"So, What Happened This Past Weekend?"
by E. Charl Hattingh

A Jim Carrey movie opening with $5 million?  Jimmy Neutron grossing a less than enthusiastic $14 million?  Tim Allen failing at the box office?  How can all of this happen with such highly anticipated movies?  Ocean's 11 still number two its third weekend in theaters?

For the first time in a while, movies did much less than expected at the box office.  Surely there were plenty of people out there!  Lord Of The Rings made $73 million in five days.  How come the rest of the movies did so poorly?

Well, the biggest reason, naturally, is that LOTR was showing.  Not only did many people go see this movie, I'm sure many people stayed away from the theaters, thinking that it's going to be too busy with LOTR showing.  I don't know about you, but if I was an executive, and I was trying to decide on when to premier my movie, it would defintely not be two days after the premier of one of the biggest movies of the year.

Then again, look at the quality and content of these movies that came out this past weekend.

The Majestic was doomed since the very first preview hit theaters.  This is a movie that I think actually suffered from the previews.  It would probably have done better if they didn't preview it at all.  As I said before, I wanted to see this movie, just because Jim Carrey was in it.  Then I saw the preview...That single preview changed my mind for me.  It just looked so boring.  It seemed that the movie was about nothing.  Then I thought; well, maybe I should still go see it.  It's Jim Carrey...It's Frank Darabont (director of the superb movies, The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption).  Then came the reviews.  They seemed so bad, that was the final straw for me.  It would just be a waste of time.  And I think that's what many people thought.  I predicted that the movie would make $10 million, lower than most predicted.  I actually wanted to predict lower, but it's Jim Carrey!  He better watch out, or his career might take the same road as Tom Cruise's is taking...Down to the bottom of stardom.

Now, Jimmy Neutron really didn't do all that bad.  $14 million is respectful.  But if it had opened on another weekend, it would have done better.  It is getting good reviews, and it already has a built-in audience.  Other kid movies of late have opened to huge numbers (Harry Potter and Monsters Inc.).  But, either parents were watching LOTR, or they didn't want to go to theaters over the busy weekend.

Poor Tim Allen.  He suffered the most.  It doesn't help that Joe Somebody received terrible reviews, but it should still have made decent money at the box office, not $3.6 million.  Just like The Majestic, I think people just weren't interested in the story line.  Also, the previews just didn't seem that funny.  Allen has done some funny, family oriented movies with success (The Santa Clause and Galaxy Quest), but this is a step in the wrong direction for him.  And didn't Tom Arnold and Rick Moranis already do this movie with similar results (Big Bully)?

The only movie other than LOTR that did what most expected, was How High, which brought in a respectable $7.6 million on 1,265 theaters.  It's per screen average was actually second for the weekend!  Even higher than Ocean's 11.  It's per screen average was almost twice as high as The Majestic and Joe Somebody combined!

The other winner for the weekend is a movie that actually didn't premier.  Kate & Leopold (starring Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman) was pushed back a few days to Christmas Day.  Those executives must be sighing in relief.

It's going to be interesting to see how movies do this coming week.  LOTR is still going to do great business, and Ali is coming out on Wednesday.  Maybe it's not such a good thing that Kate & Leopold was moved back until Christmas after all.  Maybe they should move it back another week!  Oh, then it would have to go up against A Beautiful Mind.