No Series For You! -- This is a film column, but Larry David has a movie coming out soon, so I'm taking the liberty. Larry David co-created "Seinfeld" with Jerry. Larry is George. Kramer is Larry's neighbor. (And Elaine is not -- not -- Carol Leifer, despite her publicist's efforts to say she is.) The voice of the show is Larry's, not Jerry's. Unlike most sitcoms, "Seinfeld" wasn't rewritten by committee. It was rewritten every week by Larry David. Without his steadying voice, it wandered. If Larry David had been there this season, I'll bet that Jerry would have kept going. Anyway, we will have our first taste of post-"Seinfeld" Larry David when his movie debut, Sour Grapes, hits theaters this spring.

Black Like Spike -- While RC Daily slept, Spike Lee was out making a celebrity of himself, complaining about Jackie Brown and Amistad. Spike bitched that Tarantino's Jackie Brown used the N word too often. Spike even accused QT of wanting to be "an honorary black man." But Samuel L. Jackson, whose Ordell Robbie character is the main linguistic offender in the film, puts another slant on the epithet. "There's something about saying "nigger," as opposed to "niggeh" that's like fingernails on a blackboard," Jackson told me. "It becomes an epithet when you put the "e-r" on it and with "e-h" it can be a term of endearment, a descriptive, it can be all kinds of things." As for Amistad, Spike trotted out the traditional "movie about black characters with white guys as heroes" beef and argues the point on "Nightline" with Amistad producer Debbie Allen. That issue is actually one of my pet peeves (don't get me started on Glory) and I thought Spielberg did a decent job of keeping probable Academy Award winner Djimon Hunsou center stage.

When In Rome, Do Like Roman Does -- Well, not Rome. Venice. Woody marries Soon-Yi. Yuck! At least Julia Roberts and Elizabeth Shue got paid to neck with the guy. It's not clear whether Woody's getting more grief for marrying the 27-year-old or from critics pretending to be Freud analyzing his new flick, Deconstructing Harry. Either way, the Wood Man is one genius I want to keep far, far away from my nieces.

Posted by Archive at 12:00 AM | Permalink

There was lots of movie news this year, but not much that will be remembered. Here are the 10, in inverse order, that I think will be.
10. Death -- Death is always a major story. There were some big ones this year (in alphabetical order): Chris Farley, Samuel Fuller, Burgess Meredith, Robert Mitchum, Dawn Steel, Jimmy Stewart and Fred Zinnemann. And my father, Sidney. You'll always be with us, whatever the format.

9. DreamWorks starts releasing movies -- Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen cut the red tape and the result was The Peacemaker, Amistad and Mouse Hunt. Tough out there, huh boys?

8. Star Wars -- The 20th anniversary release proved that the franchise is still the biggest with over $250 million for the trio in North America alone. Now Fox has the inside track on the prequel, due Memorial Day weekend, 1999. And though it's a sure bet to gross well over $500 million, that's nothing compared to the billions in merchandising. Start lining up now.

7. Disney vs. Fox's Anastasia -- Fox was the home of paranoia as Disney released the same seven-year-old re-release that they do in early November and the same new film that they do every Thanksgiving. With Anastasia doing just $50 million domestic, who won the war? Sony's I Know What You Did Last Summer, which dominated the pre-Thanksgiving fall by giving audiences what they wanted instead of trying to fight an entrenched franchise.

6. The Return of Julia - Bankable women movie stars are almost as rare as producers who can balance their own checkbooks. The return of the redheaded, smiling, big-opening Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding is a triumph for the entire industry. You can never have enough major movie stars. Just don't greenlight Mary Reilly 2 by mistake.

5. Black filmmakers -- As the studios were getting out of the business of making relationship films with major white stars, young black filmmakers were filling the void. Ted Witcher's love jones, Kasi Lemmons' Eve's Bayou and George Tillman Jr.'s Soul Food all made their mark at the box office with strong stories and compelling characters. Meanwhile, Set It Off director Gary Gray got a greenlight for The Negotiator, the first film ever directed by a black director with a budget over $40 million. It's about time.

4. Titanic -- The saga of the budget. The PCP-laced seafood chowder. The delay from the July release date. The bad press. The reports of a $300 million budget. Entertainment Weekly's generous rewriting of history, reducing the film to an almost palatable $200 million. The mob at the Japanese opening. The success. What a story! And the eight or so Academy Award nods ain't gonna hurt either.

3. Studios rebound critically/Indies subside -- Last year, the Academy Awards were so independent that even the media couldn't tell the nominated stars from their publicists. This year, the studios are back. Miramax will be pushing Good Will Hunting, but aside from that, expect a studio landslide of nominations. What happened? Better movies overall. And the more good movies, the more likely that the ones form the major studios will be recognized.

2. Warner Bros. in flux -- After being the most stable studio in town for years, the WB has suddenly become The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. Batman and Robin, Fathers Day, Mad City and Steel all made my Ten Worst list (coming this weekend). And L.A. Confidential, the favorite for the Best Picture Oscar, underperformed badly. So who got fired? Marketing President Chris Pula, perhaps the savvyest guy around. Another dead messenger. Another screwed up studio.

1. Sony Succeeds -- This was the biggest surprise of them all. Hit after hit after hit came from the failed tenure of former film chief Mark Canton. A record breaking $1.25 billion year with more than 20 percent of the domestic going into Sony pockets. And Godzilla is still awaiting its Memorial Day 1998 monster release. Last month, new movie chief John Calley announced a load of projects poised to get rolling, amongst the very first of his tenure. We'll know if they worked sometime in 1999. Meanwhile, where's Mark Canton? Heading back to the Warner Bros. fold. It's a small world after all.

Posted by Archive at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, today and tomorrow I'll be catching up on the news of the biz before firing out my "Best Of" 1997. Wednesday will be The Ten Biggest Entertainment Stories of 97. Thursday will be my personal Top Ten. Friday, the Ten Movies That I Just Didn't Get. And the weekend edition will offer up my Worst of 1997. Check it out.

The story at the box office is Titanic, Titanic, Titanic.The box office numbers are unbelievable. So much so that I don't believe them. After opening last weekend, reporting that almost every seat was sold at most theaters, Titanic's three-day total for this weekend rose $7 million to $35.6 million. That's a 25 percent rise in business. And I say "Bull****." Maybe the holiday weekend could account for a 10 percent rise in the numbers (to $31.4 million), but a 25 percent rise would require an additional 1,000 screens or so. And I doubt that Titanic added that many screens in this crowded marketplace. Keep in mind that there's almost nobody in Los Angeles this week -- reporters or execs -- to bitch and moan about these bizarre Titanic figures. And about Miramax's revision of their Scream 2 opening figures (down by 15 percent) without anyone in the press noticing the "mistake" before it was announced. Another "mistake" wouldn't be surprising.

Even if Titanic added 350 screens to reach 3,000 this weekend, the per screen average would be over $13,000. Do you know how many wide-release films, other than Titanic, did over $13,000 a screen on any weekend in 1997? Four: The Lost World, Men In Black, Batman and Robin and Star Wars. And all four did it in their first weekend, with at least 25 percent more showings over the three days. You know how many pulled it off in their second weekend? None. Excuse me. One. Titanic. If you believe that.

The funny thing is, I liked the movie as I watched it in the theater. I winced occasionally, but I enjoyed it. But actually thinking about the film after seeing it creates a kind of unavoidable contempt by way of familiarity. For a review that comes close to my complaints, check out the review from the always interesting Manohla Dargis. She and I don't always agree, but this time we are in lockstep.

Posted by Archive at 12:00 AM | Permalink

Sony may have the best Web site of all the major studios. Well designed, a quick load and their individual sites are terrific. If you have a slow computer, watch out. Lots of neat Shockwave stuff. Starship Troopers and I know What You Did Last Summer are still worth checking out, even at this late date. And As Good As It Gets should offer at least a few Academy Award nominations.

The art vein of the company is still worth following. Sony Pictures Classics offers insight into Afterglow, a movie that no one in America has seen other than critics, but still won Julie Christie a Best Actress nod. And they archive all their movies, so you can look back at camp classics like Welcome To The Dollhouse or check out the last film from the director of Alien 4, The City Of Lost Children or even look into the best documentary of 1996, the brilliant Crumb .

Of course, what you really want to see is Godzilla. Yes, size does matter, And Centropolis, the production company of Dean Devil and Roland Emmerich (who last created ID4), has had a site up for a long time now. It's worth the trip. As an aside, the boys offer The Godzilla Rumor Sheet, putting to bed once and for all that Jennifer Aniston is not in Godzilla, plus a lot more. Check it out.

Posted by Archive at 12:01 PM | Permalink

Universal Pictures has an expansive site. It takes a month to load, but such is the life of the Web. You can check out their only major Oscar release, The Boxer before you have any chance to see it. But the most popular thing on the site is the retro-horror section, which brings back Universal's horrific past (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, et al). But back to its horrific present. Take an early look at Blues Brothers 2000 or other coming attractions.

Universal recently purchased a piece of October Films. They are the people who brought us Oscar nominee Secrets & Lies last year. They have posters for you and a look at some interesting movies, though no nominations are expected this year, unless Robert Duvall's The Apostle (still without its own link) comes through with the Billy Bob Thornton vote.

As alternatives, check out some of the independent Web sites. Polygram became a hot indie with Four Wedding and A Funeral. They are still busy pushing Fargo, last year's big critical hit. Castle Rock is the home of Rob Reiner, but these days Seinfeld takes precedence even over Rob. Not much there, but Coming Attractions includes -- what else? -- Seinfeld creator Larry David's first movie, Sour Grapes, starring Steven Weber, the hubby of Rough Cut TV's Juliette Hohnen. Last, but least, check out Trimark Picture's site, which is still pushing Chairman of the Board, starring Carrot Top. But seriously folks, the company put out the wonderful Eve's Bayou, probably by mistake.

E-mail your box office predictions. I'm back, live, on Monday and I'll give credit where credit is due.

Posted by THB Archive at 01:01 AM | Permalink

Some of my favorite movies of 1997 come from the hallowed halls of New Line Cinema. Boogie Nights and Wag The Dog are sure Oscar contenders. And for those of you who loved The Crow, Alex Proyas next film, Dark City, (just recently pushed back until February) is already on site. They also have a great page with info on movies that are now in production. But we know what you are waiting for -- Lost In Space. The official site is already screaming and there's a fun site from the fans with a countdown to release.

The art side of the company is Fine Line, the company that brought us such hits as The Player and Shine. This winter there's the new Woody Allen flick and the latest from acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, The Sweet Hereafter.

Of course, the weird site of the day has to be, in the name of Boogie Nights, Craig Hosoda's The Bare Facts. You can find out all about naked people in movies. Mr. Hosada had made a career about telling you exactly where and when you can see Superstar Actress' left breast for 3.7 seconds. Show business is a truly expansive field.

Rough Cut will be as happy as Dirk Diggler's prom date if you vote for us for the Webbies.

Today's the day to unwrap The Whole Picture's version of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas. E-mail works though the holidays. Try it. You'll like it.

Posted by mcnblogs at 09:03 AM | Permalink

Twentieth Century Fox produces some of the very best sites on the net for single movies. Alien: Resurrection may be a better site than it was a movie. Fox.com offers up all the Fox product, in theaters or on TV. But Fox has made the smart move of separating divisions on the net as well, so Fox Searchlight offers a very different experience than the main site.

Of course, the thing most of you will want to find at Fox these days is Star Wars info. It ain't there. There's not a deal for distribution of the prequels yet, so no site. You can check out the official site here, and there's a terrific site from fan Chris Kivlehan called The Force. For regular prequel news, you can also check out Harry Knowles' Ain't It Cool News site Harry's site is fun, but is also becoming a little less reliable every month as the studios attempt to co-opt him. But still worth the visit.

For some good trivia fun, check out Bezerk's You Don't Know Jack site. You need some juice on your computer. At least a 28.8 modem and a pentium will be needed to make it worth the trip. Downloading takes a while. But the result is amongst the most fluid experiences you'll have with gaming on the net.

Posted by THB Archive at 09:01 AM | Permalink

Warner Bros. is looking like a major Oscar player with all the critics awards for L.A. Confidential. If you go to their site, they'll start you off with a trivia question and some ads before you jump into the main site. You can visit L.A. Confidential or The Postman. Or you can check out the last film from Turner Pictures, Fallen, starring Denzel Washington.

My nephew Charles, age 8, loves the WB kids site and the animation site. And he can't get enough Batman, either the movie or the comic book).

Mel Gibson is a long-term Warner Bros. player. The site for Conspiracy Theory is still there. But if you want the hottest news on Mel, check out the wonderful page by Superfan, Lisa Hightower.

The story of Hanukkah, L.A. style. It's the Whole Picture.

E-mail works though the holidays. Try it. You'll like it.

Posted by THB Archive at 08:56 AM | Permalink

Next studio on our Hot Button Web tour is Disney. Ah, Disney! The sweet siren of kids entertainment. If you click here, you'll find the whole parade of Disney kids stuff. But oddly enough, Eisner & Co. have ripped the adult movies off the site. And I don't mean porno. I mean anything for anyone over 12. To find Disney's other product, you have to go to movies.com, which would appear to be a site dedicated to Disney only, but with no name attached. The conspiracy continues! If you want to go international, sneak over to Disney's international site where they are running a Starship Troopers contest right now. (Yes, it was a Sony movie in the U.S.)

Despite themselves, Disney has made one of the smartest investments in art films possible by buying Miramax. Great studio and great marketing. You'll find the hits and Oscar contenders to be Jackie Brown and Good Will Hunting.

The freaky site of the day should tweak the nose of Disney even more than Mouse Hunt did last weekend. The Natalie Portman Countdown To Legality counts the moments -- down to the second -- to moment when Hollywood's sexualization of a teen turns men from pedaphiliacs to stalkers.

E-mail works though the holidays. Try it. You'll like it. The Whole Picture is all new for the holidays. But if you're good boys and girls, you will unwrap each section as the appropriate holiday comes around. Too much Whole Picture at one sitting will rot your teeth.

Posted by THB Archive at 08:51 AM | Permalink

To say we saw it coming is to state the obvious. When we, as an audience, fall in love with the comedy of self-abuse, there is a reason. We see the pain in the eyes of the comic and our human instincts take over. It's as fundamental as taking a lost puppy in from the cold. Friends who knew Farley before the fame tell stories of the self-destructive behavior of his early '20s. But no one could save him. Not then. Not later, when the world was his friend. The movies included Beverly Hills Ninja, Black Sheep and Tommy Boy. He was always the butt of the joke. And his gentle nature made him the winner in the end. May it be so, wherever his soul is now. Chris Farley was 33.

WEEKEND PREVIEW

After Scream 2 broke December records by almost cracking the $40 million opening mark, what do you think Titanic and Bond will do for an encore? (Mouse Hunt is another, sadder story. Later.) Well, logic will tell you that all three can't be huge. Big, but not huge. Despite buzz in town that Bond isn't tracking well, my bet is that Tomorrow Never Dies will take first place with about $25 million. Scream 2 should drop by 50 percent to about $24.5 million. And Titanic should have the highest percentage of seats filled, but suffer from about 30 percent (or more) fewer shows per screen. Hard to imagine more than $20 million under those conditions.

Everything else should pale in comparison. Much like last weekend, but worse. Mouse Hunt should take fourth, beating out the fourth week of Flubber with about $6.5 million. Flubber in fifth with another 40 percent drop to $4.1 million. Amistad should drop to sixth ($3.7 million, off 20 percent), actually passing the two kids flicks that beat it last weekend. The kid flicks should drop about 40 percent each, with For Richer or Poorer (in seventh with $3.6 million) staying ahead of Home Alone 3 (in eighth with $3.1 million). The Rainmaker should start to disintegrate in week five, not only having to compete with the new wide release dramas, but also being inundated with big-ticket exclusive NY/LA releases looking for Oscar nods before opening wide in January. Expect a ninth place finish with a 50 percent drop to $1.7 million. And bringing up the rear, it's Anastasia with a 45 percent drop to $1.7 million.

The Hot Button is going on Holiday hiatus starting tomorrow. But there will be new content every day, as usual. I know, because I already wrote it. For the weekend box office figures, try Yahoo on Sunday after 6 P.M. eastern. And as far as the Christmas Day releases, Jackie Brown, As Good As It Gets, Mr. Magoo, An American Werewolf in Paris and The Postman , I will now venture $17 million, $11 million, $5 million, $7 million and $12 million. Not necessarily in that order. (Just kidding) The Hot Button will be back with a brand new box office review by noon on December 29.

E-mail works though the holidays. Try it. You'll like it.

Posted by THB Archive at 10:06 AM | Permalink

OK, gang. Those of you collegiate types who want to make it big in Hollywood
have a couple of new heroes for whom to root. A student at , TriStarUSC, Josh
Schwartz, just sold his autobiographical script, Providence,to
TriStar for over half a million bucks. And a senior at SMU named Bob Corbett
just optioned a story he wrote for the school newspaper for alow six-figure
payday. From the school newspaper! Turns out the guy stole a sorority
rush manual and published it in the paper and hilarity ensued. Which
goes to show, theft and sexism can still make you big bucks. What a country!

Speaking of theft, Steven Spielberg must be having a nightmare for every night
of Hanukkah this year. As a major hit maker, Spielberg is regularly sued
for plagiarism. It's part of the price of success. As The Hot Button
has told you before, every major hit usually gets sued. After the success.
But two suits against Spielberg now have had unusual luck in getting
past the summary judgment stage. First, the Amistadcase. Now,
it's Twister. You may think there was no real story there,just
special effects. But don't tell that to Stephen Kessler, who
issuing Spielberg, the writers and the studios who made the flick for millions.
Don't expect any suits over Mouse Hunt.

You won't have to break the law to get your own piece of Jim Cameron'sTitanic.
Just a full checking account. Twentieth Century Fox is selling stuff
from the movie via the The Whole Picture is all new for the holidays.
But if you're good boys and girls, you will unwrap each section as the
appropriate holiday comes around. Too much Whole Picture at one sitting
will rot your teeth.

E-mail all through the holidays.
I haven't got anything else to do.

Posted by THB Archive at 09:39 AM | Permalink

Variety reports that Warner Bros. is making plans to follow in Disney's footsteps by bringing the Batman franchise to Broadway. That's right, "The Dark Knight: The Musical" (It could be less painful than another Schumacher Batman sequel). I bet you want to sing already, huh? Songs include "My Dead Parents," "Sorry 'bout the Acid, Joker," the comedy number, "My Tights Are Too Darned Tight," and the grand romantic ballad, "My Suit Is Happy To See You."

The Arizona Republic talked to Tom Arnold, who spilled the beans about what's next for James Cameron. According to Tom, it's True Lies 2. Cameron is apparently ready to pay Fox back for their $200 million worth of faith in him and his vision for Titanic. Arnold starts his WB hiatus in February and he was just put on indefinite hold on Ridley Scott's over-budget-before-pre-production, I Am Legend. And Cameron? He'd only have to take a break from the awards banquets at which he'll soon be a regular. Look for the film in Christmas, 1998, assuming Tom is on target.

Whining was the art form of choice over the weekend. Kevin Costner was unhappy with press junket critics' reaction to The Postman, his new writer/director/star turn. The reaction? Laughter. "That's horrible!" squealed Kevin, "You guys (the media) keep spinning that way, and it's wrong. You were wrong about Dances (With Wolves), you were wrong about Waterworld, and you're wrong about this movie! It's too bad that's how it keeps going; that really pisses me off." On the other hand, Christian Slater knows that he was wrong and that he needs help. He told reporters, "It doesn't matter how famous you are ... If your head is telling you you suck, all you ever want to do is try to escape from that. I'm just dealing with that now, and it's tough." Good luck, gentlemen. I'll put a dime in your tin cups when I see you.

Any money for me? Throw something in my tin cup. Or just drop me a line to say hi.

Posted by THB Archive at 10:57 PM | Permalink

Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, former proprietors of the infamous Cannon Pictures, have talked a health club chain into financing a movie start-up to the tune of about $2 million. Gotta hand it to these guys. They obviously still can make their manure smell sweet to others. Cannon was one of the clearest examples of a company that was killed by the excess opportunity of the Reagan era. After hitting big with the Death Wish series and then turning Chuck Norris into an action hero, the company got big bucks in the junk-bond economy of the '80s. Suddenly, they went from Norris and Bronson to Dustin Hoffman and Faye Dunaway. A few years later they were bankrupt after spending millions on films they never made and making some quality films, including Barfly, that no one ever saw. At least in theaters. Welcome back, boys. And readers: If they try to hire you, get cash.

MGM's desperation to hang onto the Bond franchise for themselves and themselves alone was made plain as day last week when the company filed their intentions to take a $30 million writedown for this quarter on Red Corner, the Richard Gere political drama. There will be no writedowns in first quarter 1998 with Bond on the way to save the day. But MGM, already off the list of "real" major studios, is becoming more of a mini-major every day. And, although Lindsay Doran has great taste, expect the film projects, excepting Bond, to get smaller and smaller.

As if to prove that barbarism is still in vogue, a group of Iranian militants attacked theatergoers, including a disabled veteran, as they left a showing of Snowman, a film about a man so desperate to get out of the desert that he disguises himself as a woman with the hope of marrying an American man who can take him/her away. The thing is, the guy falls in love with an Iranian woman and stays put. He doesn't even go the whole route (or is that the full monty?)! Another theater pulled the film under threats of fire bombing. Finally, a movie that really is responsible for community violence.

L.A. Confidential surely has secured an Oscars berth for Best Picture after winning multiple best picture awards by critics already.

Want to bank roll my new studio? E-mail me a dollar figure. Or just drop me a line to say hi.

Posted by THB Archive at 02:30 PM | Permalink

That, my friends, is a lot of scratch. Does it make you want to Scream too? I mean, Scream 2. Thought so. And it's a record for a December opening to boot. And under all that screaming, no one will hear the muffled cries of those who made For Richer Or Poorer ($6 million for third) and Home Alone 3 ($5.1 million for fourth), both of which marked new lows for Tim Allen and Home Alone opening weekends. Flubber dropped the expected 40 percent to add a second place winning $6.9 million to the coffers as it bounces towards a likely $75 million total.

Amistad, for which I predicted a big opening, was limited by being on only 322 screens. My bad. But in generating $4.6 million for fifth, it averaged $14,596 per screen which is tremendous. Yet, any regular Hot Button reader will immediately notice the phenomenon of Delayed Unveiling Hubris, or DUH for short. Films that are meant to make over $20 million total cannot -- with very rare exceptions -- do well with a platformed release. (Those opening in just L.A. and NYC for Oscar consideration only are a different story. More on that on Friday.) No one is going to want to see Amistad more in a few weeks than they do now. And the ongoing controversies surrounding the picture won't help.

The second five was (he said, patting himself on the back) almost exactly as expected. John Grisham's The Rainmaker scored another $ 3.4 million for sixth. Alien: Resurrection continues its 50 percent off per week pace, clawing up $3.3 million for seventh. Anastasia continues to be a kind-hearted impostor with a 40 percent drop to $3.1 million for eighth. The Jackal rips off another $ 2.5 million for ninth. And last, but least, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, itself a victim of DUH, acquires $1.8 million.

Have you noticed any box office patterns like the DUH? Send 'em to me via e-mail.

Posted by THB Archive at 02:24 PM | Permalink

As Tomorrow Never Dies approaches (12/17), the battle for Bond heats up. Variety's Michael Fleming is reporting buzz that Sony (the new franchisee) is looking to bring Sean Connery back to Bond again under the ID4/Godzilla team of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. This isn't just a slap for MGM/UA (the long term franchise holder), but for Fox, which is anxious to get the directing/producing duo back in the fold for the Independence Day sequel A.S.A.P., preferably in time for the summer of 2000 between Star Wars pictures. Meanwhile, someone overheard Pierce Brosnan asking Martin Scorsese to take the helm for a Bond. Bond goes to Brooklyn? Bond would never survive Joe Pesci as "Boombach. Vinny Boombach." Pesci would never leave Bond to a tank full of sharks when he could just beat him to death with a baseball bat and take the Bond girl.

Mousehunt and Mr. Magoo must be tracking like two dead dogs. Disney reports that exhibitors are requesting a re-re-release of The Little Mermaid for mid-December. Just what America needs in a grotesquely overcrowded December marketplace. Ironically enough, December is actually worse than the summer rush, when studios will actually move of a competitive date. This week there are four major releases. Next week it's Bond and Titanic. On Christmas Day there are five major releases. Can you say "massacre?"

Role-ing, Role-ing, Role-ing: People's The Sexiest Man Alive for 1997 (George Clooney) drops the Wild Wild West and who do they go to? This year's favorite closet-buster, Kevin Kline. And they couldn't have made a better choice. Artemus Gordon was known for being clever, not pretty. And Kline is a world class actor capable of almost anything. Meanwhile, Bette Midler has dropped out of the Lisa Douglas role in the upcoming Green Acres just as Ben Stiller has come on board. The two moves may or may not be related. So, when this movie stiffs, will Stiller complain (as he did with The Cable Guy) that the media just doesn't appreciate his dark vision of "Green Acres?" Here's a hint, Ben. If Arnold dates a pig, people will like it. If Arnold dates a human, they won't.

Lots of room for opinions with this week's openings (read: David could really be wrong!) Join the growing crowd of box office guessers by e-mail.

Posted by THB Archive at 02:20 PM | Permalink

The irony part is that I Know What You Did Last Summer will be leaving the Top Ten for the last time just as Scream 2 (the Memorex part) comes into the number one slot that Kevin Williamson and his "summer job" (IKWYDLS) held for so many weeks. This is one sequel that should have a lot more opening bite than the original. Look for a massive $33 million weekend. Amistad has very little negative buzz, but still carries the very real limitations of being a lengthy historical drama, Spielberg or no Spielberg. And though the plagiarism lawsuit shouldn't discourage moviegoers, it clearly knocked the DreamWorks media campaign off center. Hard to imagine more than $15 million for the film this weekend.

For Richer or Poorer and Home Alone 3 are kinda the same movie for two different age groups. Who knows what will happen? Home Alone 2 opened big despite plenty of negative buzz, as did Jungle 2 Jungle on Tim Allen's appeal. I think both films will do somewhere between $9 million and $12 million, but that's as far as I'm willing to stick my neck out here. (If either is going to stiff, I'd bet on HA 3.) Brushing up against these two should be the only other comedy on the list, Flubber, which should take fifth with a 40 percent drop to $6.8 million.

The Rainmaker should fall softly (35 percent) to fifth with $3.7 million, passing Alien: Resurrection, which should drop 50 percent for a sixth-place, $3.3 million weekend. (In last week's final tally, Alien 4 did $6.66 million -- more demonic irony!) Anastasia should forget another 40 percent for $3.1 million and seventh. The Jackal will bite off another $2.4 million for a 40 percent drop off and eighth. Warner Bros. fired its marketing president, misplacing the blame for misses like Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil. Marketing was good. Distribution plans were evil. Midnight will take ninth place with $1.9 million, heading for a total under $25 million and no Oscars. And Mortal Kombat: Artistic Annihilation will grab tenth with $1.3 million.

Lots of room for opinions with this week's openings (read: David could really be wrong!) Join the growing crowd of box office guessers by e-mail.

Posted by THB Archive at 09:58 PM | Permalink

The National Board of Review wins the award for first major film awards given out this year, weeks before many of the films are released. In fact, all the major awards except the Oscars will announce winners or nominees by next Thursday. The N.B.R. picked L.A. Confidential for Best Film and Best Director. Helena Bonham Carter got best actress in Wings Of The Dove. Anne Heche received Best Supporting Actress for the combo of the upcoming Wag The Dog and Donnie Brasco. (Funny, they didn't mention Volcano) And As Good As It Gets, the James L. Brooks film due Christmas Day, won two; for Jack Nicholson snagged Best Actor and Greg Kinnear Best Supporting Actor. The Kinnear choice strikes me as a Golden Globe-like mistake-ination. But I haven't seen the film yet. Coincidentally, this week's The Whole Picture is all about the second lap of the Oscar race. Vote with your mouse.

Local jails are overflowing out here. First, Robert Downey Jr. doesn't pass drug test, doesn't win 200 hours of community service. Now, Christian Slater gets 90 days for his rampage last summer during which he bit a cop. Maybe if he had been wearing panties like Marv Albert the state would have let him plead to a misdemeanor. Of course, if I were a conspiracy nut, I'd say that this is all Oliver Stone's way of getting the boys close to the Menendez Bros. for a few months, prepping his saga on the misunderstood shotgun murderers. With Glenn Close as Leslie Abramson and Andy Garcia as Jose Menendez. (Yes, I made that all up. Thank God!)

Last week, The Hot Button covered the high-rent marketing for James Bond. This week, it's the low-rent deal that New Line has made for Lost In Space. Long John Silver has come on board for a cross-promotional effort. Yuck! Is that fish'n'chips or chicken or what? Somehow, I don't see New Line convincing Gary Oldman and William Hurt to slap on the trademark eyepatch. Maybe that's why the mini-major's original promo deal with Little Caesar's, fell through. No togas. That one's still in litigation.

Hey! Come on and e-mail me. It's low-rent fun!

Posted by THB Archive at 09:51 PM | Permalink

Nothing is sadder than watching someone who has it all throwing it away.

Sources inside the Scorsese camp say that despite taking a public position that it wouldn't allow the Chinese to influence its release of Kundun, Disney is planning on pulling the film after four weeks and not spending much in its Oscar promotion. Of course, it's possible that the studio just isn't enthusiastic about the film. People angered by the lack of a distributor for the new Lolita tend to blame the sexual politics and forget that R-rated sex-themed films don't do much box office.

Speed Racer is back on track at Warner Bros. with Alfonso Cuaron, who has the current-day version of Great Expectations on tap, at the helm. The expectations aren't that great, with budget cutting becoming the primary factor in generating a green light on the film. So much for the CG Chim Chim.

Tori Spelling continues to warp reality. In Scream 2, she appears as the butt of a joke from the original film (Neve Campbell's Sydney jokes that Tori would play her in the movie -- and in this one, she does) and now she plays a college student who's kidnapped by mistake. The bad guys were looking for the daughter of a millionaire and they get a chemically unstable Tori.

George Clooney has left the West. The Wild Wild West. The project, which stars Will Smith as the heroic Jim West just wasn't fitting Clooney's image of himself as Artemus Gordon. Or something like that. All I know is that Clooney, Smith and director Barry Sonnenfeld are some of the easiest-going people in Hollywood, at least interpersonally. Something really interesting must have happened. But more importantly, who will play the evil little person, Dr. Miguelito Loveless?

Don't forget, I'm always open to e-mail.

Posted by THB Archive at 09:45 PM | Permalink

The more things change, the more the Japanese moneymakers get the crap kicked out of them by Hollywood. Buzz has it that Peter Guber is preparing to relocate his Mandalay Entertainment to Warner Bros. in 2000 when his deal with Sony runs out. As you might remember, Guber and his then partner, Jon Peters, were brought to Sony in 1989, bought out of their Warner Bros. producing base at a cost of over $500 million. Peters was soon dumped, but under Guber's tenure, Sony wrote off billions. A deal to start Mandalay was Guber's reward for failure when he was kicked upstairs in 1994, leaving Sony in the hands of former WB film topper, Mark Canton. More losses. Flash forward. Peters is already back at WB, pushing the Superman Reborn train along. Canton, after the summer of Striptease, was dumped for the legendary John Calley and he went back to a Warners' deal, leaving M.I.B., My Best Friend's Wedding and Godzilla to embarrass Calley (as in, story after story reminding everyone that the hits weren't Calley's). And here comes Guber back to the WB fold. Kismet, baby!

Another film being blamed for another tragedy, a.k.a., another sick kid shifting responsibility to avoid a life sentence. This time, it's The Basketball Diaries, a movie that could well have inspired moviegoers unable to get a refund to shoot the theater manager. Kentucky high school rampager Michael Carneal (killed three, wounded five) was asked by prosecutor Timothy Kaltenbach whether he "had ever seen this before, ever seen anything done like this," reported Kaltenbach, "and he said, 'Yes, I have seen this done in Basketball Diaries.'" I guess that the school's principal, who reported that Carneal was a regular victim of intense ridicule was missing the point. Excuse me now, I saw Starship Troopers recently and I have to go kill a bug.

Did I miss anything? Oh yeah. The remake rights to Piranha have been sold for $2 million. But that's not the funny part. They were sold to Fox Family Films. As I recall, Piranha (directed by a pre-Gremlins Joe Dante and written by a cash-poor John Sayles) was filled with violent attacks on naked swimmers by fish with razor-sharp teeth. Now that's family entertainment. What's next for F.F.F., a remake of Flesh Gordon?

So, people, what's on your mind? E-mail me your thoughts and questions.

Posted by THB Archive at 09:33 PM | Permalink

An overtly predictable weekend at the box office with no new meat available. What surprised me was that meat from a week ago was a bit more stale than expected. Flubber took the top spot, dropping a massive 56 percent from the previous three-day total, adding another $11.8 million to its formula. Alien: Resurrection took the acid bath, dropping 62 percent to $8.2 million. The Rainmaker lost 42 percent, leaving an award of $5.2 million for third. Anastasia continued to fade; this week by 61 percent to take $4.6 million for a total of just over $37 million. And in fifth, it's The Jackal added $4 million to the Swiss bank account.

The bottom five was also pretty much according to Hoyle. Midnight in the Garden ff Good and Evil lost 44 percent of its party friends, leaving $3 million in favors for sixth. Mortal Kombat was annihilated, dropping to $2.5 million. The only surprise on the list is the ongoing staying power of I Know What You Did Last Summer, which took the softest fall -- only 29 percent -- to add $1.4 million to its push for the $70 million mark. And Bean tied with Starship Troopers for ninth/tenth with $1.3 million each.

We had strong prediction efforts this week from Rob Strong (no pun intended) and Marc Andreyko, though none of us saw the top of the list being smacked around like a weatherman waiting for El Nino. Try it out. E-mail me your Top Ten this week.

Posted by THB Archive at 09:29 PM | Permalink

Impressed with the $36 million opening of Flubber last weekend? It couldn't begin to compare to the continued summertime heat of Men In Black. Not only is M.I.B. still drawing almost half a million a week at the box office (more than the third week of Mad City), but its video release grossed over $100 million in its first week. This figure included the biggest rental numbers ever, pulling in $13.5 million, which alone would place it fifth in last week's box office race. Add in sales of five to six million copies of the video, averaging $17, and voila: $102 million. And it occurs to me that M.I.B. is one of those rare smash hits that offers the very real possibility that the sequel will improve on the original. With the origin "problem" out of the way, producers can probably concoct a story much more interesting than Chasing Mikey.

Kirstie Alley is pissed off again and it's not just because she isn't getting "The Big One" from Parker Stevenson any more. Kirstie was forced to audition for her role in For Richer or For Poorer, opposite fellow TV star Tim Allen. Why? "There was a certain person at Universal, who shall remain nameless, who told me that I wasn't box office," Ms. Alley admits. Well, Kirstie, you aren't box office. But I don't understand what doing a screen test could ever do to make you box office. B.O. pull has a negligible connection to talent. Either you is or you ain't.

Alley also appears in Woody Allen's upcoming starfest, Deconstructing Harry, which is being described as everything from an Oscar-worthy film to a piece of crap. We'll soon find out for ourselves. But another piece of Woody history was recently pulled out of the wastebasket at New York's public TV station, WNET. The film, a 25 minute mockumentary spoof of the Nixon Administration entitled Men of Crisis: The Harvey Wallinger Story, was made on the fly by Allen in 1971 and was summarily round-filed by the WNET brass for being too politically dangerous. In the film, Allen plays Wallinger, a top Nixon aide with a Harvard Ph.D. in needlepoint, graduating 96th in a class of 95. The film can't be shown unless Allen agrees, but his management says that it's unlikely. The film is 26 years old. Way too old for Woody to enjoy.

Will Alien: Resurrection rise from the dead box office week to take top spot? Will Flubber flub its box office break and drown under The Rainmaker? E-mail me what you think.

Posted by THB Archive at 09:23 PM | Permalink

This weekend the box office is all trussed up like a prize turkey with no place to go but down. There are no new wide releases due this week. Everyone was scared off of the date by Flubber and Alien: Resurrection. Oops! Scream 2 should do stellar numbers next week, but could have had clear sailing for two weeks, pushing the new Alien out of the ship early. Oh, well. Soft word-of-mouth should drop the three-day weekend total for Flubber by 40 percent with $16 million, still enough to take first. Alien: Resurrection should keep the two spot, despite what I'm guessing will be a steep 50 percent drop to take in $8.2 million. As stable as it is slow (though I liked the film), The Rainmaker should drop about 25 percent, still enough to pass Anastasia for third with $8 million. Thus, Anastasia, dropping a reasonable 35 percent, should be in fourth with $7.7 million.

The Jackal is likely to be on the other side of a wide b.o. gap, dropping to fifth with a 40 percent drop to $4.5 million. Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil should skulk about with a 25 percent drop to $4 million for a sixth place finish and no hope of surviving the mid-December onslaught of serious films. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation should hit the skids to the tune of 60 percent, kicking up another $2.7 million for seventh. The bottom four of the Top Ten gets the benefit of Disney's withdraw of The Little Mermaid. Her disappearance (authorities are questioning Roman Polanski) allows Bean to take eighth with a 50 percent drop to $1.5 million. And Starship Troopers moves up a notch to ninth with another 50 percent drop to $1.4 million.

The Ten Spot will likely offer a three way tie, with I Know What You Did Last Summer (dropping 35 percent), Eve's Bayou (dropping just 20 percent) and The Wings of The Dove (suffering its first drop with 15 percent) all camping out around the $1.2 million mark.

Will Alien: Resurrection rise from the dead box office week to take top spot? Will Flubber flub its box office break and drown under The Rainmaker? E-mail me what you think.

Posted by THB Archive at 07:04 PM | Permalink

This time, it's Will Smith starring as The Mark, the hero of an original script from comic book superstar Rob Liefeld, which he created specifically for Smith. Liefeld's comic characters, Avengelyne and Badrock, are both on the New Line schedule, but guess which of his three projects will likely make it to the soundstage first? Hint: It's the one with the superstar attached. In other comic book news, Harry Knowles is reporting that Nicolas Cage confirmed to a fan he met in a video store that Superman Reborn is still a firm "go" project. Apparently, Cage has one of the biggest comic book collections around, so this is more than an acting job. The latest rumored meeting for the role of Lois Lane? Sandra Bullock.

Turnabout's fair play. After recommending a read of a good Variety feature, here's a really stupid one about the "demise of sequels." Variety writer Andrew Hinde engages in the kind of simple-minded clich�-building that has made entertainment journalism such a weird profession. As evidence of the end of sequels, Hinde sights Speed 2, Batman & Robin and Alien 3. Problem is, all three of his examples were terrible movies! He sights the failure of Alien: Resurrection by comparing its first weekend to sequel Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. But, though Alien 4 was soft, MK:A will be a big profit center for New Line, probably prompting a third sequel that will again drop the budget and the overall quality. And it will probably make money as well. When Scream 2 opens to massive business, look for the articles about the success of the horror genre and the return of the pulp sequel, using MK:A as a positive example. Don't y'all love show business?

After pushing the boundries of political correctness with Half-Baked, a comic romp through the life of a pothead, comic-turned-actor, Dave Chappelle (Men In Tights/The Nutty Professor), is playing the race card with a comic flair in Rufus. The project from DreamWorks is, I believe, the first slavery comedy. The laughs, of course, come from the fact that the slave gets the better of the master. Ever the trend-setter and flush with the success of its TV-to-screen hits such as McHale's Navy, Universal is prepping the comedy version of their Schindler's List, called Schindler's Grocery List, about a wacky, cannabalistic Nazi who gets sick from undercooked ... no. Not really.

Matt Bailey, from Ohio State University, offered up "Alien Dog Craps on Box Office" as a reaction to a wacky movie headline idea. Yes, your e-mail can make you a star too.

Posted by THB Archive at 06:54 PM | Permalink

Well, that's going to be up to a judge. The fight is over two competing movie versions of The Bang Bang Club, a real life group of four photographers known for their death-defying war photos. Movie rights are breaking up that old gang of theirs. Emilio Estevez is prepping his version, acquiring rights from the survivors of the two dead members of the club (one died in action, the other committed suicide). Meanwhile, the other two members, still quite alive, sold their rights to a South African filmmaker. Geez. When I saw The Bang Bang Club on the production charts, I assumed it was the story of Emilio's brother, Charlie Sheen.

After switching locations from Israel to Morocco for security reasons (go the distance), Phil Alden Robinson's Age of Aquarius is being held up for a more traditional reason. Money! Universal's Harrison Ford drama is suffering the same problem as their John Travolta starrer, Primary Colors. Universal (and pretty much every other studio in town) won't spend anything over $50 million on anything other than action (if you build it, they will come). Travolta and director Mike Nichols deferred most of their salaries to bring their $70 million budget down to a more reasonable $50 million. At $80 million, Age of Aquarius will demand a lot of concessions from $20 million-plus man Ford if the love story set in Sarajevo is ever to make it on screen. The buzz is that Ford's interest is already waning (feel his pain). Did I mention that Robinson made Field of Dreams?

For those of you who want to know how the business really works, check out the upcoming One Track Mind. A recently sold spec script by Ben Queen, the script tells the story of one script tracker, a studio assistant who finds the perfect script and is ready to claim it for his own after the writer mysteriously dies in a Universal Studios tour tram accident. That is, until other trackers who've read the script turn up. Then he has to kill them too. If you think that's far fetched, how do you think I get my Hot Button copy every day?

Last Tango In Paris was recently sent to the ratings board again and unlike Midnight Cowboy, it's still NC-17. The Hot Button should be so lucky. E-mail me your NC-17 buttons today!

And don't forget The Whole Picture.

Posted by THB Archive at 12:57 PM | Permalink

This Christmas' Mousehunt seems to be Home Alone with the rodent as McCauley Culkin. Next, it's Alien Dog, the Terminator-esque story of two aliens chasing each other on earth, only the hero alien misunderstands nature's hierarchy of earth and disguises himself as a dog instead of a human. Can you see the headlines on the reviews? If so, e-mail me a good one and I'll print it Thursday.

The cool new gadget in the upcoming James Bond flick, Tomorrow Never Dies, is a mobile phone that blows stuff up, sees around corners, and operates a brand new BMW by remote. Of course, in Los Angeles, cell phones already make a trip to the market feel like a Bond chase scene. Ericsson's phone is just one of what seems like a million Bond product placement and promotion deals. No "McDonalds Moneypenny Meals" for Bond. Bond has joined Bob Dole as one of the funniest and one of the least appropriate spokesmen for Visa. BMW has a major hit with the Z3 from GoldenEye, so budgets to promote the new Bond Beemer are soaring. And of course, there are the liquor ads. I guess Bond always was a whore. The whole thing leaves me stirred, but not shaken. I'm still looking forward to the film.

Finally, Meg Ryan tells People that she doesn't see the resemblance between herself and the animated version of her in Anastasia. "Just some of the bad hair days," she jokes. Kind of like trying to see the resemblance between Anastasia and Disney product. It's occurred to me that the difference between the great Disney animated hits and the "misses" is the music. Do any of you remember a song from Hunchback? Did anyone love Michael Bolton's tepid version of Hercules' "Go The Distance?" Likewise, I can't think of a song I'll remember from Anastasia. Pretty pictures though.

Posted by THB Archive at 12:51 PM | Permalink

Interesting, somewhat disappointing results at the box office this Thanksgiving weekend. Flubber did pretty much what I expected, though it took first place, not second. An impressive $36.4 million five-day weekend is well short of 101 Dalmatians' $45 million take last Thanksgiving ($137 million total). Flubber, with $27 million over the Friday-Sunday period, looks to be more in the range of My Best Friend's Wedding or Face/Off, hitting the $100 million mark domestically, but not passing $120 million. Alien: Resurrection snagged $27.2 million for second place, actually winning the Wednesday-Thursday battle with $10.1 million over Flubber's $8.7 million, but losing the war as the weekend wore on. Look for a final tally in the high 60s (comparable to Dante's Peak or Anaconda), placing it third in the quad-ology's box office hierarchy.

Anastasia took third place with $16.7 million, but the breakdown shows that even though the film dropped minimally over the three-day weekend ($14.1 million last weekend versus $13.9 this one), its Wed-Thurs performance stunk the place up, averaging only $1.4 million each of those days, the weakest of the Top Five. To me, that says younger kids are going (with mom and dad) and those of Flubber age are passing. Pretty fine line, huh? If Anastasia hits $60-70 million, did they win the war against Disney? I say "yup." The surprise of the weekend was The Rainmaker's strong performance in fourth, performing well all week and adding another $14.5 million to Francis' judgment. And The Jackal held on for fifth, shooting $10.3 million into its Swiss bank account.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation fell like a stone, about 60 percent in a three-day weekend comparison, kicking up $9.5 million with a truly awful movie. Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil is more the latter than the former, on-screen and at the box office, taking seventh with $7.3 million. Now, y'all say bye-bye to them Oscahs. The Little Mermaid got her fin kicked, adding just $2.7 million to her $25 million three-week total, a little more than her P & A costs. Bean slinks towards the $50 million domestic finish line, adding $4.2 million to its total for ninth. And, "The Troopers Are Going! The Troopers Are Going!" passing $50 million with $4 million for 10th.

Thanks for all of your weekend predictions. You're all getting better every week. Way to use that e-mail.

Posted by THB Archive at 09:14 AM | Permalink