Preview and Projections for the Weekend of November 18, 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 and reviews.

WEEKEND PROJECTIONS - final update 11.17.05

Gee, I wonder what will be #1 this weekend? It’s a tough one, that’s for sure. Oh, who are we kidding? Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth installment of J.K. Rowling’s bestselling fantasy series about a boy wizard, should have the biggest opening for a Harry Potter movie ever and should pretty much knock even the stronger November holdovers off of many screens to meet the demand of the rabid fans. It is very likely to become the highest November opening for a movie ever, and it might help set a new box office record for the Top 12, as well. Another big movie opening this weekend that will help set that record is the Johnny Cash biodrama Walk the Line, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the Man in Black (no, not that one) and Reese Witherspoon, as his lady love June Carter. The romantic musical showcase should score big points among older adults and those in the South, putting it in a showdown with Chicken Little for the #2 spot. Chicken Little and the other family films might lose a bit of business to make room for the duo, which have been receiving almost universally positive reviews, as will the other returning films. Look for this weekend to break a few records. Also, Ron Howard’s boxing drama Cinderella Man with Russell Crowe will return to select theatres. It’s a good movie, so go check it out.

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HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robert Pattinson, Stanislav Ianevski, Clemence Poesy, Katie Leung, Tom Felton, Matthew Lewis, Devon Murray, Jamie Waylett, Joshua Herdman, Alfie Enoch, Oliver and James Phelps, Chris Rankin, Robbie Coltrane, Michael Gambon, Robert Hardy, Shirley Henderson, Jason Isaacs, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Timothy Spall, Mark Williams, Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Brendan Gleeson, Frances De La Tour, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Pedja Bjelac, Jeff Rawle, David Tennant, Shefali Chowdhury, Afshan Azad, Angelica Mandy
Director: Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco, Mona Lisa Smile, Pushing Tin)
Screenwriter: Steven Kloves (The first three Harry Potter movies, The Fabulous Baker Boys)
Genres: Fantasy, Adventure
Rated PG-13
Theatre Count (estimated): 3,800 ­ 4,000
Tagline: “Difficult times lie ahead, Harry.” (If it’s true that Harry gets a girlfriend in this, than this is an understatement.)
Mini-Review: The Harry Potter production team have really pulled out all the stops to bring Rowling's 4th book to life with clear hilights being the Quidditch World Cup and the Three Tasks of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. As greatly as the special effects have improved even over the third film, director Mike Newell never loses the humanity amidst all of the wondrous magic, and the movie clearly belongs to Rupert Grint's Ron and Brendan Gleeson's Mad Eye Moody, who steal every scene, making it the funniest Potter movie yet. Then again, once you've seen Ralph Fiennes as the creepy Lord Voldemort, you'll be wondering to yourself "Darth Who?" Rating: 9 out of 10

In the fourth installment of J.K. Rowling’s fantasy-adventure, boy wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) takes part in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, a challenge that pits him against other young wizards from Hogwarts and other schools in three dangerous tasks. Little do they know that the games will just distract them from the return of the deadly Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), maybe before it’s too late.

At this point, releasing a Harry Potter movie is like printing money for Warner Bros. Pictures, mainly since the success of the franchise is guaranteed as long as J. K. Rowling continues writing books and keeping her diehard fanbase chomping at the bit for more. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth book as well as the fourth movie in the series, and it takes the story into even darker places than the previous three, which may be why it’s also the first movie to get tagged with a PG-13 rating from the MPAA.

J.K. Rowling’s fourth Harry Potter book came out in July 2000 and it was clearly the point where the phenomenon turned into a frenzy, as kids and adults went out the night before to make sure they were the first to get their hands on the latest book. At this point, the fans of the series will almost always buy the book immediately and try to read it all in one sitting; yes, they’re that rabid for Harry Potter. Rowling’s most recent book, “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” sold almost 7 million copies in its first 24 hours and has sold 11 million copies in the United States alone, bringing the number of Rowling’s books sold worldwide over the 300 million mark. That’s pretty frickin’ amazing.

The first movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, opened almost exactly four years ago, immediately becoming the highest opening movie ever with a three-day take of $90 million before going on to make over $300 million. The sequel followed a year later, earning just slightly less in its first three days, and although the third movie, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, switched directors from Chris Columbus to Mexico’s Alfonso Cuaron, it earned more money opening weekend than the first two movies. Overall, it ended up not even grossing $250 million despite opening during the summer, so the franchise could be slowing down, but it opened a couple months before the sixth book was released.

Of course, the heart of the movie once again is the trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione, played by Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, all newcomers when they began and all hugely popular stars because of their work as the characters. Just like in the last two movies, there are a lot of new faces including four young actors who play a large part in this story. Besides Harry’s main competitors in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Robert Pattinson as Cedric Diggory, Stanislav Ianevski as Viktor Krum, and Clémence Poésy as Fleur Delacour, there’s Harry’s new love interest Cho Chang, as played by another newcomer Katie Leung.

The latest Hogwarts professor, again teaching Defense against the Dark Arts, is Ireland’s Brendan Gleeson’s “Mad Eye” Moody, as he follows in the footsteps of Kenneth Branagh and David Thewlis into the world of Harry Potter. Gleeson is an actor who has been earning more respect among filmgoers from memorable appearances in movies like Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, last year’s Troy and The Village, as well as in Ridley Scott’s Crusades epic Kingdom of Heaven this past summer. The actor seems to have just the right tough guy nature to play Hogwarts’ resident auror, sent to capture dark wizards, and he’s at the school to quite literally keep an eye on Ivan Karkaroff, the Durmstrang headmaster. (You can also see Gleeson in another silly costume in this weekend’s Breakfast on Pluto.)

More importantly, the fourth chapter is the on-screen debut of “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”…oh, what the heck, I’m going to name him… Lord Voldemort himself, as played by Ralph Fiennes, who was last seen starring in The Constant Gardener, based on the John Le Carré novel, and who next appears in the Chinese drama The White Countess.

Of course, all of the beloved character and actors are back from Professor Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) and Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) to Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) and others, so anyone who has enjoyed seeing Rowling’s books brought to life shouldn’t be disappointed, as almost everyone is back from the last installment.

The fourth movie has once again changed directors, this time bringing on board its first actual British director, Mike Newell, whose best known for his early film Four Weddings and a Funeral. His last movie was the drama Mona Lisa Smile, starring Julia Roberts, which also took place in a very exclusive university, but he’s finally returning to more British fare.

There have been many blockbuster trilogies in the last few years from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, George Lucas’ Star Wars “prelogy” and to a lesser extent, the Wachowski Brothers’ Matrix trilogy. In this case, the franchise has moved onto a fourth chapter, which gets us into Batman territory. Unlike the dark knight’s poorly received fourth film Batman & Robin, the fourth installment to the Harry Potter series is likely to be the most anticipated film, because it’s long a favorite book of many Potter fans, and it has the most potential for action and effects. Like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, the phenomenon has only grown over time, as opposed to what we saw with The Matrix where the third chapter tanked after a disappointing sequel. Harry Potter is a completely different animal since it has a built-in fanbase who are not likely to be swayed from seeing the new movie even if they weren’t crazy about the last one.

The big question about the latest Harry Potter is not whether it will be #1 or whether it will do better opening weekend than the last one, but whether it will finally cross the $100 million mark opening weekend, joining Spider-Man, Shrek 2 and Star Wars: Episode III in that exclusive club. There are many things going Goblet of Fire’s way, including huge advance sales from Fandango, especially for the many midnight shows. Also, Warner Bros. has learned in the last few years that showing their bigger movies in IMAX theatres is a huge bonus for moviegoers who have grown jaded about leaving their own home theatres to deal with the normally dreary moviegoing experience. Besides being able to see big movies on the largest screens possible, IMAX theatres tend to hold more people and the ticket prices are often higher, so that could greatly affect the per-theatre average compared to movies being screened in 200-500 seaters. It already greatly helped Batman Begins and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, both of which earned $200 million over the summer.

While this is November, as opposed to June, and the week before Thanksgiving so kids are still in school and people will be working extra hard to take some time off next week, it shouldn’t be hard for Goblet of Fire to match the $38.3 million opening day of Prisoner of Azkaban between its IMAX screenings and midnight showings. Goblet of Fire also has the benefits of coming out less than six months after the sixth Harry Potter book; there was a year between the fifth book and the third movie. Warner Bros. has used many of the same marketing techniques they used successfully with the previous films including attaching trailers to their big summer movies and previewing it during the ABC debut of Chamber of Secrets. Although the box office had one of its worst Octobers in many years, it’s starting to recover and Goblet of Fire should be able to pick up on that momentum.

Some people might feel that Goblet of Fire’s PG-13 rating and the darker nature of Rowling’s fourth book might hurt the film’s chances, but one only has to go back to May, when George Lucas’ Star Wars: Episode III, the finale for the series, earned over $150 million in its first four days despite getting a PG-13 rating after two previous PG films. Like Goblet of Fire, Lucas’ film had an equally long running time and just as much anticipation from its diehard fanbase. Since Goblet of Fire isn’t opening a day early, it stands an even better chance at crossing the $100 million mark to become the highest opening November movie ever.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban	6/4/04	3,855		$93.69	$24,303	$249.51
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets	11/15/02	3,682		$88.36	$23,997	$261.99
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone	11/16/01	3,672		$90.29	$24,590	$317.57
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith	5/20/05	3,661	$50.01	$108.44	$29,619	$380.26
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones	5/16/02	3,161	$30.14	$80.03	$25,317	$302.18
Star Wars: Episode 1-The Phantom Menace	5/21/99	2,970	$41.76	$64.81	$21,822	$431.07
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	12/19/03	3,703	$51.47	$72.62	$19,614	$377.03
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	12/20/02	3,622	$40.04	$61.50	$16,980	$340.48
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings	12/21/01	3,359	$27.91	$47.21	$14,055	$313.39

Why I Should See It: The fourth installment finally brings the real Lord Volde…I mean…”He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” back big time to finally come face-to-face with Harry Potter. Oh, and it also has dragons and hot French schoolgirls, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Why Not: Right, like I’m going to take on the wrath of millions of Harry Potter fans by suggesting something like this...I’m not insane!

Bottom Line: With so many fans loving J.K. Rowling’s fourth book more than many of the others, one shouldn’t be too surprised to see a lot of more of them rushing out to see Goblet of Fire opening weekend, even those who may have been disappointed by Prisoner of Azkaban. Theoretically, the PG-13 rating might keep parents from bringing their younger kids, although the rating might also bring in more adults and non-parents, especially to the IMAX screenings, since it’s being turned more into an event movie than something just for the fans.

Projection: $99 to 102 million opening weekend (!) on its way to around $300 million total.

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WALK THE LINE (20^th Century Fox)
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Patrick, Ginnifer Goodwin, Shelby Lynne, Hailey Anne Nelson
Director: James Mangold (Cop Land, Identity)
Screenwriter(s): James Mangold, Gill Dennis (Without Evidence, Return to Oz)
Genres: Biodrama, Musical
Rated PG-13
Theatre Count (estimated): 2,900
MY REVIEW

The story of country singer Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix) and his courtship with singer June Carter (Reese Witherspoon) is retold in this biodrama that covers the period from Cash’s childhood right through the fateful day when Carter finally agreed to marry him.

Last year, there was Ray and Beyond the Sea, telling the stories of legendary musicians Ray Charles and Bobby Darin, as played by Jamie Foxx and Kevin Spacey. This year, it’s Johnny Cash’s turn and considering how popular and infamous this mysterious country-folk-rock singer remained over the forty years he released records, it’s quite amazing that it’s taken this long to make a movie about him. The man behind classic songs like “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Ring of Fire” was a peer of Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan making country music that came from a darker side, and yet, he always had the bubbly June Carter at his side throughout his career until they both passed away in 2003.

The key to Walk the Line working as a biodrama will obviously fall to the actors playing Johnny and June, and they could definitely do far worse than Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. Phoenix, the brother of the late River and Rain Phoenix, received his first Oscar nomination in 2000, for his supporting role as Russell Crowe’s nemesis in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. After a similar quality performance in Quills, Phoenix started doing a bunch of odds and ends, but 2004 was a good year for the actor as he starred in two hit films, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village and the firefighter drama Ladder 49. Now, he’s playing one of the most enigmatic legends in American music history, even singing all of his own vocals in Johnny Cash’s inimitable style, and he certainly is more of a draw than Jamie Foxx might have been before doing Ray.

Then again, his co-star Reese Witherspoon is already considered a box office star. Reese first got attention from her role in the thriller Cruel Intentions, followed a few months later by an even more memorable role in Alexander Payne’s indie high school comedy Election. By that point, she was on her way, but when she starred as Elle Woods in the 2001 summer comedy Legally Blonde, a star had clearly been born. It was followed by the even more successful romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama a year later, and then a sequel to Legally Blonde. During that time, Witherspoon started to have kids with her husband Ryan Phillipe, which cut back on the number of films she was making. Although her starring role in Mira Nair’s adaptation of Vanity Fair didn’t do very well, she had a slight return with September’s romantic comedy Just Like Heaven with Mark Ruffalo. Her performance as June Carter is thought by many as a shoe-in to get her an Oscar nomination.

Joaquin and Reese
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Ladder 49	10/1/04	3,260		$22.09	$6,776	$74.54
The Village	7/30/04	3,730		$50.75	$13,605	$113.03
Buffalo Soldiers	7/25/03	6		$0.03	$5,163	$0.35
Gladiator	5/5/00	2,938		$34.82	$11,852	$186.61
Just Like Heaven	9/16/05	3,508		$16.41	$4,678	$47.32
Vanity Fair	9/3/04	1,051	$1.14	$6.27	$5,465	$16.12
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde	7/4/03	3,350	$16.29	$22.22	$6,655	$89.68
Sweet Home Alabama	9/27/02	3,293		$35.65	$10,825	$126.87
Legally Blonde	7/13/01	2,620		$20.38	$7,778	$95.66
Election	5/7/99	827	$0.53	$3.16	$3,821	$14.88
Cruel Intentions	3/5/99	2,312		$13.02	$5,631	$38.20

The duo also have a great supporting cast, beginning with the underrated Ginnifer Goodwin (Win a Date With Tad Hamilton) as Cash’s jealous wife and Robert Patrick AKA the T-1000 from T2, as his unsupportive father. Helming this romantic biodrama is director James Mangold, whose last film, the thriller Identity, couldn’t be any more different from this as that movie was to previous film, the Meg Ryan romantic comedy Kate and Leopold. Mangold brings a different sensibility to this than Taylor Hackford brought to Ray, but the film is strong enough that it should garner Mangold his first Oscar nomination, as well.

Walk the Line is going to attempt something that only two other movies have dared--go up against a Harry Potter movie--and the two previous “suckers” were very different movies. Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg’s The Wash was a retro urban comedy and Half Past Dead was a Steven Seagal actioneer; neither did very well. On the other hand, Walk the Line is a quality film that will appeal to a large cross-section of Americans, particularly country music fans, and there’s more interest in Cash than ever since his passing in 2003.

It’s following other great musical biodramas and not just Ray. There was Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis in Great Balls of Fire, Gary Busey in The Buddy Holly Story, and who can ever forget La Bamba? (Go ahead and sing a chorus or two. You know you want to.) More importantly, it’s going to try to attain the same commercial and awards success as The Coal Miner’s Daughter, the 1980 drama about the life of Loretta Lynn, starring Sissy Spacek who earned her only Oscar from the performance, in a movie that received seven nominations.

Although the appeal of a movie with Oscar buzz should be fairly universal, Walk the Line is likely to do the best in the “Red States,” especially places like Texas, Arkansas and other places where Cash was hugely popular and where country music is still popular. It will also probably do better among older adults, at least at first, although it’s just as likely to bring in Reese Witherspoon’s younger female fans interested in seeing her as a brunette. Many of them will probably see Harry Potter first, though. Ultimately, the film’s Oscar buzz, the strongest since Cinderella Man, which gets re-released this weekend, should help Walk the Line make a lot of dough this weekend and through the holidays, which may be why 20^th Century Fox has given it an ultra-wide release into over 2,900 theatres rather than rolling it out slowly.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Cinderella Man	6/3/05	2,812		$18.32	$6,515	$61.62
Ray	10/29/04	2,006		$20.04	$9,990	$75.31
8 Mile	11/8/02	2,470		$51.24	$20,745	$116.13
A Beautiful Mind	1/4/02	1,853	$21.21	$16.57	$8,940	$170.71
Ali	12/28/01	2,446	$20.03	$14.71	$6,014	$58.18
Great Balls of Fire	6/30/89	1,417		$5.36	$3,783	$13.69
La Bamba	6/24/87	1,251		$5.65	$4,517	$54.22
The Coal Miner's Daughter	3/7/80	437		$3.37	$7,703	$67.18

Why I Should See It: The story of country singers Johnny Cash and June Carter may be one of the greatest musical love stories of our time.
Why Not: But will anyone besides older country fans be interested in seeing this over something like Harry Potter?

Bottom Line: There is no doubt that there’s a lot of excitement and anticipation for this biodrama about the legendary man in black, Johnny Cash, and his lifelong love affair with June Carter. The pairing of Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon should certainly deliver over the course of November and right into Oscar season, although with Harry Potter hogging up screens this weekend, it may not be able to take advantage of the early Oscar buzz its opening weekend. Expect it to make a play for a strong second against Disney’s Chicken Little and then to stick around for a long time thanks to strong word-of-mouth.

Projection: $19 to 21 million on its way to $80 to 90 million.

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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.

This week's WARRIOR'S PICK is Walk the Line. (See above.)

Neil “The Crying Game” Jordan returns with BREAKFAST ON PLUTO (Sony Pictures Classics), based on the novel by Patrick McCabe about a young Irish transvestite named “Kitten” (Cillian Murphy) who travels to London looking for his/her mother only to get caught up in all sorts of other shenanigans, like the plans of IRA terrorists. It opens in New York, L.A. and elsewhere on Wednesday. MY REVIEW

TAJ MAHAL - AN ETERNAL LOVE STORY (Rainbow Films) is this week’s offering from good old Bollywood, and no, it’s not the story of the ‘70s band either. Actually, it’s a love story (if you hadn’t figured it out) set in 17^th Century India about the prince who would become the country’s emperor and his lovely muse who passed away during childbirth, inspiring him to create a temple in her honor. It opens in select cities, as does Paula Van der Oest’s romantic thriller MOONLIGHT (Indican Pictures) about an orphaned girl, adopted by wealthy parents, who finds a wounded Afghani drug courier. As she nurses him back to health in secret, they fall in love but then have to flee when the drug dealers return.

A bunch of new movies open in New York this weekend: At the Film Forum on Wednesday is THE SYRIAN BRIDE (Koch Lorber Films) is an Israeli drama by Eran Riklis about a young Israeli woman (Clara Khoury) from a small village who must leave her family to marry the Syrian fiancée she has never met. Mideast relations also play a part in PRIVATE (Typecast Releasing), a Palestinian family drama showing what happens when Israeli soldiers take over a house, confining the family to their basement where they have to decide how to get free. BLACKMAIL BOY (Picture This!) is a dark comedy about a Greek family feud over the redevelopment of family-owned land, culminating with a blackmail plot surrounding their son's relationship with an older land official. THE ARYAN COUPLE (Celebration Pictures) is a film by John Daly set in Hungary just before the Holocaust, about a couple working as servants for an elderly Jewish couple (the man of the house played by actor Martin Landau) whose own Aryan identity may be called into question when Adolph Eichmann stops by for dinner. Fun stuff. At the Cinema Village is Angelina Maccarone’s UNVEILED (Wolfe Releasing), about a female refugee from Iran whose attempts to find asylum in Germany start to improve when her inmate kills himself, allowing her to take his identity.

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THIS TIME LAST YEAR

The weekend before Thanksgiving saw two big new movies, one based on a popular children’s cartoon and one that would become an enormous hit over the holidays. It was the latter that really got attention this weekend as Disney’s action-adventure National Treasure, produced by Jerry “Pirates of the Caribbean” Bruckheimer and starring Nicholas Cage, took the top spot with $35 million. Averaging over $11 thousand per theatre, it would be Cage’s biggest opening movie to date, taking him a step back in the right direction after box office disappointments like Matchstick Men and Windtalkers. Opening in 200 more theatres was Nickelodeon’s hugely popular underwater cartoon character in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, which racked up $32 million its opening weekend, making it a primary draw for the kids the week before Thanksgiving. Ultimately, the former would go on to earn almost twice the latter, becoming the sleeper hit of the 2004-5 holiday season. Despite the opening of two movies over $30 million, Disney and Pixar Studios’ animated superhero film The Incredibles took in another $26.5 million, bringing its total over $177 million. Renee Zellweger’s romantic comedy sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason expanded nationwide to a less than spectacular second weekend of $10 million in over 2,400 theatres. Obviously, the women who flocked to the original Bridget Jones either saw it opening weekend or were steered away by bad reviews and word-of-mouth. The horror remake of The Grudge crossed the $100 million mark this weekend, too.

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Next week, Thanksgiving is upon us with way too many movies for me to even think about, let alone list. So I won’t. See you next week!

Copyright 2005 Edward Douglas

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