/1/99	706	$10.21	$8.19	$11,601	$130.06
American Splendor	9/12/03	272	$3.03	$0.83	$3,091	$6.00
Duets	9/15/00	581		$2.00	$3,442	$4.70

Bottom Line: With almost universal appeal from all but a few standouts, the crowd-pleasing potential of Alexander Payne’s latest comedy should get him far more mainstream recognition than About Schmidt. It is likely to be nominated for an impressive amount of Oscars on Tuesday morning, an announcement that should help it do decent business as it finally breaks into the Top 10.

Projection: $6 to 7million in its first ultra-wide weekend on its way to $50 to 60 million.

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:
ALIENS OF THE DEEP (Walt Disney Pictures)
FASCINATION (MGM)

James Cameron returns with his second IMAX only documentary, Aliens of the Deep, about the mysterious undersea creatures that inhabit deep-sea volcanic regions, which could prove that unknown life could exist on other planets. With a team of NASA scientists and marine biologists, he explores this theory, which first propped its head up in his The Abyss, with beautiful footage from the earth’s oceans and outer space. Aliens of the Deep opens in 27 IMAX theatres in various cities this Friday.

In Klaus Menzel’s Fascination, Adam Garcia (Coyote Ugly) plays a young man whose widowed mother (Jacqueline Bisset) is about to remarry. After falling for the daughter of his future stepfather, he starts to suspect wrong doings in his father’s death, as more people start dying. It will open in ten theatres.

Opening in New York and Los Angeles:
FEAR X (Verve Pictures)
TRAVELLERS AND MAGICIANS (Zeitgeist Films)

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn makes his English language debut with Fear X about a security guard played by John Turturro exploring the mysterious death of his wife, played by White Noise star Deborah Kara Unger. This thriller, co-written with author Hubert Selby Jr. (“Requiem for a Dream” “Last Exit to Brooklyn”), plays in New York at the Cinema Village and in Los Angeles before its DVD release in March.

Travellers and Magicians, the first feature film to be shot in the Himalayan region of Bhutan, is about two men—one university educated, the other a farm youth—who hope to escape the mundane lives of their village by taking a journey. Already playing in a few cities, this film from director Khyentse (The Cup) Norbu opens at New York’s Quad Cinema and Los Angeles this weekend.

Opening in New York:
LOST EMBRACE (New Yorker Films)

Ariel (Daniel Henderl) is a college dropout in Argentina whose father left him and his mother decades ago. As he tries to get his Polish passport and travel in Europe to escape his eccentric mother and the crazy inhabitants of their local mall. When his estranged father returns, he has to decide if he’s ready to forgive him. Daniel Burman’s comedic drama, Argentina’s Oscar entry, opens at New York’s Quad Cinema on Friday. MY REVIEW

THIS TIME LAST YEAR

It was another surprise filled January weekend as the hip hop dance movie You Got Served called-out the latest MTV Films high school film The Perfect Score starring Scarlett Johansson and Matthew Lilard, making over three times its weekend gross in fewer theatres. Although The Perfect Score was thought to be the favorite that weekend, it earned less than $5 million, a weak fifth place showing, compared to You Got Served’s strong $16 million opening weekend, which far defied most expectations. Another weekend disappointment was Owen Wilson’s attempt at an Elmore Leonard crime comedy, The Big Bounce, which made only $3 milion, not even making the Top 10 despite a strong supporting cast that included Morgan Freeman. Wilson’s next film, the comedy remake of the ‘70s police show Starsky and Hutch with buddy Ben Stiller would do far better. Having received a number of Golden Globes, Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River continued to do decent business, earning more this weekend than the last one, thanks to wins by Sean Penn and Tim Robbins in their respective categories.

Next week, February kicks off with another horror movie, Boogeyman, while “Will and Grace” star Debra Messing tries to get The Wedding Date.

Copyright 2004 Edward Douglas