Boxoffice-April.2001

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Suite
j
FADE IN...
probably appropriate in an issue that covers
It's
"Pearl Harbor" to do a little flag-waving. But
the first person we'd like to salute is Ben
Affleck. Thanks to a pipeline snafu, the actorshuttling,
as his publicist put it, "among three
movie shoots"—did not receive our interview
request until the 12th hour. A sign of his dedication
to the film,
and knowing the importance of
BOXOFFICE's readership—put better: you, the
exhibition community—to any movie's success,
overnight he responded with the 1,300 words
you'll find on page 60 of this issue. We'd also like
to thank said publicist, David Pollick of Baker
Winokur Ryder (a top Hollywood firm whose corporate-wing
clients include Fandango), who handled
this "12 O'clock High" scenario with a
beyond-the-call diligence. However made in a
rush, the result is a rush to read.
H:
at BOXOFFICE, our April "ShoWest" issue
Iere
is our season for St. Crispian's Day speech-
The task is immense, yet it's just we
few, we happy few, who must win the war.
And yet it is just those few who do win it. So
here they are: Our publisher, Bob Dietmeier, last
year outfitted our offices with the best Mac hardware
and software, plus a high-end Heidelberg
scanner and Epson proofer that together make all
the great color art you see in our pages.
Christine James, who at other magazines
would be called the executive editor but who
prefers the simpler managing editor moniker, as
just part of her column and feature duties handled
this
issue's three-article independent exhibition
section and its huge reviews section, which
weighs in at 78 reviews. Arranging for all those
screenings is a huge task in itself. In fact, it's
often a transcontinental task, but she knows the
value of our festival coverage, which provides
you with advance reviews of many movies whose
openings at local theatres are still months away.
Francesca Dinglasan, our exhibition and international
editor who likewise prefers to be called
senior editor (not only are they good; they're humble),
for our Intro did the cover-story interview
with the Syufys and all the ShoWest essays and
awardee coverage. She also handled feature and
business coverage in the April issue proper; one
BOXOFFICE ONLINE
(continued on p. 6)
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APRIL, 2001 VOL. 137, NO. 4 SHOWEST
DEPARTMENTS
8 MAILROOM
COVER QUOTE: It became very profound for me....
are overwhelmed by the history of it all.—BEN AFFLECK
Trailer talk; playing our favorites.
Compiled by Christine James
10 REEL DEALS
De Niro, Petersen multis; Miramax slices Onion. By Annlee Ellingson
12 HOT SET
Cruise declares "War"; Cusack gets "Cosmic." By Christine James
14 RELEASE CHARTS: Studio Films
Major releases slated through July 2001 . Compiled by Wade Major
16 RELEASE CHARTS: Independent Films
Specialized fare monthly through December. Compiled by Wade Majoi
18 TRAILERS: May Movies
Hollywood has some "crazy/beautiful" fare for summer's opening
salvo, including "Moulin Rouge," "Shrek" and "Pearl Harbor." PLUS:
The "Mummy" speaks; Yellin about *N Sync. By Annlee Ellingson
206 EXHIBITION BRIEFINGS
Loews, Edwards change hands; Dickinson, Wehrenberg enter Ch. 11;
Ted Mann dies. NATO Regional News: Merger creates Great States
Convention; Mid-Atlantic notes. Ticker Time: AMC positive. PLUS:
Showminder; movieboss.com player tip. By Francesca Dinglasan
208 HILL NEWS
ADA vs. UATC; Surgeon General OKs movies. By Francesca Dinglasan
209 STODIONEWS
January box-office brisk; USA, AOL/TW numbers. By Annlee Ellingson
210 TECH TALK
Supply Side: TASA award for Dolby, Disney. Digital Cinema: Barco
goes French. Large Format: Disney-lmax pact. Wired World: giant
screenbiz.com launches; plus "9 on the Net. " By Annlee Ellingson
213 NORTHERN EXPOSORE
Ontario turmoil; new 18A rating; Bureau bust. By Shlomo Schwartzberg
214 EUROVIEWS
German, Italian box office up, Spanish down. By Francesca Dinglasan
215 PACIFIC OVERTURES
Japan: screens +, tickets -; Kiwi no-shows. By Francesca Dinglasan
216 FILM REVIEWS
"Blow" tops 78 long-lead and breaking reviews, with 29 from Sundance,
14 from London and 11 from Leeds. Compiled by Christine James
242 MOVIEGOER ACTIVITY REPORT/QUESTION OF THE MONTH
Which summer flicks are primed for success? Compiled by MovieFone
243 HOME RELEASE CHART: April
"Vertical," "Women" in May; "Cast" in June. Compiled by Wade Major
244 AD INDEX AND CLASSIFIEDS
Advertiser contact names, mail/email addresses, phone/fax numbers,
and website URLs. PLUS: Our one-stop-shop Faxback Form.
OFFICES
EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING CORP. HQ/CLASSIFIEDS/BILLINGS SUBSCRIPTION/CIRCULATION
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Fax: (626) 396-0248 (773) 338-7007 Fax: (312) 922-7209
4 BOXOIIKI

April. 2IMI1 5
SPECIAL CONTENTS: SHOWEST 2001
Now entering its second quarter-century, ShoWest again this year provides a showcase for film distributors' coming
fare via a number of screenings, and a come-one, come-all display of wares by the theatre suppliers on the tradeshow
floor. There's also a major demonstration area for digital cinema. In the pages below, we cover it all.
30 SPECIAL: SUMMER HEAT—All the Seasons Films
Will the upcoming cinema season outdo last summer's $3.13 billion mark? Among the 65 films bowing June through August
—each of them detailed here in our immense summary—vying for exhibitor attention are event titles like the Spielberg/
Kubrick "A.I." and Disney's animated "Atlantis," actioneers like "Tomb Raider" and "Kiss of the Dragon," plus they-knowthe-namers
"Planet of the Apes," "Doctor Dolittle 2" and "Jurassic Park 3." And. ..that's just in June. By Annlee Ellingson
114 PROJECTION: Digital Cinema on Display
In our continuing coverage of this key topic, we examine the companies whose digital-cinema wares will be centerpieces of
ShoWest 2001: Barco, Boeing, Christie, Digital Projection, NEC, Panasonic and Technicolor. By Annlee Ellingson PLUS: In
this excerpt from "In Focus," the NATO president addresses the issues involved with digital cinema. By John Fithian
121-188 (SW-1 to SW-68) THE BOXOFFICE SHOWEST INTRO 2001
In our annual convention special, a separate table of contents for which you will find on pages 124 and 125 (SW-4 and SW-
5), we provide our Intro cover interview with ShoWesters of the Year Raymond W. and Joseph Syufy, along with essays by
Sunshine chairman Robert Sunshine, NATO president John Fithian, NATO vice president Mary Ann Grasso, ITEA president
Terri Westhafer and NAC president Skip Stefansen. PLUS: BOXOFFICE prize giveways; the Hollywood and business awardees,
including Cinemark's Maria Angles; a ShoWest Schedule of Events and trade floor layout; and a detailed list of companies
exhibiting their wares in the ShoWest booths, along with a ne plus ultra listing of ultra New Products .
APRIL FEATURES
46 SNEAK PREVIEW: "Freddy Got Fingered"
It's
a mad, mad, mad world that Tom Green creates, as
the comedian directs, scripts and stars in a Fox release
about animation, and basements—and something having
to do with robots. Which we're not supposed to mention.
We're not sure why. Oh, wait... By Annlee Ellingson
COVER STORY: "Pearl Harbor"
In covering what is expected to be the huge film of the
early summer, BOXOFFICE talks with lead actress Kate
Beckinsale, high-profile producer Jerry Bruckheimer and
take-no-prisoners director Michael Bay about recreating
the day that lives in infamy By Michael Tunison
COVER STORY II: "Pearl Harbor"
What was it like to make "Pearl Harbor"? Leading-man
Ben Affleck shares his thoughts about starring in the
movie, about what the movie means to him, and about
what happened those 60 years ago. By Ben Affleck
I COVER STORY III: "Pearl Harbor"
Finally, what was it like to be at Pearl Harbor during
World War II? BOXOFFICE talks to now-retired Douglas
Theatres drive-in manager Danny Flanigan, who was
stationed there during the conflict. By Bridget Byrne
I SPECIAL: Sundance 2001
Our wide-ranging coverage from the Redford fest includes
the opening-night press conference for Christine Lahti's
"My First Mister." PLUS: "Annlee's Journal: Living the
Cinema Life in Park City." By Annlee Ellingson PLUS:
"Greene Party: Essays on Sundance," a three-act from
the former BOXOFFICE editor-in-chief. By Ray Greene
74 ON THE SHELF: Summer Cinema Reading
Film as seen by Chicagoans Roger Ebert (today) and
Carl Sandburg (yesterday), great movie quotes, the art
of European cinema—these are just some of the subjects
of new books on film. By Francesca Dinglasan
80 SPECIAL: Hollywood on Exhibit
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences offers
a gallery of great photographic art by photojournalist
Leigh Wiener, who sat with and shot the stars from the
Golden Era on. By Bridget Byrne PLUS: UCLA Fowler
Museum's "Marquee Madness." By Melissa Morrison
88 WIRED WORLD: MovieDoss
The folks at the popular online "run your own theatre"
game have launched version 2.0. Here's how to get
clicking, including a 10-step guide to virtual success.
94 BUSINESS: Exhibition on Wall Street
Paul Kagan Associates takes stock of the movie theatre
business in its "The Business of Movie Exhibition:
Beyond 2000," the latest in its annual series analyzing
the exhibition industry. In this written for BOXOFFICE,
a Kagan industry analyst provides a precis, including
(continued on p. 6)
EDITORIAL STAFF CONTRIBUTORS BUSINESS STAFF
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Kim Williamson kimw@boxot1ice.com
MANAGING EDITOR
Christine James Christine/ boxoffice.com
SENIOR EDITOR
Francesca Dinglasan francescad@boxofficecom
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Annlee Ellingson annleee@boxoffice.com
SR. EDITORIAL/ADVERTISING ASST.
Linda Andrade lindaa@boxoffice.com
EDITORIAL/ADVERTISING ASST.
Sandra Koscho sandrak@boxotfice.com
FEATURE CHARTS EDITOR
Wade Major (310) 456-2767; fax (310) 456-9750
CANADIAN CORRESPONDENT
Shlomo Schwartzberg (416) 928-2179
ARTICLE/REVIEW WRITERS
Ben Aflleck, John F Allen, Derek C W. Baine,
Mark E.
Bartersby. Bridget Byrne. Paul Clinton,
Tim Cogshell, Susan Green, Ray Greene,
Dwayne E. Leslie. Wade Major, Rukshan Mistry,
Melissa Morrison, Michael Tunison.
Jon Alon Walz. Chris Wiegand
WEBMASTER
Ken Partridge
kenp@boxoffice.com
PUBLISHER
Robert L. Dietmeier (773) 338-7007
NATIONAL ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
Robert M. Vale (626) 396-0250: bobv@boxoffice com
ADVERTISING CONSULTANT
Morris Schlozman (816) 942-5877
ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE
Sandy Domin (847) 705-0242
BUSINESS MANAGER
Dan Johnson (773) 338-7007
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR
Chuck Taylor (312)922-9326
BOXOFFICE (ISSN 0006-8527). Published monthly by RLD Communications. Inc.. 203 N Wabash Ave . Suite 800. Chicago IL 60601
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© 2001 RLD Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

6 BOXOHKI
FADE IH... (continued from p. 4)
of her specialties is our Exhibition Briefings,
EuroViews and Pacific Overtures news columns.
For her impressive part, film and technology
editor (aka associate editor) Annlee Ellingson
assembled the Intro's 22-page New Product and
ShoWest Booth List—and then as part of her
April-issue duties wrote our annual Summer Heat
preview of all the season's 65 films, our sevenpage
article on digital cinema, the monthly
Trailers section and more, just like always.
Then
there's national advertising director Bob
Vale and his crew, Linda Andrade and Sandra
Koscho. There are 252 pages here, but
(despite how it might have felt on those 1 a.m.
mornings) it's not all editorial.
Knowing BOXOFFICE is the one necessary platform
for marketing their messages to all of exhibition,
the industry's supply side responded in full
heart not only with a wealth of advertising, but
many with ads of cutting-edge creativity. Bob,
Linda and Sandy shone in keeping it all straight.
there is our web architect, Ken
Lastly,
Partridge, who will be at ShoWest along with
our business consultant Herb Burton (he who
needs no introduction, we're sure) displaying his
new program SyncPak—for more on what it can
do for you and your company's communications,
go to www.syncpak.com. And Ken is the code
wizard behind the software for BOXOFFICE
ONLINE's latest business offering for Palm and
WAP device users; it's described in more detail in
the ShoWest Intro table of contents on page 124
(SW-4) and is available for free download at www.
boxoffice.com/downloads/showest/setup.exe.
To each of them go a very hearty and welldeserved
thanks. And, of course, just as hearty
and deserved a thanks go to you, our reader. Not
only do you make all of what we do possible; you
make doing it all worthwhile.—Kim Williamson
multi-year trend numbers for ticket revenues and theatre cash flow
per average screen, cash flow margins for exhibitor chains and
motion picture distributor revenue streams. By Derek C.W. Baine
98 MOVERS & SHAKERS: Philip Anschutz
The Denver billionaire has moved to acquire control of United Artists
Theatre Circuit, Regal Cinemas and Edwards Theatres. What does
the reclusive sports franchise, oil and telecommunications magnate
have in mind for his empire—and exhibition? By Jon Alon Walz
1 1 REPORT: Online Ticketing
Experiences of e-ticket executives working in other industries could
be useful for exhibition site decision-making. By Rukshan Mistry
123 FAXBACK: Reader Survey
What about BOXOFFICE do you love the most? Least? Complete anc
fax this back, and you could win a set of our limited-edition posters.
186 BOXOFFICE BOYERS DIRECTORY FORM
It's just two steps to fame for you and your supply-side company in
our annual Buyers Directory issue: (1) Fill in the form; (2) Fax it to us.
189 FIRST PERSON: Sound
Why getting motion picture sound levels right can be so frustrating.
And so rewarding for your audiences. By John F. Allen
192 FIRST PERSON: Theatre Management
The first step to assuring great customer service at your theatre is to
treat your young employees well. By Randall Blaum and David James
194 FIRST PERSON: Cinema Design
New approaches + old-time goals = today's success in
era when "renew" will likely replace "new." By William H. Brunner
a belt-tighteninc
195 FIRST PERSON: Digital Cinema
How to future-proof your theatre: A guide to making the most of your
investment in broadband technologies. By A.J. "Tony'DeBella
196 FIRST PERSON: (Business
Building and maintaining theatre websites can be taxing—but at least
some of it can be tax deductible. By Mark E. Battersby
198 FIRST PERSON: Supply Side
Digital cinema might seem like a looming nightmare for exhibition,
with the clear possibility of multiple standards and always evolving
technologies. But it's that type of competitive marketplace that will
breed the best of breed that exhibition needs. By Tim Partridge
199 FIRST PERSON: Conventioneering
Behind the show merger that led to the creation of the new Great States
convention. By Bruce J. Olson, Dan Klusmann and Larry Hanson
250 CLOSE FOCOS:
Will Rogers Institute and Memorial Fund
Insights on the good deeds that the Institute and Fund do—and how
not only their causes can win, but you too. By Kim Williamson
SPECIAL SECTION:
INDEPENDENT EXHIBITION
SPECIAL SECTION:
THE YEAR IN REVIEW
1 00 INDEPENDENT SHOWCASE: Jordan Commons
The Utah indie is anything but common: It has 17
screens. Here's the skinny on how an empty high
school became a leading art house. By Paul Clinton
1 04 INDEPENDENT SHOWCASE: The Vista
At the start of Hollywood Boulevard lies the Vista,
born in 1922 during the King Tut craze and still
showing films here in 2001 . By Jon Alon Walz
1 08 INDEPENDENT SHOWCASE: The Charles
The story behind Baltimore's single-screen Charles,
revived and restored by a dynamic nephew-uncle duo
who love their city and film. By Bridget Byrne
200 FADE0UT:2000
One last look. By Kim Williamson
202 MOVIEGOER REPORT: Annual Summary
You've Got Numbers: The top 10 circuits and sites.
PLUS: 24 key markets. Compiled by MovieFone
203 BALLOT: Academy Awards
Here's your yearly Oscar scorecard for Hollywood's
night of nights. Compiled by Christine James
204 SURVEY: Annual Blue Ribbon Poll Results
Exhibitors choose the best and worst films of the year,
plus the "most popular." PLUS: Reader comments
about the films, about the stars, and about their
BOXOFFICE. Compiled by Christine James

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MAILROOM
TRAILER TRASH
Dear BOXOFFICE:
As a theatre manager. I am glad that
Hollywood is finally lowering the volume
on its trailers ["Say it Proud, Say it (Not
Too) Loud," February 2001], I see, however,
that the idiots in Hollywood still insist
on having the trailers play at a higher volume
than the feature. As your article
points out, this is pointless because the-
Children's: "Jacob Two-Two Meets the
atres simply turn the volume down for the
trailers and turn it up
Hooded Fang" (1977)
for the feature, and
we will continue to do this until the Camp: Tie: "The Rocky Horror Picture
trailers
and the features are released at the same Show" and "Army of Darkness"
volume.
Earliest Movie Memory: "The Bluebird"
Memo to Hollywood: The moviegoers (1976)
are sitting in a dark theatre. They are staring
at the screen. You have their attention.
If you are still worried that your trailer
won't stand out from the crowd, here is a
radical suggestion: Try creating a superior
product. Playing rubbish at a higher volume
does not make it more appealing.
Very truly yours,
Douglas Richardson
Manager, Bantam Cinema
Bantam, Conn.
PLAYING FAVORITES
Dear BOXOFFICE:
In your opinion, [which are] the best
movies of all time?
Andreas Arce, via e-mail
Our answers diverge quite significantly
from, say, the American Film Institute's Top
100, hut here are the all-time personal
favorites of the BOXOFFICE editorial staff.
Kim Williamson, Editor-in-Chief
Comedy: "Love and Death"
Comedy/Drama: "Leolo"
Drama: "Bang the Drum Slowly"
Action: "La Femme Nikita"
Romance: "Doctor Zhivago"
Sci-Fi: "Five Million Years to Earth"
Thriller: "Jaws"
Mystery: "Cries and Whispers"
Martial Arts: "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story"
Christine James, Managing Editor
Comedy: "Spinal Tap"
Comedy/Drama: "Career Girls"
Drama: "Magnolia"
Action: "Die Hard"
Romance: "Wuthering Heights" (1939)
Sci-Fi: "Back to the Future"
Horror: "Poltergeist"
Thriller: "Dead Again"
Musical: Tie: "The Adventures of
Priscilla. Queen of the Desert" and "Pink
Floyd: The Wall"
Foreign Language: Tie: "Les Visiteurs"
and "Celestial Clockwork"
Francesca Dinglasan, Senior Editor
Comedy: "Better Off Dead"
Drama: "The Graduate"
Action: "Bullitt"
Romance: "Casablanca"
Sci-Fi: "X-Files: Fight the Future"
Horror: "Lord of the Flies" (1963)
Thriller: "The Crying Game"
Musical: "A Hard Day's Night"
Martial Arts: Tie: "Enter the Dragon"
and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
Foreign Language: "A Bout de Souffle
(Breathless)"
Children's: Tie: "Babe" and "Babe: Pig in
the City"
Camp: "Play Misty For Me"
Earliest Movie Memory: "Grease"
Annlee Ellingson, Associate Editor
Comedy: "South Park: Bigger, Longer
and Uncut"
Drama: "American Beauty"
Action: "Die Hard"
Romance: "True Romance"
Sci-Fi: "The Matrix"
Horror: "Event Horizon"
Thriller: "Seven"
Mystery: "The Long Goodbye"
Martial Arts: "Crouching Tiger. Hidden
Dragon"
Foreign Language: "Savage Nights"
Foreign Language: "Das Boot"
Children's: "The Wizard of Oz"
Children's: "Iron Giant"
Camp: "La Cage Aux Folles"
Silent: "The General"
Earliest Movie Memory: "Lady and the Documentary: "American Movie"
Tramp"
Earliest Movie Memory: "E.T."
©©KLOfS
1-800-635-0436
www.popntop.com
Send letters to: BOXOFFICE, Mailroom
155 S. El Molino Ave., Suite 100
Pasadena, CA 91101
Fax: 626-396-0248
E-mail: edltorlal@boxofflce.com
Response No. 73

^^^
NEW
650
^^^H

10 »()\()l I l< I
l'IH*H'H.'
Meets Universal
REEL
DEALS
Docks at Warner Bros.
Puts in Roots at Miramax
Cashing in on the success of
"Meet the Parents," which has
grossed over $243 million
worldwide, Universal has pacted
with Robert De Niro and Jane
Rosenthal's New York-based
Tribeca Prods, in a three-year,
first-look feature production
deal. Already in the pipeline is
the "Parents" sequel "Meet the
Fockers," which has many of the
original players already in
place, including scribe Jim
Herzfeld, director Jay Roacyh,
producers De Niro, Rosenthal
and Nancy Tenenbaum and stars
De Niro, Ben Stiller, Teri Polo
and Blythe Danner. Until last
year, Tribeca had had a production
deal with MCM.
Buoyed by "The Perfect
Storm," which grossed $327 million
worldwide, Warner Bros.
has inked helmer Wolfgang
Petersen to a multiyear, first-look
deal at the studio. Peteresen's
Radiant Prods, had been housed
at Columbia, where he set up
shop after the studio released his
"Air Force One." That deal
recently expired.
Bowing on the high-profile
July Fourth weekend, "The
Perfect Storm" seemed destined
to be drowned by Mel Gibson
vehicle "The Patriot." Instead,
it swam furiously to a $41 million
opening, the best in the
studio's history and the third
best bow for the holiday weekend
in industry history. Warner
Bros., which recently has made
a habit of co-financing such
event pics, shouldered the
entire $1 37 million budget, and
it was the studio's faith in him
on such an investment that
Petersen credited to their
recent alliance.
"I had such a good experience
with the studio that when they
tried to get me there, there wasn't
much reluctance on my part,"
Petersen says.
"I give the studio and [worldwide
production prexy] Lorenzo
[di Bonaventura] a lot of
credit," he continues. "He stood
by me, was supportive all the
way, even though we faced a
big budget for a film with an
ending where everybody dies.
It's nice when a marriage comes
out of a big hit."
Petersen's other credits
include "Outbreak," "In the Line
of Fire" and "Das Boot." He's
next hoping to continue developing
"Endurance," about Sir Ernest
SIi.k kleton's South Pole excursion.
Ironically, he has Gibson in
mind for the lead.
When producer Cary Woods
("Scream," "CopLand") bowed
his Independent Pictures a few
years ago, he meant for his
films to be just that— produced
and financed independently
from the studio that would ultimately
release them. But when
$30 million in funds from an
India-based financier fell
through, rumors began to
spread that he was shutting
down the shingle. On the contrary,
he has entered into a temporary
first-look deal with New
Line as he continues his fundraising
efforts.
Pics in the pipeline include a
"Liberace" biopic, which has
"Quills" helmer Philip Kaufman
attached to direct; send-up
"Raunchy Movie" by "Scary
Movie" scribes Jason Friedberg
and Aaron Seltzer; "Dorian
Gray," to be directed by
"Election's" Alexander Payne;
and "The Assassination of
Richard Nixon," toplined by
Sean Penn. Woods is also collaborating
with Harmony
Korine, whose "Kids" he produced.
Miramax has taken a bite of
The Onion, the satirical newspaper
that recently replanted its
digs from Madison, Wis. to New
York City, peeling off a first-look
deal to develop scripts and features
based on its material that
will be co-produced by 3 Arts
Entertainment.
"As lifelong New Yorkers,
we're proud to welcome The
Onion to our city with this
first-look deal," says Miramax
co-chairman Harvey Weinstein.
"With their witty, sophisticated
humor, they will
undoubtedly soon be the toast
of the town."
"The goal for this Miramax
deal is to create movies that
don't suck," adds Onion editorin-chief
Robert Siegel.
Last
optioned
year
two
DreamWorks
articles "10th
Circle Added to Rapidly Growing
Hell," being developed as an
animated feature, and "Canadian
free weekly publication edited
by undergrads at the University
of Wisconsin to a website and
two best-selling books.
The morning after "Traffic"
earned five Oscar nominations,
producer Laura Bickford inked
a two-year, first-look production
deal with Universal
Pictures. No projects have been
the comedy "Bobby's Girl" with
Steve Martin attached to star.
Bickford optioned the rights to
the British miniseries "Traffik"
in 1995, and the resulting USA
film has been nominated for
best film, director, adapted
screenplay, supporting actor
and film editing Academy
Awards.
John Leguizamo and Kathleen
DeMarco's Lower East Side
Films has reupped its first-look
film and television deal with
Miramax. The only project the
label has set up under the deal is
an animated TV series, but
DeMarco's novel "Cranberry
Queen," due out from Miramax
Books in May, is set up as a feature
there, and actor-writer-producer
Leguizamo is involved
with many of the minimajor's
urban fare. Other pics in development
include the romantic
comedy "Rebel Clowns," a
script by Frank Pugliese, and an
untitled romantic comedy
Leguizamo and DeMarco are
penning together.
In an effort to infuse more
youth-oriented films into its lineup,
Columbia has inked a twoyear,
first-look deal with producer
John Baldecchi, whose latest
project was DreamWorks' "The
Mexican," starring Brad Pitt,
Julia Roberts and James
Gandolfini. The studio's relationship
with Baldecchi began
on the comedy "Scared Guys,"
about arguably the shortest road
trip ever as two agoraphobes
attempt to leave their apartment
for the first time in four years to
travel six blocks to prevent a
murder.
Producer Jane Startz ("The
Mighty") has inked a first-look
production deal with Miramax to
bring family entertainment projects
to the minimajor on which
she will serve as producer or
consultant. She has already
optioned Gail Carson Levine's
"The Two Princesses of Bamarre"
and Scott Russell Sander's
"Engineer of Beasts" to produce
at Miramax.
"Since Jane first worked with
us on 'The Mighty,' we've been
impressed with her great taste in
material and talent and her
understanding of the children's
market," says production copresident
Meryl Poster.
"I am thrilled to be teaming up
again with Miramax Films,"
Startz adds. "Our aesthetic and
goals are perfectly matched.
Together, we're committed to
pioneering a fresh and sophisticated
approach to entertainment
for families."
In another move to boost its
announced, but Bickford is family entertainment offerings,
understood to be developing Miramax has inked a threeyear,
first-look deal with veteran
U.K. producer Sarah
Radclyffe's new family films
venture Jigsaw Films. Radclyffe
and her partner Courtney
Pledger will develop and produce
films aimed at the family
market. Her previous credits
include "Les Miserables" and
"Cousin Bette."

Redefine
the
Exhibition Marketplace

HOLLYWOOD
HOT SET
"Cosmic" Encounter
"War" Story
"COSMIC BANDITOS" John
Cusack will play an American
involved with a drug-smuggling
ring in Colombia who, while on
the lam in the jungle with his
cohorts, has a revelation concerning
the impact of quantum
physics on everyday lives.
(Shooting Gallery)
"THE WAR MAGICIAN" Tom
Cruise ("Mission: Impossible 2")
will star in this World War ll-set
film based on the true account of
a professional magician who
strove to apply his tricks toward
defeating the Germans, to
astoundingly successful effect.
(Paramount)
"PEOPLE I KNOW" Al Pacino
("Any Given Sunday") is in talks
to play a press agent who's loosely
based on Bobby Zarem, a publicist
reputed to have come up
with the famed "I Love New York"
campaign. In this film, the PR
agent becomes entangled in a
mystery involving politics and
celebrities when his famous client
("Zero Effect's" Ryan O'Neal) is
embroiled in scandal. "The
Family Man's" Tea Leoni plays a
ruthless starlet, and "Bless the
Child's" Kim Basinger co-stars as
Pacino's character's love interest.
(Distribution is
to be set)
"ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS"
"Next Friday's" Ice Cube and
Mike Epps re-team for this
action-comedy about a bounty
hunter (Ice Cube) who pursues a
bailjumper (Epps) into a warehouse,
only to interrupt a diamond
heist drop-off. The adversaries
must team up to evade the
criminals. (New Line)
"DOUBLE DOWN" An aging
gangster ("The Golden Bowl's"
Nick Nolte) plans one last heist,
machine that stops time, and he
his target being a casino in a
French seaside resort, in this Neil
Jordan ("The End of the Affair")-
and his friends must find a way
to reverse the process. Jonathan
helmed remake of the 1955 Frakes ("Star Trek: Insurrection")
French film "Bob le Flambeur." helms this action thriller;
to be set)
Michael Biehn ("The Art of
(Distribution is
"THE MAN WHO SUED GOD"
A fisherman ("Mrs. Brown's"
Billy Connolly) tries to take the
Holy Father to court when his
insurance company refuses to
reimburse him for a boat
destroyed by an "act of God."
ludy Davis ("Celebrity") co-stars;
"The Matchmaker's" Mark Joffe
directs. (Distribution is
to be set)
"LOVERS, LIARS AND THIEVES"
This romantic comedy, based on
the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa,
will star Robin Williams ("One
Hour Photo") and Renee
Zellweger ("Bridget Jones' Diary")
as con artists who convince a
Louvre carpenter ("Original Sin's"
Antonio Banderas ) to help them
in their scheme. (Miramax)
"ORANGE COUNTY" "Chuck & "BLACK SHEEP" When a secrel
Buck" scripter Mike White pens
this comedy about an ambitious
agent ("Dogma's"
involved in a CIA
Chris
operation
Rock;
is
killed, the mission's leadei
high school senior (Colin Hanks
of TV's "Roswell") whose plans to ("Hannibal's" Anthony Hopkins!
leave the titular California city to
attend Stanford University go
awry when a flaky guidance
counselor ("The Kid's" Lily
Tomlin) mixes up his transcripts
with those of an academically
and socially unacceptable student.
He tenaciously tries on
repeated occasions to be admitted,
with some mishap thwarting
him each time. Catherine
O'Hara ("Best in Show") plays
the would-be collegian's alcoholic
mother, and Jack Black
("High Fidelity") his slacker
"WELCOME TO COLLINWOOD"
After the fashion of "The Full
Monty," a group of working-class
Cleveland misfits, headed by
"Romeo Must Die's" Isaiah
Washington, scheme to rob a
pawn snop. Vincent D'Onofrio
("The Cell"), Courtney Love
("Man on the Moon"), Jennifer
Esposito ("Dracula 2000") and
Luis Guzman ("Traffic") co-star.
(Distribution is
to be set)
scientist accidentally sets off a
War"), Julia Sweeney ("God Said,
'Ha!'"), French Stewart (TV's
"3rd Rock From the Sun") and
Paula Garces ("Dangerous
Minds") co-star. (Paramount)
"BLACK HAWK DOWN" Josh
Hartnett ("Pearl Harbor"), Ewan
McGregor ("Moulin Rouge"),
Tom Sizemore ("Saving Private
Ryan"), Eric Bana ("Chopper")
and Ben Foster ("Liberty
Heights") star in this Ridley
Scott ("Hannibal")-helmed war
drama based on Mark Bowden's
book about a troop of elite U.S.
soldiers that storm Somalia to
capture two high-ranking
deputies of a renegade warlord,
only to find themselves surrounded
by the enemy.
(Distribution is
to be set)
calls upon the operative's underqualified
twin brother (alsc
played by Rock) to take hie
place. Joel Schumacher ("Tigerland")
is
Vista)
in talks to helm. (Buena
"ON THE LINE" Two members
of the boy band phenomenon
'N Sync, Lance Bass and Joey
Fatone, will star in this romantic
comedy about a young man
(Bass) who meets the girl of his
dreams on a train but neglects
to get her number. He canvass-
brother. (Paramount)
es the city with posters in the
hopes of tracking her down,
"THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE" only to find himself becoming
George Clooney ("The Perfect something of a celebrity in the
Storm") and Nicolas Cage process. (Miramax)
("Family Man") are in talks to star
"BABY'S IN BLACK" Brad
for director Alan Parker
("Angela's Ashes") in this drama Silberling ("City of Angels") will
about an anti-capital punishment script and direct this romantic
protestor who's accused of murdering
drama about a man ("October
a fellow activist and, iron-
Sky's" Jake Gyllenhaal) whose
inlaws ("Sphere's" Dustin
ically enough, is put on death
Hoffman and "Anywhere But
row. (Universal)
Here's" Susan Sarandon) take
him in after the murder of his
wife. His emotional duress is
further
complicated when he falls
for a woman who is in denial
about the presumed death of her
boyfriend. (Buena Vista)
"THE HOURS" This Stephen
Daldry ("Billy Elliot")-helmed
adaptation of Michael Cunningham's
novel, focusing on three
women from different — periods in
the 20th century '20s-era
"CLOCKSTOPPERS" A teen author Virginia Woolf, a pregnant
Los Angeles housewife in
("Bring It On's" Jesse Bradford)
whose father ("The Contender's" 1949 and a young woman in
Robin Thomas) is an eccentric 1 990s New York planning a party
for a former lover afflicted with
AIDS—will star Meryl Streep
("Music of the Heart"), Julianne
Moore ("Hannibal"), Nicole
Kidman ("Birthday Girl"), Ed
Harris ("Pollock"), Toni Collette
("The Sixth Sense"), Claire Danes
("Brokedown Palace") and
Allison Janney ("Nurse Betty").
(Paramount)
ET CETERA: Rowan Atkinson
("Bean") is in talks to play the
villain in Warner Bros.' liveaction
"Scooby Doo" feature.
..Devon Sawa ("Final
Destination") will star in Lions
Gate's coming-of-age drama
i
"Christmas With J.D," scripted
by "Karate Kid Ill's" Sea
Kanan..."The Claim's" Milla
Jovovich and "Girlfight'i
Michelle Rodriguez star
director Paul Anderson ("Mortal
Kombat'Ts feature adaptation of
the popular video game
"Resident Evil," in which a mil
itary unit combats carnivorous
zombie scientists.
12 Boxouki

\
*********
) Favorites • Junior its 5M Dots
5
. ContactYour Local Jootsie Roll Distributor Representative For Complete Informal
Tootsie Roll Industries, Inc.
74(>l s. Cicero Avenue • Chicago, II 60629
www.tootsie.coii]

I
. Cuba
I
-- Action, Adv = Advenlure. ) i Anim.ihon
'
u lion, flu ;
BOXOFFICE Studio Charts
310-449-3000
212-941-38001
212-593-8900
212-833-8500
212-588-6000
212-708-0300
323-822-41001
February 2001
Recess: School's Out, 2/16. Ani/Com,
G, 85 min. DTS, SDDS, SRD. Flat. Dir.
Chuck Sheetz.
Just Visiting, 3/23, Com, PG-13, 90
mm. DTS, SDDS, SR, SRD. Scope.
Jean Reno, Christian Clavier, Christina
Applegate, Dir: Jean-Mane Gaubert.
(CURRENT)
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
Harbor, 5/25, Dra. DTS, SDDS.
Gooding Jr., Ben Affleck,
Hartnett, James King. Ewan
iner, Kate Beckinsale, Guy Torry.
Sizemore. Dir: Michael Bay.
B2001:
ntis. 6/15. Ani, DTS. SDDS, SRD.
Voices Michael J. Fox. James
ner Dir: Kirk Wise, Gary Trousdale
Saving Silverman. 2/9. Rom/Com, -89
SDDS. SRD. Flat Jack Black,
Amanda Peet. Jason Biggs. Steve
Zahn. Dir; Dennis Dugan.
12001:
The Tailor of Panama. 3/2, Sus/Thr,
-115 min, SDDS, SR, Scope Pierce
Brosnan, Geoffrey Rush, Jamie Lee
Curtis. Dir: John Boorman.
Joe Dirt. 3/9. Com, -86 min, SDDS,
SRD David Spade. Kid Rock. Dir:
Dennie Gordon
Tomcats, 3/30, Com. SDDS. Jerry
O'Connell, Shannon F
Busey. Dir: Gregory Pom
Glass House. 4/20. Thr. -120 min,
SDDS. SDDS-8. Leelee Sobieski. Diane
Lane. Stellan Skarsgard. Trevor
Morgan. Rita Wilson. Michael O'Keefe,
Bruce Dern Dir: Daniel Sackheim.
/2001:
The New Guy, 5/4, Com, SDDS. D.J.
" " i, Eddie Griffin. Lyle Lovett. Eliza
Dushku. Zooey Deschanel, Dir: Ed
Decter.
Trumpet of the Swan, 5/11, SDDS.
2001:
light's Tale. 6/1. Adv. SDDS.
S-8. Heath Ledger. Mark Addy,
Rulus Sewell, Paul Bettany. Alan Tudyk,
Dir Brian Helgeland,
al. 6/8, Com, SDDS, Rob
Schneider. Colleen Haskell. Guy Torry,
Like Greenfield
Baby Boy. 6/29. Com/Dra. SDDS,
Tyrese, Ving Rhames. Dir: John
Singleton
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
The Mexican, 3 2, Rom/Com/Act, DTS,
SDDS, SR, SRD Julia Roberts, Brad
Pitt,
Dir: Gore Verbinski
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
May 2001:
Shrek, 5/18. Ani. DTS. SDDS, SRD.
s: Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz,
Eddie Murphy, John Lithgow, Linda
Hunt, Dir: Kelly Asbury, Andrew
Adamson.
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (for
merly Woody Allen Untitled), May/June,
DTS, SDDS. SR, SRD. Helen Hunt,
Charlize Theron, Dan Aykroyd, Wallace
Shawn, David Ogden Stiers, Elizabeth
Berkley. Dir: Woody Allen.
2001:
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
ibal. 2/9. Thr, SDDS, SDDS-8.
SR. SRD. Anthony Hopkins, Julianne
Moore, Ray Liotta, Giancarlo Giannini.
Ridley Scott.
Original Sin (formerly Dancing in the
Dark). 2/23, Thr, DTS, SDDS Angelina
Antonio Banderas, Thomas Jane,
Thompson. Dir: Michael Cristofer.
March 2001:
Heartbreakers (working title, formerly
Breakers), 3/23, Com, DTS. SDDS,
Sigourney Weaver. Jennifer Love
t, Gene Hackman, Ray Liotta,
Lee. Dir: David Mirkin.
The Claim. 4/20 wide, Dra. DTS,
SDDS. Wes Bentley, Peter Mullan.
Sarah Polley, Nastassja Kinski, Milla
Jovavich. Dir: Michael Winterbottom.
Deuces Wild. 4/30, Dra, R, SDDS.
Stephen Dorff. Fairuza Balk, Frankie
Muniz. James Franco, Brad Renfro.
May 2001 :
Dillon. Dir: Scott Kalvert.
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
June 2001:
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
Birthday Girl. 2/23 NY/LA, SRD
Chaplin, Nicole Kidman, Mathiei
Kassovitz. Dir: Jez Butterworth.
March 2001:
Blow Dry. 3/9 NY/LA. Com. Alar
Rickman, Natasha Richard:
Griffiths. Dir: Paddy Breathnach.
Get Over It (formerly Getting Ov
Allison). 3/9, SRD Ben Foster,
Dunst, Mila Kunis. Dir: Tommy C
About Adam, 3/23 NY/LA. 3/30
4/6 exp. Dra/Rom. Kate Hudson
Townsend, Dir: Gerard Stembrid
Spy Kids. 3/30. SRD. SRD-EX.
ning Dir Robert Rodriguez
Bridget Jones' Diary, 4/1
Zellweger, Hugh Grant, Colin Fir
Embeth Davidtz. Dir: Sharon Ma
With a Friend Like Harry (formt
Harry Is Here to Help). 4/20 N"
4/27 exp. 5/4 exp.
O (Othello). 4/27. 91 min, DT
Flat. Mekhi Philer, Josh Hartn
Stiles. Dir: Tim Blake Nelson.
Waking up in Reno. 4/27
May 2001:
Texas Rangers. 5/4, Western. PC
DTS, SRD, Scope. James V
Dylan McDermott. Dir: Steve Mine
Calle54, 5/1 1.
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
July 2001:
July 2001:
July 2001:
crazy/beautiful (formerly At 17). Spring.
Com, DTS, SDDS, SR. SR D, Flat.
n Dunst, Jay Hernandez, Bruce
Davison, Taryn Manning. Dir: John
Stockwell.
Bubble Boy, 8/3,
DTS, SDDS. SR, SR
D. Jake Gyllenhaal, Swoosie Kurtz,
John Carroll Lynch, Dave Sheridan. Dir:
Blair Hayes.
Big Trouble, Summer, Com, DTS,
SDDS, SR. SR D. Tim Allen. Rene
Russo, Anna Herk. Stanley Tucci, Omar
Epps. Andy Richter. Dir: Barry
Sonnenfeld.
Corky Romano. Summer, Com, DTS,
SDDS. SR, SR D. Chris Kaftan, Vinessa
Shaw, Peter Falk, Richard Roundtree,
Matthew Glave Dir Rob Pritts
Monsters, Inc.. Thanksgiving. Ani.
DTS. SDDS SR SR D, SRD-EX, Flat
Billy Cryslal, John Goodman, James
Coburn. Jennifer Tilly Dir: David
Smith,
Newport South, PG 13, DTS, SDDS,
SRD. Blake Shields, Gabriel Mann
Raymond J, Barry, Dir: Kyle Cooper.
America's Sweethearts, 7/4.
Rom/Com. SDDS. Julia Roberts. Billy
Crystal. John Cusack. Catherine Zeta-
;. Dir: Joe Roth.
Final Fantasy. 7/13. Ani. SDDS.
Voices: Alec Baldwin. Ving Rhames.
Na. Steve Buscemi, Pen Gilpin,
James Woods. Bonald Sutherland. Dir:
obu Sakaguchi.
COMING:
The One. 9/28. SDDS. Jet Li. Dir:
James Wong.
Adaptation, Fall, Dra/Com. SDDS.
Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris
Cooper Dir: Spike Jonze.
Panic Room, Fall, Thr, SDDS Jodie
Foster, Forest Whitaker, Dwight
Yoakam, Jared Lelo Dir: David Fincher
Blackhawk Down. 11/2. Act/Adv. Josh
Hartnett, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana Dir:
Ridley Scott.
National Security, November/December.
Martin Lawrence.
Riding in Cars With Boys. Nov/Dec.
Dra/Com, SDDS Drew Barrymore.
Steve Zahn, Adam Garcia, Sara Gilbert
Brittany Murphy, Peter Facinelli, Mansa
Ryan, Desmond Harrington Dir: Penny
Marshall,
Untitled Adam Sandler Animated
Holiday Movie (tormerly Whitey and
Davey), 12/14, SDDS Adam Sandler.
Dir: Seth Kearsley.
AH, December, Dra Will Smith, Jamie
Foxx, Jeffrey Wright, Mario Van
Peebles. Mykeln Wiiii.mr.o; Non.i
Gaye Dir: Michael Mann.
Spider-Man. 5/3/2002. SDDS
SDDS-8 Tobey Maguire. Willem Dafoe,
James Franco. Dir: Sam Raimi.
Men In Black 2, 7/3/02. SDDS.
Evolution. 7/13. Com. DTS. SDDS. SR
SRD. David Duchovny. Julianne Moore,
Orlando Jones, Seann William Scoff,
Dir: Ivan Reitman.
COMING:
Time Machine. 12/25, DTS. SDDS, SR,
SRD. Guy Pearce. Dir: Simon Wells
Collateral, 4th Atr. Thr, DTS, SDDS,
SR, SRD.
Actors, DTS, SDDS. SR, SRD.
After Man, DTS, SDDS, SRD.
Arkansas, DTS, SDDS, SRD.
Catch Me If You Can, Dra. DTS,
SDDS. SR. SRD.
Keeper. DTS, SDDS, SRD.
The Man Who Came to Dinner. DTS.
SDDS, SRD. Dir: Danny De Vito.
Neanderthal. DTS, SDDS, SRD.
Untitled Charles Lindbergh Project.
The Castle, 1/11/2002. DTS, SDDS.
SR. SRD. Dir: Rod Lurie.
Road to Perdition, Spring 2002. DTS.
SDDS, SR. SRD. Tom Hanks. Dir: Sam
Mendes.
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, 2002,
DTS. SDDS. SR, SRD. Dir: Kelly
Asbury and Lorna Cook.
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
Ghost World. Spring, Com, DTS,
SDDS, SR, SRD Thora Birch, Brad
Renfro. Dir: Terry Zwigoff.
Bandits (formerly Outlaws), August.
Rom/Com, DTS. SDDS. Bruce Willis.
Billy Bob Thornlon. Cate Blancheft. Dir:
Barry Levinson.
Legally Blonde, Summer, Com, DTS.
SDDS. Reese Witherspoon. Selma
Blair, Luke Wilson. Dir: Robert Lukelic
Rollerball, Summer, Act/Thr, DTS,
SDDS-8. Chris Klein. LL Cool J. Jean
Reno. Dir: John McTiernan
What's the Worst That Could
Happen?. Summer, Com. SDDS.
Martin Lawrence. Danny DeVito, John
Leguizamo. Dir: Sam Weisman.
Jeepers Creepers, Fall, Hor, SDDS.
Gina Philips, Justin Long. Dir: Victor
Salva.
Killing Me Softly. Fall. Erotic thriller.
DTS, SDDS Heather Graham, Joseph
Fiennes. Dir: Chen Kaige.
Pumpkin, Fall. Black comedy, SDDS.
Christina Ricci. Dir: Adam Broder &
Anthony Abrams.
Windtalkers. Thanksgiving. Act/Dra.
DTS. SDDS. Nicolas Cage. Christian
Slater Noah Emmerich Dir: John Woo.
Hart's War. Holiday, Dra, DTS, SDDS.
Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell Dir. Gregory
Hoblit.
Basic Instinct 2, DTS, SDDS Sharon
Stone.
CQ, Dra, SDDS. Jeremy Davies, Angelc
[ mi Iv, ill Floclie Bouchez, Billy Zane.
Dir: Roman Coppola.
Monster. Satiric table Sarah Polley,
Helen Mirren. Dir: Hal Hartley
Scary Movie 2, 7/4.
COMING:
Impostor, 1st Qtr, R. DTS. Mekf
Phiter, Gary Sinise. Madeleir
Tony Shalhoub, Vincent D'Onotri
Gary Fleder.
The Third Wheel. 1st Qtr.
Daddy and Them. 2nd Qtr, Con
SR, SRD. Laura Dern, Billy Bob
Thornton, Kelly Preston, Ben^'"
Diane Ladd. Dir: Billy Bob Thorn
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Bad
40 Days and 40 Nights. 8/24
Serendipity. August. John Cusa
Kate Beckinsale. Molly Shannon
Bridget Moynahan. Dir: Peter Ch
A View From the Top. 2nd Qlr
coin Comedy, Doc: - Documentary, Dra = Drama, Fa Hum Hom.inov Si S: v f

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i
If
It,
i
irowe
III
A
April, 2001
Century Fox
310-854-5811
323-956-5000
310-369-1000
818-777-1000
212-649-4900
212-373-7000
212-556-2400
212-445-3800 212-484-8000
LEASES SCHEDULED
lutes (aka Celebrity). 3/9.
r/Sus. R. DTS, SDDS. SRD,
Burns. Robert De Niro,
Grammer, Melina Kanakaredes.
hn Herzfeld
and Country. 3/16, Rom/Com, R
SDDS, SRD, Flat Warren Beatty,
Keaton, Goldie Hawn. Andie
well, Garry Shandling, Jenna
I Dir: Peter Chelsom.
Down to Earth (formerly I Was Made
Her), 2/16. SRD. Chris Rock,
a King. Dir: Chris & Paul Weitz.
March 2001:
Enemy at the Gates. 3/16. Dra. R.
DTS, SRD Jude Law. Ed Harris.
Rachel Weisz, Joseph Fiennes. Dir:
Jean-Jacques Annaud
Monkeybone, 2 23. Com, PG-13. 87
n. DTS. SR. SRD, Flat Brendan
Fraser, Whoopi Goldberg, Bridget
Fonda, Chris Kattan Dir Henry Selick
March 2001
Say It Isn't So, 3/16, Com, R. 93 min,
DTS SR, SRD, Flat Chris Klein,
Heather Graham, Sally Field, Richard
is, Jack Plotnick. Orlando Jones.
Dir: J.B Rogers.
ione Like You (formerly Animal
Husbandry). 3/30. 94 mm. DTS, SR,
SRD. Flat. Ashley Judd, Hugh Jackman
Greg Kinnear. Mansa Tomei. Ellen
Barkin Dir: Tony Goldwyn
Head Over Heels (formerly Untitled
Bob Simmonds Comedy), 2/2.
Rom/Com, DTS. SDDS, SRD. Freddie
i Jr. Monica Potter, China Chow,
Shalom Harlow, Ivana Milicevic, Sarah
O'Hare. Tomiko Fraser Dir Mark
l 2001
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
tine. 2/2. Hor.Thr. DTS. SDDS.
SR, SRD, Scope David Boreanaz.
Denise Richards. Dir: Jamie Blanks
( November. 2/16. Rom, PG-13,
DTS, SDDS, SR, SRD, Flat. Keanu
Reeves, Charlize Theron. Dir: Pat
O'Connor.
3.000 Miles to Graceland, 2/23, Act.
DTS. SDDS. SR, SRD, Scope Kevin
Costner, Kurt Russell. Courteney Cox
Dir: Damian Lichtenstein.
March 2001
See Spot Run. 3/2. Com. PG, DTS,
SDDS, SR. SRD David Arquette Dir
Whitsell.
The Dish. 3/14 LA/NY/Tor. DTS. SDDS.
SRD Sam Neill Dir: Rob Sitch
Exit Wounds. 3/16. Act. DTS. SDDS.
SR. SRD. Scope. Steven Seagal. DMX
Dir: Andrze) Bartkowiak.
JURRENT)
4/6. Dra, R. DTS, SRD, Scope.
Depp, Penelope Cruz, Ray
Ethan Suplee. Monet Mazur. Dii
Along Came a Spider, 4/13. DTS,
SRD Morgan Freeman, Monica Potter,
Michael Wincott. Mika Boorem, Dylan
Baker. Anton Yelchin Dir: Lee Tamahori
and the Pussycats, 4/6.
Mus/Com, DTS, SDDS. SRD. Rachael
Leigh Cook. Rosano Dawson, Tara
Reid, Parker Posey, Alan Cumming,
Gabriel Mann Dir Deborah Kaplan anc
Harry Elfont.
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, 4/27,
Rom/Dra, SDDS, SR. SRD Nicolas
Cage. Penelope Cruz, Christian Bale,
Hurt. Dir: John Madden.
luto Nash. 4/6, DTS. SDDS. SR.
RD. Flat. Eddie Murphy. Dir: Ron
Underwood.
Pokemon 3. 4/11. DTS, SDDS. SR. SRD.
Rock Star, 4/13. Com. R. DTS. SDDS.
SRD. Scope Mark Wahlberg. Jennifer
Aniston. Dir: Stephen Herek.
n (aka Champs). 4/27, DTS,
SDDS, SR, SRD. Sylvester Stallone, Til
Schweiger Dir: Renny Harlin.
ers. 5/18, Com. DTS, SDDS,
frevor Fehrman, Elden Henson,
Nv Lawrence. Martin Starr. Mary
rioore. Dir: Andrew Gurland.
ELEASES SCHEDULED
3.EASES SCHEDULED
'
2001
in Rouge, 5/4, PG-13, DTS, SR. The Mummy Returns, 5/4, Act/Adv,
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
SRD. Scope Nicole Kidman. Ewan
SDDS, SRD. Brendan Fraser.
McGregor. John Leguizamo. Dir: Baz Rachel Weisz. John Hannah, Oded
Fehr. The Rock. Arnold Vosloo. Dir:
Stephen Sommers.
12001:
Tomb Raider. 6/15, DTS, SRD,
Joyride (formerly Squelch), 6/1. Act, R, June 2001:
Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Jon Voight SR. SRD, Scope Leelee Sobieski,
Dir: Simon West.
Steve Zahn. Paul Walker. Dir: John
Dahl
Doctor Dolittle 2. 6 22. DTS. SR. SRD
Dir Rob Zombie
Scope Eddie Murphy. Knslen Wilson. The Fast and the Furious (aka Street
Raven Symone. Lit* Zane Dir: Steve Wars, Redline). 6/22, Act/Adv. SDDS,
NO RELEASES SCHEDULED
Carr
SR. SRD Vin Diesel, Paul Walker,
Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez,
le Dir: Rob Cohen.
-2001:
The Heist, 5/4. DTS. SDDS, SRD.
ican Outlaws. 518. DTS. SDDS,
SRD. Colin Farrell. Scott Caan. Dir: Les
Maytield.
Cats and Dogs. 5 25, DTS. SDDS.
SRD. Susan Sarandon. Tobey Maguire
Dir: Larry Guterman.
2001:
Swordfish. 6/8. DTS, SDDS. SR, SR
Scope John Travolta, Hugh Jackmar
Berry. Don Cheadle. Dir Domm
>/29. DTS. SDDS. SR. SRD. Fla
Law, Haley Joel Osment. Franc
O'Connor Dir Steven Spielberg.
July 2001
July 2001:
(around Guys. Spring. Dra, R,
BODS. SRD Dennis Hopper.
Utalkovich, Seth Green. Vin
. Barry Pepper Dir: David Levien
n Koppelman
Hour 2, 8/3. Com, DTS, SDDS,
Jackie Chan. Chris Tucker, Chris
Dir: Brett Ratner.
lX.8/17, Hor. R, DTS. SDDS,
Kane Hodder Dir: James Isaac.
1. 10/26. Dra, R. DTS. SDDS.
Snoop Dogg, Pam Grier, Michael
ss. Clifton Powell, Ricky Harris.
most Dickerson
ndltlonal Love Fall, Com, DTS,
I SRD Kalhy Bates, Rupert
Meredith Eaton, Dan Aykroyd.
J. Hogan
ord ol the Rings. 12/19. Fantasy.
SODS. SRD Elijah Wood. Cate
left, Sean Astm. Dominic
Jhan, Billy Boyd Dir: Peter
Ig and the Angry I
3DS. SRD Denzel
lert Duvall
ve, Com. DTS. SDDS.
TS. SDDS, SRD Al Pacino,
teener, Jason Schwartzman
The Score Robert De Niro, Edward
Norton. Marlon Brando. Angela Bassett
Dir: Frank Oz
Shooter, DTS Tommy Lee Jones. Dir:
William Friedkm
The Stand
Zoolander. SRD Ben Stiller, Owen
Wilson. Milla Jovovich, Jerry Stiller,
Ferrell Dir Ben Stiller.
Will
Kiss of the Dragon, 7/6, SR, SRD. Jet
Li. Dir Chris Nation
Planet of the Apes, 7.27, DTS, SR,
SRD Mark Wahlberg, Paul Giamatti,
Helena Bonham Carter Dir: Tim Burton
COMING:
All That Glitters. Fall, SR, SRD.
The Dubbed Action Movie: Enter tt
Fist. Fall, SR. SRD.
The Black Knight, 11/21 SR, SRD
Chris Tucker Dir: F Gary Gray
Behind Enemy Lines, SR. SRD Ge
Hackman, Owen Wilson, David Keith
Gabriel Macht Dir John Moore
Disaster Area. SR, SRD Vince
Vaughn Hn ii irotrj Zwarl
Fantastic Four, SR. SRD
From Hell Acl. SR. SRD Johnny
Depp. Ian Holm. Nigel Hawthorne
Heather Graham, Robbie Coltrane C
The Hughes Brothers
High Crimes SR, SRD Ashley Judc
Morq.in Freenvin flu r.irl Franklin
Little Beauty King SR. SRD.
Phone Booth
SR SRD
Jurassic Park 3, 7/18. Act/Adv, DTS
SDDS, SR, SRD Sam Neill, Alessandro
vola, Tea Leoni, William H Macy. Dir
COMING:
American Pie 2,
Ru
sell
Summer, Com, DTS,
i

J
'
Hor/Fan/Rom.
j Rutger
; Keep
i
Shapiro
•
Prescott,
BOXOFFICE Independent Charts
MARCH
Artisan
310-255-3716
Soul Survivors. Thr, PG-13, 90 min.
Casey Affleck, Eliza Dushku, Wes
Bentley. Dir: Steve Carpenter. 3/16
Cinema Village
i 212-431-5119
So Close to Paradise (China), Dra. 95
'
min, Wang Tong, Shi Yu. Dir: Wang
j
Xiaoshuai. 3/9
First Run
212-243-0600
The Gospel According to Philip K.
Dick, Doc, NR, 80 min. Philip K. Dick. Dir:
,
Mark Steensland, Andy Massagli. 3/2 NY
IDP
212-367-9435
Simon Magus (Fireworks Pictures),
Noah Taylor, Ian Holm,
Hauer. Dir: Ben Hopkins. 3/9
IFC
516-803-3000
the River on Your Right. Dir: David
III, Laurie Shapiro. 3/16 NY
Lions Gate
212-966-4670
Amores Perros. Emilio Echevarria,
Gael Garcia Bernal. 3/30 NY, 4/13 exp
The Body. Antonio Banders.
Lot 47
212-367-9435
Runway, 105 min. Hit & Michael
Parducci, Peter Jacobson, Judy
Kerr Smith. Dir: Christopher
Livingston. 3/2 NY/LA
Screen Gems
310-244-4000
The Brothers, Rom/Com, R, 97 min.
Morris Chestnut, Bill Bellamy, Shemar
Moore, D.L. Hughley. Dir: Gary
Hardwick. 3/23
Shooting Gallery
212-905-2000
When Brendan Met Trudy. 3/9
Too Much Sleep. 3/23
Sony Classics
212-833-8851
Me You Them. 3/2 NY/LA
Universal Focus
818-777-7715
The Caveman's Valentine. Neo-gothic
thriller, R, 142 min. Samuel L.
Jackson, Colm Feore, Ann Magnuson,
Aunjanue Ellis. Tamara Tunie, Anthony
Michael Hall. Dir: Kasi Lemmons. 3/2
NY/LA
USA
310-385-4400
Series 7: The Contenders. Brooke
Smithr. Dir: Daniel Minahan.
Viz/Tidepoint
415-512-1924
Made In Japan, Dra, NR, 115 min.
Tsutomu Yamazaki, Henry Sanada.
Dir: Yojiro Takita.
16 BOXOFFICE
Winstar
212-686-6777
The Circle, Dra. NR, 91 min.
Fereshteh Sadr Orafai, Nargess
Mamizadeh, Maryiam Parvin Almani.
Dir: Jafar Panahi. 3/9 NY, April LA/SF
Zeitgeist
212-274-1989
The Gleaners and I, Doc, NR, 84 min.
Dir: Agnes Varda. 3/7 NY
APRIL
Arrow
212-398-9511
Milk, 96 min. James Fleet, Phyllida
Law, Joss Ackland. Judith Scott. Dir:
William Brookfield. 4/7
Artisan
The Center of the World. 4/20 NY, 5/4 LA
Artistic License
2 12-265-91 19
The Girl. 4 6 NY
Cowboy
212-929-4200
On Hostile Ground.
First Look
310-855-1199
Chopper, Dra, NR, 94 min. Eric Bana.
Simon Lyndon, David Field. Dir:
Andrew Dominik. 4/11 NY
Fox Searchlight
310-369-4402
Kingdom Come, PG. Whoopi
Goldberg, Jada Pinkett Smith, LL Cool
J, Vivica A. Fox, Cedric "The
Entertainer," Dir: Doug McHenry. 4/27
IUP
Better than Sex (Fireworks). Com, 80
min. David Wenham, Susie Porter. Dir:
Jonathan Teplitzsky. 4/14
IFC
King Is Alive. Jennifer Jason Leigh,
Janet McTeer. Dir: Kristian Levring.
Kino
212-629-6880
Himalaya, Dra, NR, 1 04 min. Dir: Eric Valli.
Lions Gate
The Golden Bowl, Dra. Nick Nolte,
Uma Thurman, Anjelica Huston,
Jeremy Northam. Dir: James Ivory.
4/27, 5/18 exp
Lot 47
Russian Doll. Natalia Novikova, Hugo
Weaving. Dir: Stavros Kazantzidis. 4/13
New Yorker
212-247-6110
Smell of Camphor, Fragrance of
Jasmine, 93 min. Dir: Bahman
Farmanara. 4/1 3 NY, 4/27 LA
Phaedra
213-380-9323
Seducing Maarya Dra, NR, 107 min.
Nandana Sen, Cas Anvar, Vijay Mehta,
Ryan Holliman. Dr. Mohan Agashe. Dir:
Hunt Hoe.
Providence
818-728-9700
Extreme Days. Dante Basco, Ryan
Browning, A.J. Buckley, Derrick
Hamilton. Dir: Eric Hannah. 4/27
310-260-3333
Sordid Com, NR, Lives, 111 min.
Delta Burke, Bonnie Bedelia. Dir: Del
Shores. 4/6 LA/NY, 4/20 Dal/SF
Rialto
323-933-2733
Le Cercle Rouge (1970 reissue,
France), Act/Dra, 140 min. Alain Delon,
Yves Montand. Dir: Jean-Pierre Melville.
Screen Gems
Forsaken, Hor/Thr. Kerr Smith.
Brendan Feht, Izabello Miko, Jonathan
Schaech. Dir: J.S. Cardone. 4/27
Shooting Gallery
The Day I Became a Woman. 4/6
The Low Down. 4/20
Sony Classics
Shadow Magic. Dra. PG. Jared Harris.
Dir: Ann Hu. 4/6 NY/LA
The Luzhin Defense John Turturro,
Emily Watson. 4/27 NY/LA
The Princess and the Warrior. 4/27
NY/LA
Universal Focus
Beautiful Creatures, Com/Thr Rachel
Weisz, Susan Lynch. Dir: Bill Eagles.
4/6 NY/LA
Rat, Com. Emelda Staunton, Pete
Postlethwaite. Dir: Steve Barron. 4/27
Better Housekeeping (formerly Good
Housekeeping), Ft, 90 min. Bob Jay
Mills. Dir: Frank Novak.
USA
One Night at McCool's. Dra. Liv Tyler.
Matt Dillon, John Goodman, Paul
Reiser. Dir: Harald Zwart. 4/13
Maybe Baby. Hugh Laurie, Joely
Richardson. Dir: Ben Elton.
Arrow
The Piano Player. 112 min. Erika
Marozsan, Joachim Krol, Stefano
Dionisi. Dir:
Rolf Schubel.
Fine Line
212-649-4800
Domani. Ornella Muti, Valeria
Mastrandrea, Marco Baliani. Dir:
Francesca Archibugi. NY/LA
First Look
A Question of Faith, Dra, PG-13. 90
min. Bernard Hill, Paul Guilfoyle. Dir:
Tim Disney. 5/4
First Run
Petits Freres. Dra. 92 min. Stephanie
Touly, Hies Sefraoui. Dir: Jacques
Doillon. 5/18
IDP
Tortilla Soup. 5/4
Greenfingers 5/11
IFC
Our Song. Dir: Jim McKay. 5/23
Lions Gate
Bread and Roses. R. Pilar
Adrien Brody, Elpidia Carrillo.
Loach. 5/18
Lot 47
Fast Food, Fast Women. 9
Anna Thompson, Louise Lass
Amos Kollek. 5/4 NY/LA
Kill by Inches, 80 min. Em
Salinger, Myriam Cyr.
Master of the Flying Guil
Martial Arts, R, 109 min. Jimm\
Yu, Kim Kang, Tak Chi Chen.
The Story jry of ( O (remake), Erot
95 min. Danielle Ciardi, Neil D
Speedway Junky, Dra. R, 1
Daryl Hannah, Jonathan
Thomas, Jesse Bradford,
Brower. Dir: Nickolas Perry. LA/
Shadow
207-872-5111
Under the Sun (Sweden), Di
min. Helena Bergstrom, Rolf La:
Johan Widerberg. Dir: Colin
5/25 NY, 6/8 LA
Shooting Gallery
Eureka. 5/4
Sony Classics
The Road Home. Dra. G Zhai
Sun Honglei, Zheng Hao, Zhao
Li Bin. Dir: Zhang Yimou. 5/25 r
Strand
310-395-5002
Kiss of the Spider Woman (re
Dra, R, 1 1 6 min. William Hurt, Rai
Sonia Braga. Dir: Hector Babeno
Universal Focus
The Long Run, Dra. Armin I*
Stahl. Nthati Moshesh. Dir: Jean E
Pavilion of Women, Dra. Lu
Willem Dafoe. Dir: Yim Ho.
Winstar
Under the Sand, Dra, NR, 9
Charlotte Rampling, Bruno C
Dir: Francois Ozon. 5/4 NY/LA
JUNE
Fine Line
Invincible. Dra. Tim Roth. Dir
Herzog.
First Look
Bread & Tulips. Dra. NR. 10
Licia Maglietta. Bruno Ganz,
Massironi. Giuseppe Battistoi
Silvio Soldini. 6/22 NY
IFC
Together. Dir: Lukas Moodysso
Lions Gate
Songcatcher. Dra, PG-13,
Janet McTeer. Aidan Quinr
Maggie Greenwald.
Lot 47
Happenstance 6/15 NY/LA
C

,
Johnny
I
Anril
>lllll
"-
1 H
April, 200
Milestone
201-767-3117
Wide Blue Road, Ora. 98 mm
Montand. Alida Valli. Dir: Gillo
scorvo. 6-6 NY
Sony Classics
Her. 6 15 NY LA
Universal Focus
Man Who Cried. Dra. R. Christina
Depp, Cate Blanchett.
Sally Potter. 6/8
USA
Bver Happened to Harold Smith?.
m Courtenay. Dir: Peter Hewitt.
Viz/Tidepoint
I or Alive. Act/Dra. NR. 104 min.
Takenchi, Sho Aikawa. Dir:
Shi Miike.
Joh. Am. NR. 101 min. Dir:
|ruki Okiuna.
mtures of Felix. Rom/Com. NR.
pin. Sami Bouajila. Dir: Olivier
Stel. Jacques Martineau. 6/1
A/SF
Zeitgeist
jmba Dra. NR. 115 min. Eriq
aney. Dir: Raoul Peck. 6/27
Arrow
scret. 107 min. Anne Coesens.
Bompoil. Tony Todd Dir:
ie Wagon.
Fine Line
Versary Party. Com. R. Jennifer
Leigh. Alan Cumming. Gwyneth
v. Kevin Kline. Parker Posey,
er Beals. Dir: Jennifer Jason
Alan Cumming.
IFC
IBS in Love. Dir: Pierre-Paul Renders.
Lions Gate
ad Renfro.
Universal Focus
tly Sinatra Dra/Thr. Brian Cox.
Macdonald, Ian Hart. Tom
»gan Dir Peter Capaldi.
AUGUST
Fine Line
ping Dictionary Bob Hoskins.
da Blethyn Dir: Guy Jenkin.
Lot 47
Jowntown 8 4 NY LA
Screen Gems
i Henstridge, Pam Gner, Jason
i. Joanna Cassidy. Liam Waite
in Carpenter. 8/24
Universal Focus
On the Edge, Dra. Cillian Murphy.
Tricia Vessey, Johnathan Jackson.
Steven Rea. Dir: John Carney.
Becket on Film
SEPTEMBER
Fine Line
The Prime Gig, Dra, R. 95 mm. Vince
Vaughn. Ed Harris. Julia Ormond. Dir:
Gregory Mosher. 9/14 ltd, 10/5 exp
Lions Gate
Frailty. Matthew McConaughey. Dir:
Bill Paxton.
Regent
The Annihilation of Fish. Lynn
Redgrave. James Earl Jones, Margot
Kidder. Dir: Charles Burnette LA'NY
0CTGBER
Cowboy
In the Winter Dark. Dra. NR. 100 min.
Brenda Blethyn. Miranda Otto. Ray
Barrett. Richard Roxburgh. Dir: James
Bogle.
Fine Line
Human Nature. Com. Patricia
Arquette. Tim Robbins, Rhys Hans,
Rosie Perez. Dir: Michel Gondry.
Winstar
Sentimental Destinies 10 27
NOVEMBER
Fine Line
Ripley's Game Nov Dec
0ECEMBER
Winstar
Bay of Angels (restored)
Lola (restored).
COMING
Arrow
Jump. Dra. James LeGros. Amanda
Peet. Mike McGlone. lone Skye.
Jessica Hecht, Hal Linden. Dir: Justin
McCarthy.
Artisan
El Norte (reissue). Dra. R. 139 mm.
Zaide Silvia Gutierrez. Ernesto Gomez
Cruz. Dir: Gregory Nava
Cinema Guild
212-685-6242
The Charcoal People. Doc. NR. 70
mm. Dir: Nigel Noble Spring
A Trial In Prague. Doc. NR. 82 min
Dir: Zuzana Justman Spring
Oestination
310-434-2700
Buying the Cow. Rom/Com. R. 88
mm. Jerry OConnell, Bridgette Wilson.
Dir: Walt Becker.
Ring of Fire (formerly Cowboy Up).
Dra'Western, PG-13, 104 min. Kiefer
Sutherland, Daryl Hannah, Marcus
Thomas. Dir: Xavier Koller.
Slackers (formerly The Hook-Up.
Hooking Up Ethan, Untitled Dewey
Nicks film), Com, 86 min. Devon Sawa.
Jason Schwartzman, James King.
Laura Prepon. Dir: Dewey Nicks.
Empire
212-431-5119
Understanding Jane, Rom/Com. 99
min. Kevin McKidd, John Simm, Amelia
Curtis. Dir: Caleb Lindsay. Spring
Fine Line
Female Trouble (reissue). Divine. Dir:
John Waters.
Was Amelia Earhart Dir: Fred Schepisi.
Pimp. Ice Cube. Dir: Bill Duke.
The Ring.
First Run
Light Keeps Me Company. Doc. NR,
76 min. Sven Nykvist. Dir: Carl-Gustav
Nykvist.
Fox Searchlight
Sexy Beast. Dra. Ray Winstone, Ben
Kingsley. Dir: Jonathan Glazer. Spring
One Hour Photo. Robin Williams,
Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan. Dir:
Mark Romanek. Summer
Super Troopers. Summer
Chinese Coffee. R
Hard Men (U.K.), Dra, R. Vincent
Regan. Ross Boatman, Lee Ross. Dir:
J.K. Amalou.
IDP
Jails Hospitals and Hip-Hop, Dra. 90
min. Danny Hoch. Dir: Danny Hoch.
905-403-6500
All Access (formerly American Road),
Doc, 60 min. Santana. Sting, Sheryl
Crow, B.B. King, Rob Thomas, Macy
Gray, Kid Rock, Moby, Dave Matthews,
George Clinton & P-Funk.
China: The Panda Adventures, Dra,
45 mm. Maria Bello. Dir: Robert M.
Young.
323-650-0832
Wetonkawa Flash, Com. Kevin Tighe,
Mark Boone Jr. Dir: Boyd Hale and
Wendy Hopkins. Spring
Kit Parker
800-538-5838
The Last Wave. Thr, PG. 106 min.
Richard Chamberlin Dir: Peter Weir.
The River (1951, Reissue). Dra. 99
mm Patricia Walters. Nora Swinburne.
Dir: Jean Renoir
Lions Gate
Vulgar Brian O'Halloran. Bryan
Johnson Summer
The Weight of Water Sean Penn.
Catherine McCormack Fall
The Whole Shebang
New Latin
800-538-5838
Mexican Melodramas (series).
Palm
312-751-0020
The Criminal. DraThr. 98 mil
Mackintosh, Natasha Little. Edd
Izzard. Dir: Julian Simpson.
The Last Minute. Dra. 100 mi
Stephen Norrington.
Lock Down, Dra, R, 105 min. Mast
P, Richard T. Jones, Bill Nunn, Gabri
Dir: John Luessenhop.
Paramount Classics
323-956-5000 212-373-7000
My First Mister. Dra Albert Brook:
Leelee Sobieski. Dir:
L.ii'li
Screen Gems
How To Make Your Man Behave
Ten Days Or Less. Rom/Com. Viv
A. Fox. Dir: Mark Brown. Fall
Lone Star State of Mind. Joshu;
Jackson. James King. Dir: Da
Semel. Fall
The Mothman Prophecies, T
Richard Gere. Dir: Mark Pellington
Seventh Art
323-845-1455
Always a Bridesmaid, Doc. 90 rr
Dir: Nina Davenport. Spring
Rage: 20 Years of West Coast Punk
Doc. Dir: Michael Bishop & Scot
Jacoby. Spring
Songs for Cassavetes. Doc. 90 mini
Dir: Justin Mitchell. Spring
Sugihara Conspiracy -
of Kindness
Doc. 99 mm. Dir: Robert Kirk. Spring
Won't Anybody Listen?
Shooting Gallery
Burning Man. Spring
Trimark
310-314-3040
Skipped Parts, Com, R, 100 mm
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bug Hall
Mischa Barton, Brad Renfro. Drew
Barrymore. Dir: Tamra Davis.
Universal Focus
The Final Curtain. Com. Peter OToole
Rhys Ifans. Dir: Pat Harkins. Fall
The Parole Officer, Com. Stev-
Coogan. Dir: John Duigan. Fall
USA
Possession. Gwyneth Paltrow, Aaroi
Eckhart, Jeremy Northam. Jennifei
Ehle. Dir: Neil LaBute. Fall
Session 9. David Caruso, Josh Lucas
Peter Mullan, Brendon Sexton III. Dir
Brad Anderson. Fall
Untitled Coen Brothers Project Bill; \
Bob Thornton, Frances McDormani
James Gandolfini, Jon Polito. Dir: Joe
Coen. Fall
Bloody Angels Reidar Sorensen. Dir
Karin Julsrud.
Resurrection Man Stuart Townsend
James Nesbitt. Sean McGinley.
Brenda Fricker. Dir: Marc Evans.
Snarl Up Dir: Michael Winterbottom
Thursday Thomas Jane. Aaron
Eckhart. Mickey Rourke. Glenr
Plummer. Dir: Skip Woods.
What Rats Won't Do
Rom'Com. Natascha McElhone.
James Frain. Charles Dance. Parker
Posey. Dir: Alastair Reid
Zeitgeist
The Turandot Project Doc, NR t
mm Dir Allan Miller. Spring
Downtown 81, Dl
Jean-Michel Basquiat. Deborah !
Dir: Edo Bertoglio Summer

MAY
TRAILERS
The Summer Season Starts Heating Up
The summer season seems to start earlier each year, culminating
last year with the May 5 bow of DreamWorks
"Gladiator," which vaulted Russell Crowe to super stardom
and became one of the biggest hits not only of the summer
but of the year, grossing $186.7 million domestically and
$470.7 million worldwide. Three weeks later, Paramount's
"Mission: Impossible 2" came out, going on to earn $215.4
million domestically and $545.4 million worldwide. These
two pictures remained the top grossers of 2000 until the very
end of the year, ultimately toppling to "Dr. Seuss' How the
Grinch Stole Christmas."
crazy/beautiful
Kirsten Dunst ("Get Over It")
stars in this teen romance as the
troubled daughter of a wealthy
congressman who defies her
family by flirting with a Latino
boy who commutes two hours by
bus every day to attend her prestigious
school. Soon, their relationship
escalates into first love,
and her self-destructive behavior
threatens the ambitious, straight-
A student. Newcomer Jay
Hernandez co-stars, as do Taryn
Manning, Rolando Molina,
Lucinda Jenney and Bruce
Davison ("X-Men"). John
Stock well (TV's "Cheaters")
directs as well as scripts with Phil
Hay, Matt Manfredi and Lizzy
Weiss; Mary Jane Ufland ("Not
Without My Daughter"), Harry
Ufland ("Snow Falling on
Cedars") and Rachel Pfeffer ("A
Civil Action") produce. (Buena
Vista, 5/4)
the lessons he learns in the joint
to reinvent himself as a tough
guy at his new school across
town. That is, until his old
nemesis uncovers his secret
identity. Eliza Dushku ("Soul
Survivors"), Zooey Deschanel
("Almost Famous"), Lyle Lovett
("Cookie's Fortunte") and Eddie
Griffin ("Double Take") co-star.
Screenwriter Ed Decter
("There's Something About
Mary") directs his debut from a
script by David Kendall; Todd
Garner (an executive producer
on "Tomcats"), Gordon Gray
and Mark Ciardi produce.
(Columbia, 5/4)
Exploitips: Geared toward
the same demo as this week's
"crazy/beautiful" and "Texas
Rangers," "The New Guy" has
a slight advantage with the teen
set in that it's a comedy, a genre
that tends to play better than
straight romances or epic
Westerns. MediaTrip.com,
which contains "New Guy"
summary information, sponsored
a casting contest for
speaking roles in the film and
profiles the winners as well as
the cheerleading squads featured
in it.
Disney's "Dinosaur" was also in the year's top ten, collecting
$137.7 million stateside and $347.8 million overseas.
Other decent earners were DreamWorks' gross-out comedy
"Road Trip" ($68.5 million) and Buena Vista's "Shanghai
Noon" ($56.9 million). The month was also known for some
high-profile stinkers, particularly the sci-fi epic "Battlefield
Earth," which had a budget of $73 million but earned just
$27.1 million worldwide.
This May, the summer season bows with the release of
"The Mummy Returns," Universale sequel to the 1999 hit
that grossed over $150 million despite being in the same
timeframe as "The Phantom Menace." Also on the fourth,
Buena Vista is "crazy/beautiful," Columbia introduces "The
New Guy," Fox performs at the "Moulin Rouge," Miramax
calls in the "Texas Rangers," and Warner Bros, plans a
"Heist." A week later, Columbia trumpets the arrival of a
"Swan."
On the 18th, DreamWorks reads the fairy tale "Shrek,"
New Line suspects "Cheaters" and Warner Bros, puts out a
warrant for "American Outlaws." And over the fourth weekend
in May, Buena Vista remembers the bombing of "Pearl
Harbor" while Warner Bros, walks its "Cats and Dogs." Also
sometime this month, DreamWorks attempts to break "The
Curse of the Jade Scorpion."
In addition, BOXOFFICE talks to Oded Fehr, who returns
along with "The Mummy," and Doug Yellin, a reluctant fan of
"*N Sync." Annlee Ellingson
Exploitips: When this project
was announced, "crazy/beautiful,"
at the time known as "At
17," was described as a cross
between "Love Story" and
"Rebel Without a Cause."
The New Guy
In
this teen comedy, DJ Quails
("Road Trip") stars as a social outcast
who gets himself expelled
and then thrown in jail but uses
Moulin Rouge
Ewan McGregor ("Star Wars:
Episode I—The Phantom
Menace") and Nicole Kidman
("Eyes Wide Shut") star in this
"reinvention of the musical
form" as an innocent poet who
is swept up in the Bohemian
underworld of 1899 Paris and
the popular courtesan with
Celebrate the pic's cross-cultural
themes by hosting a teen dance, whom he falls in love. John
Leguizamo ("Summer of Sam")
high schools from both
inviting
co-stars. Baz Luhrmann
sides of the tracks.
("Romeo + Juliet") writes,
directs and produces; his writing
partner Craig Pearce also
scripts; and his producing partner
Martin Brown also produces
with Fox executive Fred
Baron. (Fox, 5/4)
18 BOXOH K I

I
MM ATLANTIS
i f i r: I . < > •-.
EMPIRE
It isn't Summer without a blockbuster
Disney hit and a IIershevs promotion:
EXCLUSIVE OFFER!
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Exploitips: According to Luhrmann,
"Moulin Rouge" (unrelated to the 1 952 lohn
Huston movie or the other four movies by
the same name) is the third in a cinematic
trilogy, "Strictly Ballroom" and "Romeo +
Juliet" being the first two installments. Book
these as midnight features in the weeks leading
up to his latest release. "Moulin Rouge"
» ill mature contemporary music— that may
include spoken words to a melody a la
Luhrmann's "Everybody's Free to Wear
Sunscreen"— in a historic setting and other
anachronisms. It is also reportedly loosely
based on the Orpheus in the Underworld
myth. Luhrmann's album "Something for
Everybody, " the Orpheus text and literature
on the Moulin Rouge, a popular Parisian
nightclub (think this century's Studio 54),
are among the many tie-ins you could have
on display in the lobby during this release.
Finally, dress your employees in the
Bohemian style of the last turn of the century.
Fox delayed the release of "Moulin
Rouge" from its original holiday timeframe
to give Luhrmann more time in post.
Texas Rangers
James Van Der Beek ("Varsity Blues") and
Dylan McDermott (TV's "The Practice") lassoed
the leads in this historical Western about
a ragtag posse of cowboys who band together
atter the Civil War to clean up the West.
Rachael Leigh Cook ("Josie and the
Pussycats"), Ashton Kutcher ("Dude, Where's
My Car?"), Robert Patrick (TV's "X-Files"),
Randy Travis ("Black Dog") and Usher
Raymond ("Light It Up") round off the cast.
Steve Miner ("Lake Placid") directs a script by
John Milius ("Clear and Present Danger") and
Ehren Kruger ("Scream 3"); Alan Greisman
("Fletch Lives") and Frank Price ("Circle of
Friends") produce. (Miramax, 5/4)
Exploitips: In a role for which he was paid
$200,000, Van Der Beek led "Varsity Blues"
to an unexpected $50-plus million, and his
hot-ticket status resurrected "Texas Rangers"
from development hell. The pic had originally
been set up years ago at Columbia, where
it was expected to be the last film by director
Sam Peckinpah. It then moved to Savoy
Pictures, where it was intended to be the startup's
first big picture in 1993. Once Van Der
Beek was attached (this time for a low sevenfigure
sum), though, interest in the script resurfaced,
and Dimension Films picked it up. But
upon completion, the pic has been sitting on
the shelf for over a year. Promote this Western
by dressing your staff up in boots, chaps and
spurs and offering discounts to patrons who
do likewise. See BOXOFFICE's interview with
Van Der Beek in the April 2000 issue.
The Heist
David Mamet ("State and
Main") writes and directs
this crime drama about a
crew of highly skilled thieves
who follow their leader on
one last big heist, hoping to
receive the money owed
them from a previous robbery.
Gene Hackman
Danny De Vito
("Breakers"),
("Drowning Mona"), Delroy
Lindo ("Cone in 60
Seconds"), Sam Rockwel
("Charlie's Angels") and
Mamet regulars Ricky Jay
and Rebecca Pidgeon star.
Art Linson ("Fight Club"), Elie Samaha
("3,000 Miles to Craceland") and Andrew
Stevens ("The Caveman's Valentine")
produce.
(Warner Bros., 5/4)
Exploitips: After dabbling in other genres—period
drama "Winslow Boy" and
industry satire "State and Main"—Mamet's
"The Heist" marks a return for the writerdirector
to his earlier heist movies, "House
of Games" and "Glengarry Glen Ross."
"The Heist" will likely play to a similar
niche audience, so program an afternoon
retrospective of his work the weekend of
this pic's release.
The Mummy Returns
Brendan Fraser reunites with co-stars
Rachel Weisz and John Hannah and
writer-director Stephen Sommers for this
action-adventure sequel set 10 years after
the original. It is 1935, and adventurer
Rick O'Connell (Fraser) and Evelyn
(Weisz) have gotten married and settled
down in London to raise their nine-yearold
boy. Entombed at the British Museum,
the mummy Imhotep resurrects, walking
the earth once more in a quest to achieve
immortality. But the worst is yet to come:
Anck-su-Namun, Imhotep's love, has also
risen and is after the O'Connells' boy
because she believes he is the key to reincarnating
the Egyptian Cod Isis. Wrestler
The Rock and newcomer Freddie Boath
join "Mummy" veterans Oded Fehr,
Arnold Vosloo and Patricia Velasquez.
"The Mummy's" James Jacks and Sean
Daniel produce. (Universal, 5/4)
Exploitips: Opening a week before
"Star Wars: Episode I— The Phantom
Menace, "
"The Mummy" took the industry
by surprise when it bowed with a
record-breaking opening gross of $43 million,
going on to earn more than $414
million worldwide. Invite local wrestling
fans to see WWF poster boy
The Rock in his first major
film role, offering dollar discounts
to those wearing
Rock merchandise. Two
weeks after "The Mummy
Returns'" release, the WWF
has a pay-per-view event
i
scheduled. Using digital in
ema technology, dedicate
an auditorium to this broadi
ast mm h like I .muni'*
Players has done to great
success in Canada—following
ii up with a screening of
The Mummy Returns." See
\i foi s Studio page 22.
A Question of Faith
Written and directed by Tim Disney (yes,
that Disney), "A Question of Faith" is
set in
a monastery in California wine country.
When one of the brothers experiences a
miracle, the monks must grapple with the
conflicts between faith and reason. Bernard
Hill ("Titanic"), Paul Guilfoyle ("Random
Hearts"), Daniel Von Bargen ("Disney's The
Kid"), Naveen Andrews ("The English
Patient") and Joe Spano star. Bill Haney produces.
(First Look, 5/4)
Exploitips: Nominated for the Grand Jury
Prize at Sundance last year,
Disney, who is
Walt's grandnephew and Roy's son, specifically
didn't want his family name to play a
role in the production of the indie, citing
the associations— both positive and negative—attached
to the brand name.
Tortilla Soup
Hector Elizondo ("Runaway Bride") stars
in this English-language remake of Ang
Lee's "Eat Drink Man Woman" transplanted
to the Latino community in Los Angeles. A
master chef and the father of three unmarried
women, his character has lost his sense
of taste but not his zest for life,
attracting the
attention of an attractive grandmother in his
neighborhood. Raquel Welch co-stars.
Maria Ripoll ("Twice Upon a Yesterday")
directs a script by Vera Blasi ("Woman on
Top"); John Bard Manulis ("The Basketball
Diaries") produces. (IDP, 5/4 ltd)
Exploitips: "Tortilla Soup" is a co-production
with Starzi Encore Entertainment,
which will premiere it on cable after a theatrical
run. "Eat Drink Man Woman" is
known for its elaborate tantalizing feasts.
Collaborate with a local Mexican-American
chef to sell dinner-and-a-movie packages
that include a multi-course meal either onsite
or at a nearby restaurant. Altemath el)
add tortilla soup to the concession menu.
Fast Food, Fast
Set in a Manhattan coffee shop, this
romantic comedy follows the twists and
turns in the love lives of the diner's patrons
and world-weary waitress on the eve of her
35th birthday. Anna Thomson, Jamie Harris
and Louise Lasser star. Israeli helmei \m«.s
Kollek writes and directs; Hengameh
Panahi produces. (Lot 47, 5/4)
Exploitips: Lot 47 picked up 'Fast Food,
Fast Women and three others including
'Chunhyang after Cannes at which BOX-
OFFICE gave three stars in the Septembei
it
2000 issue saying "( harming well-acted
and tauth made 'Fast Food, Fasl Women
nevertheless seems like slightl) fluff) fare.

I
do
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According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,
"Schneider Super-Cinelux Lenses
significantly improve the quality of the
cinema viewing experience."
And Udo, Hildegard, Karl, Rait and Norbert have the Awards to prove it!
Academy Awards tor Scientific and Technical achievements tor the
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enjoyed
Actor's Studio: Oded Fehr, "The Mummy Returns"
In "The Mummy," Oded Fehr, as the desert warrior Ardeth
Bay, was meant to bite the dust, dispatched by a swarm of
badly bandaged resurrected horrors. Luckily someone noticed
that he looked much too good to die, so his death scene was
axed and a scene was added at the end of the smash-hit
action-adventure. He was able to ride off, glamorously intact,
toward the horizon. Now he's able to ride on back with more
screen time in "The Mummy Returns."
"I'm very happy I didn't die," says the 30-year-old Israeli-born
the
actor, trying to neatly recount what Ardeth will be up to in
sequel without giving away too much of the complicated plot.
Over the course of six months last year, he was reunited with
writer-director Stephen Sommers, stars Brendan Fraser, Rachel
Weisz and )ohn Hannah, in addition to Patricia Velasquez and
Arnold Vosloo as the ancient Egyptians who refuse to stay in
their tombs, and most of the same production personnel.
Fehr worked hard to improve his horseback riding skills
as to do more of his own stunts in a huge battle scene against
nine-foot creatures, which took about a month to shoot in the
Moroccan desert. Stunt men stood in for the creatures, later
added by digital special effects, but no one was standing in for
Fehr during scary stuff like when he had to "rear up his horse
or charge down a sand dune with 200 extras behind me who
didn't necessarily know how to control their horses. ..or lean
out from the saddle to pull up a sword stuck in the ground."
Fehr actually felt more confident on horseback than acting
out another fight sequence, shot in England on a London double-decker
bus. "When you see it with the creature I'm fighting
edited in, it's fine, but it was so difficult to do with nothing there
to actually fight with. We worked out the routine beforehand,
but it's difficult to find the energy and to throw yourself about
with nothing pushing or attacking you. It
just looks hilarious."
Fehr says the sequel contains in full measure "all the fun
things audiences like about the original—the action, the comedy,
the romance and the beautiful, beautiful shots of the desert."
The stern-visaged Ardeth is even allowed to show a glimmer of
Eureka
In this lapanese drama, shot in black and
white, a crazed killer hijacks a city bus. Only
three people survive: the driver and a brother
and sister. Subsequently left by his wife, the
bus driver reunites with the children with
whom he shared the horrific experience, discovering
that their father has died in a car accident
and their mother has abandoned them.
But the killings still
haunt them, even as they
pile into an old bus to travel the country, until
they each come to terms with the horror they
shared. Koji Yakusho ("Shall We Dance?"), Aoi
Miyazaki and Masaru Miyazaki star. Shinji
Aoyama ("Shady Grove," "An Obsession")
writes and directs; Takenori Sento and Philippe
Avril produce. (Shooting Gallery, 5/4)
Exploitips: A daunting 220 minutes in
length, "Eureka" won the FIPRESCI Award
and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at
Cannes last year.
Under the Sand
Charlotte Rampling ("The Wings of the
Dove") stars in this French romance as a
comfortably married middle-aged woman
looking forward to a holiday at her country
home. One day on the beach, her husband
goes for a swim while she naps on shore.
When she wakes up, he's gone, and when
neither lifeguards nor the police can find
him, she's forced to return to her life in Paris
not knowing his fate, consumed by memories
of her beloved. Veteran actor Bruno
Cremer co-stars. Francois Ozon ("Water
Drops on Burning Rocks") writes and
directs; "Water Drops on Burning Rocks'"
Olivier Delbosc and Marc Missonnier produce.
(Winstar, 5/4 NY/LA)
so
a smile at moments as his relationship
with the now-married
Rick and Evelyn O'Connell is
much warmer and closer.
Fehr performed for his family a
bit as kid but initially "disregarded"
acting as a career. "I was
very practical. I'm still very practical,"
he explains, reasoning
that his nature didn't seem right
for the profession. He worked
briefly in his dad's business in
Germany but signed up for "a
silly, simple acting course." That
led to a few stage roles locally.
With his family's support, he
moved to England to study at the
Bristol Old Vic Theatere School.
These days he's working with a
voice coach to learn different
accents in the hopes that he can
I OF PREY: Oded Fehr
stars in 'The Mummy Returns.
avoid the typecasting that often straightjackets foreign actors.
Since first turning neads as Ardeth in 1999, Fehr played an
Italian stud in the broad farce "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo."
"A lot of people wondered why I did that because it is a very
silly movie, but I that it enabled people to see me as
something completely different than very dark, very brooding,"
he says, hoping that his expanded role in "The Mummy
Returns" will likewise increase his visibility as a versatile artist.
— Bridget Byrne
"The Mummy Returns." Starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel
Weisz, John Hannah, The Rock, Freddie Boath, Oded Fehr,
Arnold Vosloo and Patricia Velasquez. Directed and written
by Stephen Sommers. Produced by James Jacks and Sean
Daniel. A Universal release. Action-adventure. Not yet rated.
Opens 5/4.
Exploitips: On a weekend packed to the
gills with sincere art-house fare, "Under
the Sand" will be vying for the same demographic
as "Sexy Beast" and especially
"Tortilla Soup." Cross-promote these titles
with trailers to encourage patrons to come
back or even stay for a double feature.
Trumpet of the Swan
In this animated adaptation of the E.B.
White book, a mute trumpeter swan
named Louis learns to communicate using
a trumpet stolen from a music store and,
with the help of a human boy, learns to
read and write and eventually woo a beautiful
she-swan called Serena. Jeffrey
Schoeny, )ason Alexander ("The
Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle"), Reese
Witherspoon ("American Psycho"), Mary
Steenburgen (TV's "Noah's Ark"), Seth
Green ("Josie and the Pussycats"), Carol
Burnett and Joe Mantegna ("Liberty
Heights") voice. Richard Rich ("The King
and I") directs; Paul J. Newman and Lin
Oliver produce. (Columbia, 5/11)
Exploitips: Encourage local schoolteachers
and bookstores to read this title to kids
during their story times in the weeks leading
up to this release, which appears to originally
have been intended to be straight-tovideo,
and collaborate with a nearby bookstore
to promote both the book and the film.
If space allows, set up a pen in your parking
/< )( and invite your community petting zoo
to bring swans in to introduce to your
younger patrons on opening weekend.
Calle 54
Fernando Trueba ("Belle Epoque") writes,
directs and produces this documentary
about Latino jazz that features appearances
by Tito Puente, Jerry Gonzales, Chano
Dominguez, Eliane Eli'as, Chico O'Farrill,
Bebo Valdes and his son Chucho, Gato
Barbieri, Paquito D'Rivera, Michel Camilo
and Orlando "Puntilla" Rios, using digital
video to capture snapshots of the musicians
and 35mm and Steadicam cameras to photograph
intimate, live in-studio performances.
(Miramax, 5/11 ltd)
Exploitips: Collaborate with a nearby
music store to set up a display of these
musicians' albums both there and in your
lobby, and play their music over your PA
system before the show begins. Invite local
musicians and fans to an afternoon double
bill of "Calle 54" and "Buena Vista Social
Club," Wim Wenders' recent documentary
on the Cuban music scene.
Greenfingers
Clive Owen ("Croupier") stars in this
comedy-drama loosely based on real events
as a convicted murderer nearing the end of
his term who's chosen to participate with
four other inmates in an experimental rehabilitation
program in gardening. Discovered
by England's most famous horticulturalist,
they are invited to compete in the Hampton
Court Palace Flower Show. Helen Mirren
("The Heist") and David Kelly ("Waking
Ned Devine") co-star. Joel Hershman
("Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me") writes and
directs; Travis Swords ("Hold Me, Thrill Me,
Kiss Me") and Daniel J. Victor produce.
(IDP, 5/1 1
ltd)

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Exploitips: Reviewing it at Toronto in the
December 2000 issue. BOXOFFICE gave
"Creentingers" two stars, saying it "is
straight out of the Hollywood feel-good
school of filmmaking, with simple homilies,
an upbeat finale and positive values
about making something of oneself. It certainly
has none of the complexity of
'Croupier,' Owen's last film. 'Creentingers'
may be based on a true story, but it feels
inauthentic.
Shrek
In this fractured fairy tale, animated in
CGI, an ornery, smelly Ogre named Shrek
grows annoyed as his secluded swamp is
overrun by fairy tale creatures—blind
mice; a big, bad wolf; homeless pigs; and
the like—who have been banished from
the kingdom by the evil Lord Farquaad.
Determined to regain peace and quiet,
Shrek makes a deal with Farquaad to rescue
Princess Fiona from a fire-breathing
dragon to be his bride with the help of a
wisecracking Donkey. But just when they
think the hard part's over, Fiona reveals a
deep, dark secret she's been hiding. Mike
Myers ("Austin Powers: The Spy Who
Shagged Me"), Eddie Murphy ("Pluto
Nash"), Cameron Diaz ("Invisible
Circus") and )ohn Lithgow (TV's "3rd
Rock From the Sun") voice the characters.
Andrew Adamson and Victoria Jenson
direct; "The Road to El Dorado's" Ted
Elliott and Terry Rossio script based on
William Steig's children's book; Aron
Warner ("Antz") and John Williams
("Seven Years in Tibet") produce.
(DreamWorks, 5/18)
Exploitips: DreamWorks had pacted with
Imax Corp. to release "Shrek" in large-format
3-D six months after its initial theatrical
run, but the deal fell apart when it became
clear that the transfer would be too expensive.
In its biggest promotional campaign
Cheaters
In this comedy, four high school buddies
turn cheating on tests into an art form
but lose their friendship in the process.
Trevor Fehrman, Elden Henson ("O"),
Matthew Lawrence ("Family Tree"),
Martin Starr (TV's "Freaks and Geeks') and
Mary Tyler Moore (TV's "Mary and
Rhoda") star. Andrew Gurland ("Frat
House") writes and directs based on his
own experiences; his managers Chris
Bender and J.C. Spink, who both executive
produced "Cats & Dogs," produce
with A.I. Dix. (New Line, 5/18)
Exploitips:
Host an afternoon screening
for local classrooms. School administrators
may view the film's themes as subversive,
but sell the consequences the boys suffer as
a teaching tool.
American Outlaws
Colin Farrell ("Tigerland")
stars in this Western
as Jesse James, the legendary
American outlaw
who here confronts the corrupt
railroad that has
underhandedly captured
the deeds to Midwest
a
townspeople's homesteads.
The gang ends up wanted
by the law but revered by
the public. Scott Caan
("Gone in 60 Seconds"), AM
Larter ("Final Destination"),
Timothy Dalton (TV's
"Cleopatra") and Kathy
the studio has partnered with Burger
ever,
King, Baskin-Robbins, Heinz, Chevron,
American Licorice and McFarlane Toys, Bates ("Unconditional Love") co-star. Les
which has created 40 different action figures
Mayfield ("Blue Streak") directs a script
by John Rogers; James G. Robinson
in addition to interactive toys, play
("Chill Factor") and Bill Gerber (an executive
sets, stuffed animals and beanies. (A brief
casting note: Chris Farley had been tapped
producer on "Get Carter") produce.
(Warner Bros., 5/18)
to voice Shrek and even completed a 15-
minute test animation but passed away Exploitips: A genre that used to be a staple
in the industry, Westerns today are few
before completing the film, so Myers
stepped in.)
and far between— probably for good reason
(except in the case of
"Wild Wild West," which
was a hybrid between an
oater and sci fi and so not
necessarily a fair comparison).
The $45 million-budgeted
"All the Pretty
Horses," for example,
earned just $15 million.
Ironically, then, "American
Outlaws" bows just two
weeks after Miramax's longon
-the-shelf
"Texas
Rangers " also starring a
young, hip cast. Have your
employees resurrect their
i haps and spurs from that
release to dress up for this
one as well.
Petits Freres
In this French drama by "Ponette" writerdirector
Jacques Doillon, a 13-year-old girl
runs away from home and befriends some
adolescent boys she meets in the tough
projects near Paris. Stephanie Touly, Hies
Sefraoui and Mustapha Goumane star.
Marin Karmitz ("Blue," "White," "Red")
produces. (First Run, 5/18)
Exploitips: Double-bill "Petits Freres"
with "Ponette," Doillon's 1996 tragicomedy
about a little girl whose mother dies.
Bread and Roses
Documentarian Ken Loach ("My Name
Is Joe," "Carta's Song") directs this drama
set in Los Angeles about a Mexican immigrant
who cleans office buildings downtown.
A charismatic union organizer convinces
her to form a union for janitors, but
her peers are hesitant to join, fearing losing
their jobs or, worse, deportation. Mexican
theatre actress Pilar Padilla, Adrien Brody
("Liberty Heights") and Elpidia Carrillo
("Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at
Her") star. Loach collaborators Paul Laverty
and Rebecca O'Brien script and produce,
respectively. (Lions Gate, 5/18)
Exploitips: "Bread and Roses" was nominated
for a Palme d'Or at Cannes, where
BOXOFFICE gave it 3.5 stars in the August
2000 issue, calling it "powerful, occasional
Iv didactic but deeply resonant."
MAY 25
Pearl Harbor
Ben Affleck reunites with his
"Armageddon" director Michael Bay and
producer Jerry Bruckheimer in this war
romance set in the months leading up to the
bombing of Pearl Harbor, which marked the
United States' entry into World War II.
Affleck is Rafe McCawley, a daring young
pilot in the Army Air Corps who learned to
fly in crop-dusting planes with his buddy
Danny Walker ("O's" Josh Hartnett). Rafe
falls in love with Navy nurse Fvelyn Stewart
("The Golden Bowl's" Kate Beckinsalc) but
is soon separated from her when he leaves
to fight on the European front. When Evelyn
and Danny, now stationed in sunny Hawaii,
receive word that Rafe has been killed, they
find solace in each other's arms. But on the
eve of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Rafe
returns. Cuba Gooding Jr. ("Men of Honor"),
Tom Sizemore ("Red Planet"), Jon Voight
("Varsity Blues"), Colm Feore ("Caveman's
Valentine"), Dan Aykroyd ("The House of
24 Bo.\oi-M( i

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26 BoxoH-icT
•
. navigate
i
I
<
Mirth") and Alec Baldwin ("State and Main")
co-star. Randall Wallace ("Brave-heart")
scripts, (Buena Vista, 5/25)
Exploitips: Purportedly the most expensive
film ever greenlighted ("Titanic" was
given the go-ahead in the $90 million-SWO
million range before it ballooned to a
rumored $200 million), "Pearl Harbor" was
shaved down to $130 million$135 million
when Bruckheimer and Bay agreed to forfeit
their up-front fees until the film had
turned a profit, as did Affleck. Other costcutting
measures included the deferment of
salaries on the part of below-the-line crew
members and special-effects provider IIM,
the building ot partial sets and the digital
addition tit ships and planes in battles
scenes. Bruckheimer set the tone for the
shoot by hosting an elaborate memorial service,
including "Taps," flowers and P-40
Warhawks flyovers, on the first day of production.
Emulate the move by inviting
World War II vets, especially Pearl I larbor
survivors, and their families to a special
opening-weekend screening and hosting
matinees for local classrooms studying the
event. See BOXOFFICE's interviews with
Affleck, Beckinsale, Hartnett, Bay and
Bruckheimer in this month's cover story.
Cats and Dogs
This action-adventure comedy blends live
action with CGI and animatronic effects
bring to life the high-tech, secret war being
waged in neighborhoods everywhere
between the two great armies of cats and
dogs. Here, the cats have discovered thai
scientist lias invented a vaccine that will
cure all humans of clog allergies, and they
are determined to destroy it while the dogs
are bound and determined to prote< it, |efi
Goldblum ("lurassic Park"), Elizabeth
Perkins ("28 Days") and Alexander Pollock
star; Alec Baldwin ("Pearl Harbor"), Michael
Clarke Duncan ("See Spot Run"), Sean
lines (TV's "Will & Grace"), Jon Lovitz
("3,000 Miles io Graceland"), Tobey
Maguire ("Wonder Boys"), )oe Pantoliano
("Pluto Nash") and Susan Sarandon
in ("Rugrats Paris") voice. Larry Guterman
(additional sequences in "Antz") directs a
script by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra;
Andrew Lazar ("Space Cowboys"), Chris de
Faria and "American Pie's" Warren Zide and
Craig Perry produce. (Warner Bros., 5/25)
Sawy counter-programming
Exploitips:

DIGITAL CINEMA DECODED
TECHNICOLOR DIGI
INGTHE FUTURI

li I
Production Notes: Doug Yellin, "*N Sync: Bigger Than Live
If the very sight of *N Sync has the ability
to make girls swoon and scream in
deafening delight, what would happen if
they were to see their beloved idols 80
feet tall? The answer to that question can
be currently found in large-format theatres
across the country, where Iwerks' latest
production, "*N Sync: Bigger Than Live,"
is giving thousands of pre-pubescents 45
minutes worth of concert footage featuring
the wildly successful boy band.
The chance to film the group in action
was one that film producer Doug Yellin
says fit in extremely well with Iwerks'
vision for big-screen entertainment. "I really
believe that the concert venue affords a
lot of opportunities for large format," he
says. "One of the things large format
allows you to do is experience the concert
from [both] close-up and faraway."
*N Sync proved to be an especially
easy subject to film, says Yellin, because,
quite simply, they live up to their name.
"The singers and band all play as a synchronized
set," he explains. "With the
costumes the same, tne dance moves
exactly the same [and] the musical cues
exactly the same...l [could take] cameras
for different shows and put them in
different
locations. On any given song that
you see in 'Bigger Than Live,' there may
be eight to 1 4 camera angles, and they
intercut together perfectly.'
While Yellin lightly notes that his
musical proclivities are of a different
bent than *N Sync, naming the Beatles
Master of the Flying Guillotine
Made in 1975, "Master of the Flying
Guillotine" is a martial arts comedy about a
blind flying guillotine master who seeks
revenge on the one-armed boxer who killed
his disciples. But because he is blind, he
has to kill every one-armed boxer he comes
across. Jimmy Wang Yu ("Xiu Xiu: The Sent
Down Girl"), Kim Kang and Tak Chi Chen
star. Yu writes and directs. Wong Cheuk-
Hon produces. (Phaedra, May undated)
Exploitips: Rent the suits and ring to set
up one-armed sumo wrestling in the theatre
lobby or parking lot. (For legal reasons,
sponsoring a one-armed boxing match
probably wouldn't be such a good idea.)
The Story of
This American version of Pauline Reage's
erotic novel updates the story of a woman's
expression of love via kink. Phil Leirness
directs. (Phaedra, May undated)
Exploitips: Collaborate with a local
bookstore but with discretion. The material—often
compared to that of Marques de
Sade— isn't for everyone.
Speedway Junky
Jesse Bradford ("Bring It On") stars in this
drama as a military brat who runs away to
become a race car driver but runs into trouble
when a young swindler, played by
Jordan Brower, develops a crush on him
and introduces him to his gang of hustlers.
Jonathan Taylor Thomas ("I'll Be Home for
Christmas") and Darryl Hannah ("My
Favorite Martian") co-star. Nickolas Perry
writes and directs; Rodney Omanoft,
and Otis Redding
as some of the
first concerts he
attended, he is
well aware of the
social significance
the pop
band plays in
today's world. "In
the end, my musical
tastes are
irrelevant," he
says. "What we
were able to do
was capture this
phenomena and
give the experi- OUT OF "SYNC":
ence that hap- Doug Yellin produces "'N
pened the day of Sync: Bigger Than Live."
the concert to people in a theatre."
Of course, being more familiar with
Ringo than Lance carries a certain stigma
when at an *N Sync concert. "We're
leaving the concert and walking outside,"
recalls Yellin, "and a van's window
rolls down and this young girl
sticks her head out and goes, 'Hey old
man! What are you doing here?'" Little
did she know that he, just like her, was
making *N Sync bigger-than-life.
Francesca Dinglasan
"*N Sync: Bigger Than Live." Starring
*N Sync. Directed by John Bailey.
Produced by Doug Yellin. A Really Big
Film Corp. release. Large format. Not
rated. Now playing.
Randall Emmett, George Furla and Jeff Rice
produce. (Regent, May undated NY/LA)
Exploitips: Exhibitors may be tempted to
market this one towards teens or even preteens,
considering the appeal of Thomas,
but it's rated R for language, violence, sex
and drug use—nothing new in the realm of
teen sex romps, but this one has a darker
tone.
Kiss of the Spider Woman
William Hurt ("Sunshine") and Raul Julia
("The Addams Family") star in this rerelease
of the 1985 movie based on the
novel, which was also made into a stage
play, about cellmates in a South American
prison. One is a homosexual found guilty
of sex offenses who escapes his confines by
spinning stories based on the movies he
saw when he was free. The other is a political
prisoner who holds nothing but contempt
for his roommate. Hector Babenco
directs; Leonard Schrader scripts based on
Manuel Puig's book; David Weisman produces.
(Strand, May undated)
Exploitips: Island Alive originally distributed
this pic, which bowed on one screen
in New York before rolling out to an eventual
400. When the Island library ( hanged
hands, "Kiss of the Spider Woman" was
neglected and hard to find,
but eventually
the rights reverted back to Weisman. "Kiss"
was the first independent film to be nominated
for picture actor, director and
screenwriter Oscars.
The Long Run
Armin Mueller-Stahl ("The Thirteenth
Floor") stars in this drama set against the
backdrop of The Comrades, a physically
grueling ultra-marathon held each year in
South Africa, as a running coach who once
had aspirations of winning the race but
never achieved his goal. He discovers a
promising young runner who, after much
persuasion, agrees to run the race. South
African actress Nthati Moshesh co-stars,
lean Stewart directs; Johann Potgieter
scripts; "Cry, the Beloved Country's" Anant
Singh and Helena Spring produce.
(Universal Focus, May undated)
Exploitips: Organize a local marathon
(or collaborate with an existing one) to take
place on opening weekend, with proceeds
going to a local charity.
Pavilion of Women
In this adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's
novel, which is set in 1938 China, the
wealthy, intelligent Madame Wu shocks
her friends and family on her 40th birthday
when she announces she has selected a
concubine for her husband. Free of her
spousal duties, she finds herself falling in
love with an American missionary. Willem
Dafoe and Luo Yan star. Yim Ho ("Kitchen")
directs; Luo and Paul Collins script; Luo
produces. (Universal Focus, May undated)
Exploitips: Universale first-ever Chinese
co-production and the first time American
and Chinese film companies have made a
film together, "Pavilion" has been a labor of
love for Luo since the Chinese government
allowed the publication of Buck's books in
1994. Adapting the novel with help from
her Mandarin-speaking attorney Collins,
she designed a comprehensive business
plan detailing the particulars of shooting in
China, and Universal International agreed
to finance the production.
LATE MOVIE MOVES
*H Sync: Bigger Than Live
Justin, Joey, JC, Chris and Lance—known
collectively as *N Sync—star in this largeformat
concert film, shot mostly at the
Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich, during their
"No Strings Attached" tour. John Baily
directs; Douglas Yellin produces the Iwerks
production. (Really Big Film Corp., now
playing)
Exploitips: "*N Sync" comes with a
built-in audience— it's just a matter of getting
the word out to preteen girls at the
mall, at school, wherever. See Production
Notes, above.
On Hostile Ground
This documentary profiles three healthcare
professionals from different
regions of
the U.S. who are united by both fear and an
ongoing commitment to their patients after
the assassination of fellow abortion provider
Dr. Barnett Slepian. Liz Mermin and lenny
Raskin direct.
Catherine Gund, founder of
production company Aubin Pictures, produces.
(Cowboy, April undated)
Exploitips: All proceeds from this release
will be split between Planned Parenthood
Federation of America, whose America
Board of Advocates membei lulianne
Moore has lent her support to the film, and
A Iodic al Students for Choice.
jjjji§
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Adventures of Felix
n this French comedy, a jovial
/ man, Felix, discovers a
cache of old letters that his
estranged father sent his mother,
who recently died, and decides
to check out the return address,
hoping to reunite with the man
who abandoned him before he
was born. Along the way, he
makes a series of acquaintances
who in essence become the family
he seeks. Sami Bouajila stars.
"Jeanne and the Perfect Guy's"
Olivier Ducastel and Jacques
Martineau write and direct;
Philippe Martin produces.
(Winstar, 6/1 NY/LA/SF)
The Wide Blue Road
Yves Montand portrays a playboy
whose lifestyle is challenged
when he meets a woman played
by Alida Valli in this 1957 Italian
drama. Cillo Pontecorvo directs.
(Milestone, 6/6 NY)
Happenstance
In this French comedy-drama,
originally released as "The
Beating of Butterfly's Wings"
after the theory of a random
Brother
series of unlinked events, firsttime
writer-director Laurent
Firode follows a half-dozen or so
characters as they interact over
the course of a day in Paris.
Audrey Tautou ("Venus Beauty
Institute") stars. Pascal Judele-
'
Joyride
Steve Zahn ("Saving
Silverman"), Paul Walker
("The Skulls") and Leelee
Sobieski ("The Glass
House") star in this thriller
as a trio who, while on a
road trip during summer
break, play a prank on a
trucker via their CB radio.
Their joke backfires when
the lonely driver, who's
apparently seen Steven
Spielberg's 1971 "Duel"
one too many times, turns
out to be a psychotic killer.
John Dahl ("Rounders")
directs a script by Clay
Tarver and J.J. Abrams
("Armageddon"); Chris
Moore ("Reindeer Games")
and Abrams produce.
v (Fox, 6/1) .
wicz (a co-producer on "Place
Vendome") and Anne-
Dominique Toussaint produce.
(Lot 47, 6/1 5 NY/LA)
In his first film made outside of
his native Japan, Takeshi Kitano
("Fireworks") writes, directs and
stars in this NC-17-rated crime
thriller as legendary Yakuza
gangster Yamamoto, who lias
A Knight's Tale
Heath Ledger ("The Patriot") stars in this medieval
action-adventure as a peasant squire who impersonates his
master when he dies, enlisting a pre- "Canterbury Tales"
Chaucer to draw up the necessary genealogy scrolls so that
he might become a jouster and win the heart of the lady he
loves. Alan Tudyk ("28 Days"), Mark Addy ("Down to
Earth"), Laura Fraser ("The Match"), Paul Bettany and new
discovery Shannyn Sossamon co-star. Brian Helgeland
("Payback") writes, directs and produces; Tim Van Rellim
(an executive producer on "The Invisible Circus") and Todd
Black ("A Family Thing") produce. (Columbia, 6/1)

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Animal
"Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo's"
Rob Schneider writes and stars in this
comedy as a wimp who's always wanted
to be a cop. When he's in a car
accident, a mad scientist secretly
replaces his damaged organs with animal
parts. At first his new-found animal
instincts help him fulfill his
dreams and he becomes a supercop,
but gradually they surface at the most
inopportune times, making his budding
romantic relationship difficult to
maintain. Guy Torry ("Trippin"'),
Colleen Haskell (TV's "Survivor"),
John C. McGinley ("Get Carter") and
Michael Caton ("The Castle") co-star. Luke Greenfield makes his feature directing debut; Tom
(TV's "Sports Night") scripts; Carr D'Angelo, Barry Bernardi ("Deuce Bigalow") and
Id Garner ("The New Guy") produce. (Columbia, 6/8)
y
Atlantis
In this animated adventure, inexperienced explorer
Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox) recovers his grandfather's
lost journals, which contain the secret location of
the submerged city of Atlantis, and leads an expedition
headed by Captain Rourke (voiced by James Garner)
there. But what they find is beyond anything they could
have imagined. "Beauty and the Beast" nelmers Kirk Wise
and Gary Trousdale re-team with producer Don Hahn;
"Tarzan's" Tab Murphy scripts. (Buena Vista, 6/15) ,
been banned from Tokyo after a down to the Mafia with whom
gang war. He travels to Los he's partnered, he realizes there's
Angeles, hoping to reunite with no turning back. Claude Maki
and Omar Epps ("Dracula 2000")
his half brother, a small-time
drug dealer. Under his leadership,
co-star. Jeremy Thomas ("Sexy
Yamamoto's gang flourish-
and Masayuki Mori pro-
Beast")
es, but success breeds jealousy,
and when he refuses to bow
duce. (Sony Classics, 6/15
NY/LA)
Swordfish >
Travolta ("Battlefield Earth") stars in this action drama
as a charismatic and dangerous
CIA agent who, fed up with the
American democracy, coerces a
computer hacker just released
from prison to pull off one last
big job—stealing $9 billion from
a DEA slush fund — promising to
reunite him with his wife and
child for a fresh start. Hugh
Jackman ("Someone Like You"),
Halle Berry ("X-Men"), Don
Cheadle ("Traffic"), Vinnie
Jones ("Snatch") and Sam Shepard
("The Pledge") co-star.
Dominic Sena ("Gone in 60 Seconds")
directs a script by Skip
Woods; Joel Silver ("Exit
Wounds") and Jonathan D.
Krane ("Battlefield Earth") produce.
(Warner Bros., 6/8) ,
The Fast and
the Furious
In this action drama, Vin
Diesel ("Knockaround Guys"),
Paul Walker ("Joyride"), Rick
Yune ("Snow Falling on Cedars"),
Jordana Brewster ("Invisible
Circus"), Hill Harper ("The Visit")
and Michelle Rodriguez
("Girlfight") make up the ensemble
of illicit street-car racing gang
members and the undercover
cop who is infiltrating their
ranks. Rob Cohen ("The Skulls'")
directs a script by Gary Scott
Thompson ("Hollow Man"), Erik
Bergquist, John Pogue ("The
Skulls"), David Ayer ("U-571")
and Kario Salem (TV's "The Rat
Pack" and "Don King: Only in
America"); Doug Claybourne
("The Mask of Zorro") produces.
(Universal, 6/22)
Bread and Tulips
In this Italian romance, an
unhappily married woman from
southern Italy accidentally gets separated
from her family while on
holiday. She decides to take advantage
of the time to herself and
hitchhikes to Venice. There, a waiter
offers her a place to stay, and she
' The Man Who Cried
In this World War II drama
Hollow") stars as a Russian
Jewish girl who is separated
from her father as a young girl
and raised by a proper English
couple. As a young woman, she
realizes that her father had
escaped to America and seeks
to go there herself by way of
Paris, where she befriends a
Russian chorus girl and falls in
love with a gypsy. Cate Blanchett
("The Gift"), John
Turturro ("O Brother, Where
Art Thou?") and Johnny Depp
("Chocolat") co-star. Sally
Potter ("Orlando") writes and
directs; her producing partner
Christopher Sheppard produces.
(Universal Focus, 6/8)
Rob Zombie's House
of 1,000 Corpses
Rocker Rob Zombie
writes and directs this horror
flick about a group of
traveling 20-somethings
who visit a museum devoted
to murder and mayhem.
Sid Haig, Rainn
Wilson, Chris Hardwick,
Jennifer Jostyn, Erin
Daniels, Bill Moseley and
Karen Black star. Zombie's
long-time manager Andy
Gould produces. (Uni-
V versal, 6/8) j
ends up getting a job and building
a new life for herself. When her
husband finds out, he begins to
scheme to get her back. Licia
Maglietta, Bruno Ganz ("Eternity
and a Day") and Antonio Catani,
star. Silvio Soldini writes and
directs; Doriana Leondeff scripts.
(First Look, 6/22 NY)
Steven Spielberg ("Saving Private
Ryan") writes, directs and produces
this sci-fi drama, which Stanley
Kubrick was developing before hi;
death. It's the 21st century: The
greenhouse effect has melted the
icecaps, submerging the coastal
cities, and mankind depends

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j
Doctor Dolittle 2
Eddie Murphy reprises his role as the doctor who can talk
to animals in this sequel to the comedy that grossed over
$290 million worldwide. Here his four-legged friends call on
him to save their forest home from unscrupulous human
developers, so Dr. Dolittle sets out to find an endangered
species that the law protects. Steve Carr ("Next Friday")
directs; "Doctor Dolittle" scribe Larry Levin and producer
V John Davis return. (Fox, 6/22) ,
computers with artificial intelligence
to maintain its way of life.
Haley Joel Osment ("Pay It
Forward") stars as an 11 -year-old
robot boy who goes on an emotional
journey toward becoming
something more. Jude Law
("Enemy at the Gates"), Frances
O'Connor ("About Adam"), Sam
Robards ("Bounce"), Brendan
Cleeson ("The Tailor of Panama")
Invincible
Werner Herzog ("My Best
Fiend") writes, directs and produces
this drama set in 1930s
Berlin. A Jewish blacksmith from
Eastern Poland travels to the city
and joins a nightclub cabaret,
billed as the world's strongest
man. The claim is not well
received by the rising Nazi Party,
Nv
' Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
^
Alec Baldwin ("Pearl Harbor"), Steve Buscemi ("28
Days"), Peri Gilpin (TV's "Frasier"), Ming-Na (TV's "ER"),
Ving Rhames ("Baby Boy"), Donald Sutherland ("Space
Cowboys") and James Woods ("Any Given Sunday") lend
their voices to this fantasy adventure based on the popular
^r— video game series, which has
sold more than 30 million units
to a tune of $850 million.
Employing photorealistic computer-generated
animation,
_
^^^g^Mlphk 'Final Fantasy" set in the year
2065, when the people of Earth
j^Bfc^^ are threatened by mysterious
^^V^Kl aliens that steal the energy from
^^KJT" a" living things on the planet.
^UgH
Hironobu Sakaguchi, who produced
the "Final Fantasy" video
games, directs and produces;
Motonori Sakakibara codirects;
Al Reinert ("Apollo
13") and Jeff Vintar script;
H Jun
Aida and Chris Lee produce.
(Columbia, 7/13)
GL
W^^ H and William Hurt ("Sunshine") costar.
Kathleen Kennedy ("The Sixth
Sense") and Bonnie Curtis (who coproduced
"Saving Private Ryan")
produce. (Warner Bros., 6/29)
This French biopic remembers
Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese
leader who was Prime Minister
for two short months under the
false preteni «• that his peopli had
gained independence before he
was killed. I riq Ebouane) stars
Raoul Pe< I- wtiirs and direi is,
Pascal Bonitzei si ripts
Bidou produi es. (Zeitgeisl 6/27)
I
I
' Tomb Raider
Angelina Jolie ("Original
Sin") stars in this big-screen
adaptation of the popular
video game as butt-kicking,
pistol-packing, but well-mannered
Lara Croft, the daughter
of a British aristocrat who
disavows her upper-class
upbringing, opting instead to
travel the world raiding
tombs— modern-day,
female Indiana Jones. Rumor
has it the movie picks up
where the third video game
left off, with Lara pursuing
the Achilles Shield in locations
like Antarctica and
Asia, lain Glen ("Beautiful
Creatures"), Daniel Craig ("I
Dreamed of Africa"), Leslie
Phillips and Jolie's dad Jon
Voight co-star. Simon West ("The General's Daughter")
directs; Patrick Massett , John Zinman and West script; "Die
Hard 2" and "Mystery Men's" Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd
Levin produce with Colin Wilson ("The Haunting'').
v (Paramount, 6/15) /
coming-of-age comedy drama about a young man who has
fathered a child but still lives with his mother, refusing to
accept the responsibilities of adulthood. Unemployed, he
splits his time between the mother of his child and his new
Girlfriend until he finally learns to grow up and stop being a
aby boy. R&B singer Tyrese makes his acting debut in the
leaa role; Omar Gooding, Taraji Henson, A.J. Johnson, rapper
Snoop Dogg and Ving Rhames ("Mission: Impossible 2")
co-star. (Columbia, 6/29)
and while defending his people,
the weightlifter takes on the role
of a modern-day Sampson. Tim
Roth ("Vatel") and |ouko Ahola,
who won the World's Strongest
Man contest in 1997 and 1999
(he came in second in 1998),
star.
(Fine Line, June undated)
Together
Set in a 1970s commune, th
Swedish comedy-drama juxtt
poses the hypocrisy of the hippi
lifestyle with its mmis.mii idealist
and solidarity. Lisa Lindgren .in
Michael Nyqvist topline ai
ensemble cast. Dogma de\
Kiss of the Dragon
Producer-star Jet Li ("Romeo Must Die") and writer-producer Luc Besson ("The Messengei
The Story of Joan of Arc") collaborate on this actioner whose plot is
wraps but has been described
as a cross between Li's Hong
Kong pic "Fist of Legend" and
Besson's "The Professional."
Bridget Fonda ("Monkeybone")
and Tcheky Karyo ("The
Patriot") co-star. Commercial
and video helmer Chris Nahon
directs his feature debut;
Robert Mark Kamen (Besson's
"The Fifth Element") scripts;
Li's rep Steve Chasman prov
duces. (Fox, 7/6)
being kept tightly under

Bft

^^
'
Evolution >
David
Duchovny
("Return to
Me") and Julianne
Moore
("Hannibal")
star in this science
fiction
comedy about
the chaos that
ensues when a
meteor bearing
microscopic organisms that multiply and evolve at an
alarming rate—achieving in a month what took billions of
years on Earth—crashes into the New Mexico desert. A team
of misfits—a community college professor, his kooky geologist
buddy, a wannabe fireman and a government scientist—tries
to keep the aliens from taking over the world. Orlando Jones
("Say It Isn't So") and Seann William Scott ("Dude, Where's
My Car?") co-star. Ivan Reitman ("Six Days Seven Nights")
directs and produces under his and Tom Pollock's Montecito
banner; Don Jakoby ("Vampires") and "The Family Man's"
David Diamond and David Weissman script; "Road Trip's"
Daniel Goldberg and Joe Medjuck produce. (DreamWorks,
, 7/13) j
' The
Princess
Diaries
In this family
comedy based
on the novel by
Meg Cabot
(ostensibly the
newcomer
first in a series),
Anne Hathaway
stars as a
typical San Francisco teen who is thrown for a loop when she discovers
she's the only daughter of the prince of the small European
principality of Genovia. When her grandmother, the queen, shows
up to teach her how to be a proper princess, the heir apparent
must decide whether to stay in the States as a normal teenage girl
or accept her royal responsibilities. Julie Andrews ("The Soundof
Music"), Robert Schwartzman, Heather Matarazzo ("Welcome to
the Dollhouse"), Caroline Goodall ("Schindler's List") and Hector
Elizondo ("Tortilla Soup") co-star. Garry Marshall ("Runaway
Bride") directs a script adapted by Gina Wendkos ("Coyote
Ugly"); Whitney Houston (TV's "Rodgers & Hammerstein's
Cinderella"), Deora Martin Chase and Mario Iscovich (a co-prov
ducer on "Runaway Bride") produce. (Buena Vista, 7/20) ,
Lukas Moodysson ("Show Me
Love") writes and directs. Lars
Jonsson (a co-executive producer
on "Dancer in the Dark") produces.
(IFC, June undated)
Songcatcher
Janet McTeer ("Tumbleweeds")
stars in this early 20th-century
drama as a musicologist repeatedly
overlooked for promotion at
her patriarchal university.
Visiting her sister, who runs a
rural school in the Appalachian
mountains, she discovers that the
isolated people there have preserved
Scottish and Irish folk
passing them down from
songs,
generation to generation, and
sets out to record them before
they disappear forever. Aidan
Quinn ("Music of the Heart"), Pat
Carroll and Jane Adams
("Wonder Boys") co-star. Maggie
' Jurassic Park 3
Dinosaurs once again roam
the earth in this third installment
in the action-adventure
"Jurassic Park" franchise. Plot
points are being kept tightly
under wraps, but rumor has it
the film begins with a plane
crash and involves a searchand-rescue
mission. Sam Neill,
who didn't appear in "The Lost
World," reprises his role from
the original film and is joined
by William H. Macy ("State
and Main"), Tea Leom ("Family
Man"), Alessandro Nivola
("Mansfield Park"), Michael
Jeter ("The Gift") and Trevor
Morgan ("Glass House"). Joe Johnston ("Jumanji," "October Sky") directs a script
Buchman; Kathleen Kennedy ("A.I.")
. Hollow") produce. (Universal, 7/18)
and Larry Franco (an executive producer on
by Peter
"Sleepy
Planet of the Apes >
Mark Wahlberg ("Rock Star") stars in "Planet of the
Apes," another tentpoler whose plot is top-secret but is
being described by distributor
Fox as a "re-imagination,"
rather than a remake or a
sequel, of the 1968 sci-fi
actioner that starred Charlton
Heston. Tim Roth ("Invincible"),
Helena Bonham Carter
("Fight Club"), Kris Kristofferson
("Limbo"), Michael Clarke
Duncan ("See Spot Run"), Paul
Giamatti ("Big Momma's
House") and Estella Warren
("Driven") co-star. Tim Burton
("Sleepy Hollow") directs;
William Broyles Jr. ("Cast
Away") scripts; Richard D.
Zanuck ("Rules of Engagement"),
who greenlit the original
when he was head of production
at Fox 30 years ago,
produces. (Fox, 7/27)
x Anniversary Party >
Jennifer Jason Leigh ("The King Is Alive") and Alan
Cumming ("Josie and the Pussycats") co-write, co-direct
and star in this digitally shot comedy about an estranged
couple who reunites and throws a sixth anniversary party to
celebrate. The well-meaning event unravels, however,
when one intoxicating gift inspires a grown-up version of
truth or dare. Jane Adams ("Wonder Boys"), Leigh's half-sister
Mina Badie, Jennifer Beals ("The Last Days of Disco"),
Phoebe Cates ("Drop Dead Fred"), John Hickey ("The Bone
Collector"),
Kevin Kline
("Wild Wild I
West"), Denis k 3ff Jt (^
O H ' a r e ,
\ ^K '^uJA^
Gwyneth Pal- P
trow, Michael I
John C. Reilly
("The Perfect
f^
Storm") costar.
(Fine
Line, July
. undated)
^^^^^
^^^
36 BOXOFFICE

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ii.iih,
'
Strictly Sinatra
Ian Hart ("The Closer You I
Get") stars in this British
thriller as Scottish-Italian
crooner Tony Cocozza, who
dreams of hitting the big time
like his idol Frank Sinatra. He
pacts with an aging underworld
mobster who doles out favors
to advance Tony's career, but
there's a high price to pay.
Eventually, Tony must choose
between his girlfriend and the
lifestyle he's always dreamed
of. Brian Cox, Kelly Macdonald
("Two Family House") and Tom
Flanagan ("Gladiator") co-star.
Peter Capaldi writes and
directs; Duncan Kenworthy
and Andrew MacDonald, who
"Beautiful Creatures" together, produce with Ruth Kenley-
, Letts. (Universal Focus, July undated)
Jason X N
i
The 10th installment in the
"Friday the 1 3th" franchise,
"Jason X" is set in the year
2455 on the pjanet Earth,
which, prone to violent storms
consisting of toxic landand
poisonous seas, has
long been abandoned. A professor
and his students visit the
on a field trip and discover
a cryogenically frozen
young woman and a man in a
hockey mask. The team takes
the bodies back to the ship
with them, where they thaw,
up and wreak havoc in
space. Kane Hodder reprises
his role as Jason Voorhees;
David Cronenberg
("eXistenZ") co-stars. James
Isaac (the visual and special
"eXistenZ") directs; Todd Farmer
supervisor on
Noel Cunningham, son of franchise creator Sean,
scripts;
produces. (New Line, 8/17) >
relegated by his mother to living in a plastic bubble. Now a young
man, he finds out that the girl next door is marrying another man
and sets out on a transcontinental journey to Niagara Falls in a
mobile bubble suit to profess his love for her before ifs too late.
Swoosie Kurtz ("Get Over It"), Marley Shelton ("Valentine"),
Danny Trejo ("Spy Kids") and character actor John Carroll Lynch
co-star. Commercial director Blair Hayes (the "Austin Powers"
"Star Wars" spoof) makes his feature film debut; Cinco Paul, Ken
Daurio and Michael Kalesniko ("Private Parts") script; Beau
Flynn ("Tigerland") produces. (Buena Vista, 8/3)
Greenwald ("The Ballad of Little
Jo") writes and directs; Ellen
Rigas Venetis and Richard Millei
("Heavy") produce. (Lions Gate,
June undated)
Whatever Happened to
Harold Smith?
In this British comedy, set in
the 1 970s, a lowly clerk at a legal
firm spends his evenings at a
disco club, until he meets a cute
punk chick and switches his
musical tastes to hers.
Meanwhile, his father starts
demonstrating his telekinetic
abilities. Tom Courtenay, Michael
Legge ("Angela's Ashes") and
Jjn-Roh
A
Set in the near-future, this
Japanese anime imagines that
heavily armored soldiers called the
Wolf Brigade have been trained to
snuff out civil
unrest, but post-\
their skills are only useful to the
regular police force, which doesn't
look kindly on the unit's black ops
In this midst of this, a love story
develops that alludes to the "Little
Red Riding Hood" fairy tale
Hiroyuki Okiura, the charactei
designer for "Ghost in the Shell,'
directs his debut; Mamoru Oshii
who directed "Ghost in the Shell,'
scripts; Tsutomu Sugita anc
Hidekazu Terakawa produce
(Viz/Tidepoint, June undated)
' 40 Days and 40 Nights
Josh Hartnett ("Pearl Habor") stars in this romantic comedy
about a young man who, after a brutal break-up, vows to remain
celibate for the 40 days and 40 nights of Lent. In the meantime,
he meets the girl of his dreams.
Shannyn Sossaman ("A Knight's
Tale"), Vinessa Shaw ("Corky
Romano") and Griffin Dunne
("Famous") co-star. Michael
Lehmann ("The Truth About Cats
and Dogs") directs a script by
Rob Perez; Michael London pro-
. duces. (Miramax, 8/24)
Ghosts of Mars
In this sci-fi actioner set in 2025, Natasha Henstridge ("The
Whole Nine Yards"), in a role that rocker-actress Courtney
Love exited due to an ankle injury, stars as a police lieutenant
on Earth's Mars colony. Ice Cube ("Next Friday") is the notorious
criminal whom she's bringing to justice, but her efforts
are thwarted by the warriors of a long-dormant Martian civilization
that are systematically taking over the bodies of the
human intruders, and the battle between cop and criminal
segues into a struggle for simple survival. Jason Statham
("Snatch"), Pam Grier ("Pluto Nash") and Clea Duvall ("Girl,
Interrupted") co-star. John Carpenter ("Vampires") writes
and directs; Larry Sulkis scripts; Carpenter's partner Sandy
V King produces. (Columbia, 8/24)
Laura Fraser ("A Knight's Tale")
star. Peter Hewitt ("The
Borrowers") directs a script by
Ben Steiner; Ruth Jackson ("Blow
Dry") and David Brown (a coproducer
on "Up at the Villa")
produce. (USA, June undated)
Dead or Alive
In this Japanese-language
actioner, Takeuchi Riki plays a
gang leader who attempts to take
over his city's underworld.
Aikawa Sho i o stars as the poli< e
detective assigned to root him
oul. lakashi Miike iIikm Is; Ichiro
Ryu scripts; Makoto Okada and
Katsumi Ono produce
(Viz/Tidepoint, June undated)
America's Sweethearts
Julia Roberts ("The Mexican]
stars in tins romantic: comedy a
kiki, the personal assistant I
( iwen l>\ ( played atherine Zeq
lones i
"i one hall <
America's favorite A-list couple
Used to being pushed into th
background U hei glamorajj
38 BOXOFFICE

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'America's Concession FavoritI
Ne|«f
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. Line,
'
. max, August undated) ,
SI
Set in the 1920s in the
remote jungles of
Malaysia, this romance
stars newcomer Hugh
Dancy and Jessica Alba
(TV's "Dark Angel") as an
eager young British colonial
officer and the beautiful
young woman from the
tribe he has come to "civilize."
Bob Hoskins
("Enemy at the Gates"),
Brenda Blethyn ("Saving
Grace"), Noah Taylor
("Tomb Raider") and Emily
Mortimer ("Disney's The
Kid") co-star. Guy Jenkin
writes, directs and produces
his debut; Denise
O'Donoghue and Jimmy
Mulville produce. (Fine
August undated) /
Bandits >
Bruce Willis
("Unbreakable")
and
Billy Bob
Thornton
("Wakin' Up
in Reno") star
in this crime
comedy as
charismatic
bank robbers
who are raising
money for their legitimate business prospects south of
the border. Despite the chaos and destruction they leave
behind, the public adores them, especially a woman who
sees their exciting lifestyle as a way to escape her own. Cate
Blanchett ("The Man Who Cried") co-stars. Barry Levinson
("An Everlasting Piece") directs and produces a script by
Harley Peyton ("Keys to Tulsa"); Michael Birnbaum (an
executive producer on "Keys to Tulsa"), Michele Berk (TV's
"Baywatch"), Paula Weinstein ("An Everlasting Piece") and
"Original Sin's" Ashok Amritraj and David Hoberman pro-
\ duce. (MGM, August undated) /
("Josie and the Pussycats"), Stanley
$144.8 million, the minimajor was
Tucci ("Joe Gould's Secret") and quick to fast track a second install-
Christopher Walken ("The Adventures
of |oe Dirt") co-star. Revolu-
Gold produces. (Miramax,
ment. The brothers' manager Eric
7/4)
tion Studios founder and ex-Disney
boss, Kiki is determined to get Arnold produce. (Columbia, 7/4)
Gwen's estranged husband Eddie
("High Fidelity's" John Cusack) to
notice her on the weekend of the
Despite promising "No mercy,
highly-publicized press junket for
no shame, no sequel," Keenen
the husband-and-wife acting
team's newest film. Meanwhile, Ivory Wayans is directing and his
Marlon and Shawn
publicist Lee Phillips ("Analyze brothers
This'" Billy Crystal) tries to distract writing and starring in another
the journalists from the fact that he send-up of the horror genre, here
doesn't have a print to show with reportedly different characters
them— it's been hijacked by its and a new crop of films to spoof,
reclusive director—by convincing After the original bowed with a $42
them that the superstar couple is million opening—setting records
back together. Hank Azaria for both distributor Miramax and
("Mystery, Alaska"), Seth Green an R-rated film—on its way to
^ Corky Romano
~"N
A reverse "Donnie Brasco" of sorts, this comedy stars
"Saturday Night Live's" Chris Kattan as the estranged son of
a Mafioso who is reunited with the family on the eve of his
father's Grand Jury trial. Dad convinces his son to infiltrate
the FBI and abscond with the evidence against him. Forced
to live up to a resume that describes him as an iiber-agent,
Corky stumbles through one tough case after another, eventually
getting caught in the crossfire between the government
agents and his family. Peter Falk (TV's "Columbo"),
Peter Berg ("CopLand"), Chris Penn ("Rush Hour 2"),
Richard Roundtree ("Shaft"), Vinessa Shaw ("Eyes Wide
Shut"), Matthew Clave ("Rock Star") and Fred Ward ("Road
Studios chair Joe Roth returns to
directing after a 10-year hiatus;
Innocence
Crystal and Peter Tolan
('
In this romance, an old man
dazzled") ript; Crystal and "The reminisces about a love affair he
Haunting' Donna Roth and Susan had 50 years earlier. On a whim,
he contacts his old beau, who's
stuck in a loveless marriage, and
Scary Movie 2
Trip") co-star. Commercial helmer Rob Pritts directs a script
by sitcom
writers David
Garrett and
Jason Ward;
Robert Simonds
("The
Adventures of
Joe
Dirt")
produces.
(Buena Vista,
summer)
the two reunite to discover that
their feelings for each other haven't
faded. Julia Blake and Charles
Tingwell star. Paul Cox ("Molokai:
The Story of Father Damien")
writes, directs and produces; Mark
Patterson produces. (IDP, 7/7 ltd)
Le Secret
"The Dreamlife of Angels" collaborators
Virginie Wagon and
Erick Zonca switch roles—she
directing, both scripting—for this
French drama about a 35-year-old
woman who's happily married
' Legally Blonde
Reese Witherspoon ("American
Psycho") stars in this comedy
as a Beverly Hills blonde who
is dumped by her fraternity
boyfriend, who's on his way to
Harvard Law. Determined to
prove that there's more in her
head than blonde roots, she
enrolls, too. In over her head,
she eventually proves herself by
winning a big case. Luke Wilson
("Charlie's Angels"), Selma Blair
("Down to You") and Matthew
Davis ("Pearl Harbor") co-star.
Robert Luketic directs; "10
Things I Hate About You's"
Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten
Smith script based on Amanda
Brown's unpublished book; Marc
Piatt ("Josie and the Pussycats")
and Ric Kidney ("Fear") produce.
(MGM, summer)
Serendipity
In this romance, John
Cusack ("America's
Sweethearts") and Kate
Beckinsale ("Pearl Harbor")
star as a couple of
college students who meet
and fall in love in one night
but part ways, leaving their
fate up to destiny. Ten years
later, each on the verge of
marrying someone else,
they separately become
convinced that they're soul
mates and embark on a
race against time to find
each other. Molly Shannon
("Dr. Seuss' How the
Grinch Stole Christmas"),
John Corbett (TV's "Sex
and the City"), Jeremy
Piven ("The Family Man")
and Bridget Moynahan
("Coyote Ugly") co-star.
Peter Chelsom ("Town and
Country") directs a script
by Marc Klein; Simon
Fields ("Town and
Country") and Peter
Abrams ("The Wedding
Planner") produce. (Mira-
and the mother of a two-year-oli
son. Her husband, however, want
1
another child—something fo
which she's not sure she's read}
Meanwhile, her side job of sellin]
encyclopedias door-to-door intro
duces her to a
reclusive 50-'
40 IJonoi iK i

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42 BOXOFFICE
old black man, with whom she
becomes fast friends. Anne
Coesens, Michel Bompoil and
Tony Todd ("Final Destination")
star. Francois Marquis ("The
Dreamlife of Angels") produces.
(Arrow, July undated)
Thomas in Love
Shot on digital video, "Thomas
in Love" is a French-language
comedy about an agoraphobe
who hasn't left his home in eight
years. His only contact with the
outside world is through his computer,
and his life takes a drastic
turn when his longtime therapist
registers him on an online dating
site without his knowledge. Benoit
Verhaert stars. Belgian director
Pierre-Paul Renders ("The Seven
Deadly Sins") helms; Philippe
Blasband ("An Affair of Love")
scripts; Diana Elbaum, Jacques
Bidou and Arlette Zylberberg produce.
(IFC, July undated)
Bully
Brad Renfro ("Deuces Wild")
stars in this Larry Clark ("Kids")-
helmed drama as the best friend
of a school bully. The rest of the
kids are tired of being picked on,
so he and his girlfriend decide
that the bully would be better off
dead and lure him into a swamp
where a mob lies in wait to beat
him to death. When the kids are
caught, neither they nor their
parents see anything wrong with
the deed, claiming the bully
deserved it. Nick Stahl ("The
Thin Red Line") and Rachel
Miner co-star. David McKenna
("Blow") and Roger Pulis script
based on Jim Schutze's book;
Don Murphy ("Apt Pupil"), Chris
Hanley ("American Psycho") and
Jordan Gertner produce. (Lions
Rollerball
In this remake of the 1975 sci-fi actioner, set in the near
future, Chris Klein ("Say It Isn't So") and LL Cool J
("Kingdom Come") star as the champions of this dangerous
games on skates and wheels. Their greedy boss will do
anything and everything to maximize ratings, and in a
risky move, they try to expose the corruption. Rebecca
Romijn-Stamos ("X-Men") and Jean Reno ("|ust Visiting")
co-star. John McTiernan ("The Thomas Crown Affair')
directs and produces; Larry Ferguson ("Maximum Risk")
and John Pogue ("The Fast and the Furious") script;
Charles Roven ("Three Kings") and Beau St. Clair ("Tne
v Thomas Crown Affair') produce. (MGM, summer) /
Stars Chris Tucker and Jackie
Chan and director Brett Ratner
re-team for this sequel to the
1998 action comedy hit that
grossed over $250 million
worldwide. "Rush Hour 2" picks
up where the last one left off,
with the mismatched pair on a
Gate, July undated)
plane to Hong Kong. As they
r What's the Worst That Could Happen? 7\
Martin Lawrence ("Big Momma's House") stars in this
comedy as a professional thief who gets a tip on an easy
heist: the unoccupied beachfront mansion of a billionaire
tycoon, played by Danny DeVito ("The Heist"). The capitalist
catches him in the act, however, and gets back at him by
taking his lucky ring. The robber is determined to get it back
and will stop at nothing: not divorce, not public scandal, not
financial ruin, not prison. John Leguizamo ("Moulin Rouge")
co-stars. Sam Weisman ("The Out-of-Towners") directs;
Matthew Chapman ("Color of Night") and Barry Fanaro
("Big Trouble") script based on Donald E. Westlake's novel;
Lawrence Turman (an executive producer on "Original
Sin"), Wendy
D y m t a n ,
David Hoberman
(an executive
producer
on "Kingdom
Come")
produce.
(MGM, summer)
'
Angel Eyes
Jay and Silent Bob
Strike Back
The fifth and last installment
in his New Jersey chronicles,
"lay and Silent Bob Strike Back"
is reportedly a comedy that
recalls writer-director-star Kevin
Smith's earlier "Clerks" and
"Mallrats" rather than his later'
romance "Chasing Amy" and
adventure "Dogma." The plot
being kept tightly under wraps,
other than that it's a road trip
movie, but several characters/actors
from his "View
Askewniverse" are reprising
their roles, including Jason
Mewes (who has starred in all
four films), Jason Lee (all but
"Clerks"), George Carlin
("Dogma"), Brian O'Halloran
(all four) and Jeff Anderson (all
but "Mallrats") as well
Jennifer Lopez ("The Wedding Planner") stars in this I
romance as a Chicago police
officer dealing with the effects
of an abusive childhood. James I
Caviezel ("Pay It Forward")
plays a lost soul grappling with
the death of his wife and son
who saves her life. The two fall
in love, working through their
pasts together. "Message in a
Bottle" helmer Luis Mandoki
and scribe Gerald Di Pego reunite;
Mark Canton ("Red
Planet") and Elie Samaha ("The
Heist") produce. (Warner
|
Bros., 3rd qtr)
become increasingly entangled
in a criminal conspiracy, their rumored resurrections by Ben
adventures lead them to Hong but Matt
(all Affleck "Clerks"),
Kong, Los Angeles and Las Damon ("Chasing Ann,"
Vegas, where they must use all "Dogma") and Chris Rock
their talents to trap one of the ("Dogma"). Judd Nelson ("Lighl
world's most feared gangsters, it Up"), lason Biggs ("Saving
Zhang Ziyi ("The Road Home") Silverman"), Shannon Elizabeth
and Chris Penn ("Corky
Romano") co-star. Jeff
Nathanson, one of the four writers
on the original film, scripts;
"Rush Hour's" Arthur Sarkissian
and Roger Birnbaum produce.
(New Line, 8/3)
waydowntown
("Tomcats") and "Saturday
Nighl
Live's" Will Ferrell ana Tracy
Morgan co-star. Smith's partnei
Scott Mosier prodi
(Miramax, 8/10)
American Pie 2
The original i
asl
"American Pie," including jasoi
This comedy, which won the Biggs, Shannon Elizabeth
Alyson Hannigan, Chris Klein
Best Canadian Feature Film at
Thomas Ian Nicholas, Tara Reid
the Toronto International Film
Festival last year, and Ashok
skewers cubii
le i
Seann William Scott, Men;
ulture in a tale ,ibout A m r i t r a
a Suvari, Eddie Kaye rhomas
j
("Bandits") trainee who avoids succumbing Nathasha Lyonne and Eugem
to corporate indoctrination like Levy, returns foi this sequel u
his kooky cohorts, meanwhile the sleepei corned) hit tha
making a bet with his col- grossed over $20(1 millioi
leagues as to who can stay worldwide, Helmei IB. Roger
indoors the longest. Fabrizio ("Sa) It Isn't So") join

Hot all
legends
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screen.
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"American Pie's" original filmmaking
team, which includes
scribe Adam Herz and producers
Paul Weitz (who directed the
original), Chris Weitz, Warren
Zide, Craig Perry and Chris
Moore. (Universal, 8/10)
Beckett on Film
A collection of five feature
programs, "Beckett on Film" is
a series of cinematic versions of
Beckett's 19 plays, with segments
directed by Atom Egoyan
("Felicia's Journey"), Neil
Jordan ("The End of the Affair"),
Anthony Minghella ("The
Talented Mr. Ripley"), David
Mamet ("The Heist"), Karel
Reisz ("The French Lieutenant's
Woman") and Patricia Rozema
("Mansfield Park") and featuring
performances by Alan
Rickman ("Blow Dry"), Kristin
Scott Thomas ("Up at the
Villa"), Jeremy Irons ("Dungeons
& Dragons"), Julianne
Moore ("Evolution") and the
late John Cielgud. (Winstar,
On the Edge
In this drama, 19-year-old
Jonathan Breech (Cillian Murphy)
ends up in a psychiatric hospital
after a near-fatal accident in a
stolen car. There he befriends
sensitive Toby ("Deep End of the
Ocean's" Jonathan Jackson), who
blames himself for his brother's
accidental death, and falls in love
with Rachel ("Ghost Dog's" Tricia
Vessey), who can't believe anyone
could love her. Stephen Rea
("The End of the Affair") co-stars
as Jonathan's doctor. John Carney
writes and directs; Daniel James
scripts; "Agnes Browne's" Jim
Sheridan and Arthur Lappin produce.
(Universal Focus, August
undated)
Big Trouble
Tim Allen ("Galaxy Quest") and
Rene Russo ("The Adventures of
Rocky & Bullwinkle") star in this
ensemble comedy based on the
novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning
humor columnist Dave Barry about
a nuclear device hidden in
a suitcase
that is rigged to go off in the
Miami airport and how it affects the
people who come in contact with
it. Omar Epps ("Brother"), Dennis
Farina ("Snatch"), Janeane
Garofalo ("The Adventures of
Rocky & Bullwinkle"), Jason Lee
("Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back"),
Tom Sizemore ("Pearl Harbor"),
Stanley Tucci ("America's
Sweethearts"), Ben Foster ("Get
Over It"), Heavy D ("The Cider
House Rules"), Patrick Warburton
("The Dish"), Zooey Deschanel
("The New Guy") and Johnny
Knoxville (TV's "Jackass") co-star.
Barry Sonnenfeld ("Wild Wild
West") directs a script adapted by
"Life's" Robert Ramsey and
Matthew Stone and Barry Fanaro
("The Crew"); Sonnenfeld, Barry
Josephson ("The Crew") and Tom
Jacobson ("Mission to Mars") produce.
(Buena Vista, summer)
executed for kidnapping an infant
and leaving it to die. Investigating
a murder, he realizes that his
son
Joey committed the crime, and,
haunted by the sins of his father
r Osmosis Jones
N
In this live-action/animated action-adventure comedy set
inside the body of a construction worker named Frank, Chris
Rock ("Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back") voices the title character,
a streetwise white blood cell who teams up with a
rookie cold tablet in a race to thwart an evil virus that is out
to destroy Frank. Bill Murray ("Charlie's Angels"), Molly
Shannon ("Serendipity") and Chris Elliott ("Snow Day") costar
in the live-action sequences, which are directed by "Me,
Myself & Irene's" Peter and Bobby Farrelly, who also produce;
Laurence Fishburne ("The Matrix"), David Hyde
Pierce (TV's "Frasier"), producer (though not on this pic)
Joel Silver, Brandy ("I Still Know What You Did Last
Summer") and William Shatner ("Miss Congeniality") voice
characters in the animated
half, helmed by Piet Kroon
(who worked on "The Iron
Giant") and Tom Sito (who
worked on "Fantasia 2000"
and "Antz"). The Farrellys partner
Bradley Thomas, Zak Penn
and Dennis Edwards (an associate
producer on "Space Jam")
produce. (Warner Bros., 3rd
qtD
J
I
' One Hour Photo
Robin Williams ("Bicentennial
Man") stars in this
urban thriller as a lonely technician
at the SavMart one-hour
photo counter who develops an
unsettling obsession with a suburban
family that has been his
customer for years. Connie
Nielsen ("Gladiator"), Michael
Vartan ("Never Been Kissed"),
Gary Cole ("Office Space") and
Eriq La Salle (TV's "ER") costar.
Music video helmer Mark
Romanek writes and directs his
feature debut; Christine
Vachon and Pamela Koffler
produce through their Killer
Films ("Boys Don't Cry") with
Stan Wlodkowski (a co-producer on "American Beauty").
v (Fox Searchlight, summer)
and son, he seeks redemption by
saving Joey. Frances McDormand
("Almost Famous"), James Franco
("Deuces Wild"), Eliza Dushku
("The New Guy"), William
Forsythe ("Deuce Bigalow: Male
Gigolo") and George Dzundza
("Instinct") co-star. Michael Caton-
Jones ("The Jackal") writes, directs
and produces; Ken Hixon
("Inventing the Abbots") and Frank
Pierson ("Presumed Innocent")
script based on Mike McAlary's
1997 Esquire article; Brad Grey
(who executive produced "Scary
Movie"), Elie Samaha ("Angel
Eyes") and Matt Baer (who executive
produced "The Replacement
Killers") produce. (Warner Bros.,
3rd qtr)
City by the Sea
Robert De Nirto ("Fifteen
Minutes") stars in this police drama Summer Catch
based on the true story of Vincent
Lamarca, a cop whose father was
Freddie Prinze Jr. ("Head Over
Heels") is the catch in this romance
set against a baseball backdrop.
Prinze portrays a college player
who's simultaneously trying to
impress major league scouts and a
wealthy girl vacationing in Cape
Cod, where he's participating in a
summer league. Jessica Biel (TV's
"7th Heaven"), Brian Dennehy,
Matthew Li I lard ("Love's Labour's
Lost"), Marc Blucas (TV's "Buffy the
Vampire Slayer") and Wilmer
Valderrama (TV's "That '70s
Show") co-star. Mike Tollin makes
his feature directorial debut and
produces with "Varsity Blues"
director-producer Brian Robbins
and Sam Weisman; Kevin Falls
(TV's "Sports Night") scripts.
(Warner Bros., 3rd qtr)
Training Day
Denzel Washington ("Remember
the Titans") and Ethan Hawke
("Hamlet") pair in this police
drama as a grizzled LAPD veteran
and the rookie cop 1" whom he
shows the ropes on his first day on
the undercovei narcotics beal
Antoine ("Bail
I ') directs a
si 1 ii 1|
I iv I )avid Ayer ("The Fast md
Ihe Furious"); |effre\ Silvei ,nnl
il >\ Newmyer produce through
their Outlaw Prods, banner
("Gossip"). (Warner Bros., 3rd qtr)
Super Troopers
The Broken Lizard Comedy Club
writes and stars in this comedy
about five Vermont State Troopers
who have little more to do than toy
with speeders and pull pranks on
their rivals, the local police force.
When budget cuts decree that one
of the units will be disbanded, they
declare war. The Broken Lizards,
who previously produced "Puddle
Cruiser," include Jay Chandr,
sekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve
Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik
Stolhanske. Brian Cox ("For Love of
the Game"), Daniel von Bargen ("O
Brother, Where Art Thou?") and
Marisa Coughlan ("Freddy Got
Fingered") co-star. Chandrasekhar
directs; Richard Perello ("Puddle
Cruiser") produces. (Fox Searchlight,
summer)
Vulgar
In this comedy, a pathetic professional
clown, struggling to connect
with his young audiences at kiddie
parties, decides to reinvent himself
as Vulgar, a transvestite clown who
shows up at stag parties to shock the
bachelors expecting strippers. Brian
O'Halloran ("Jay and Silent Bob
Strike Back") stars. Bryan Johnson,
Kevin Smith protege writes and
directs his debut; Monica
Hampton, another Smith cohort,
produces. (Lions Gale, summer)
artist
Downtown 81
Nineteen-year-old
avant-garr
lean Michel Basquial stars
himself in this Fantasy drama sel in
New York's downtown art and
music scene, rhe pic was shot in
1981, but business problems halted
produi tion and reels wen- lost
in Europe, resurfacing ye;
later—which is win the pii
being released now. Saul Williai
("Slam") narrates.
iviphei I
Fashion photog
(I Bertoglio direi Is; I Jenn
i i
Biien si ripis Maripol produi es.
(Zeitgeist, summer) |
44 Boxoi 1

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THERE'S SOMETHING
ABOUT "FREDDY"
46 BOXOIFKF
i
g
Ever
Comedian Tom Green Writes, Directs and Stars in
His Feature Film Debut, "Freddy Got Fingered,"
and Offers Insight Into His Mad Shenanigans
the prankster, comedian Tom
Green begins his interview with BOX-
OFFICE by reading from the label of
his Crystal Geyser water bottle. ""Bottled at
the source,"' he says.
'"Crystal Geyser Alpine
Spring Water is always bottled at the
source to maintain the quality and freshness
of our remarkable spring water.'
"I guess what they mean is their bottling
plant is right by the spring, right by
the alpine," he hypothesizes. "Oh, here it
explains the difference. It says. Taste the
difference. Bottled at the crystal geyser
rocks and source in California's Sierra
Nevada Mountains.'"
"So can you taste the difference?"
BOXOFFICE asks.
"It says right on there, 'Taste the difference,'"
he replies coyly.
"But can you?"
After taking a sip and smacking his
lips dramatically, he responds. "Yeah. I
can taste the difference. I can definitely
taste the difference."
Through with pleasantries. Green goes
on to say that not only is he still in the
process of mixing his new comedy.
"Freddy Got Fingered," due
out from Fox on April 20,
but "we're actually still
editing
the film, we're still
shooting
the film, and we're casting
as well. And my friend Derek
[Harvie] and I are going to go
out and have a little breakfast
meeting over coffee, and
we're going to continue to
write the film." He expects to
be completely done with the
movie by six that evening and
can't yet comment on the
post-production process on
his feature film debut
because, he says, "I'm doing
that between three and 3:45."
But just when one starts to
think that Green is one of
those funny guys who not only actually is
funny in interviews but feels the need to be
funny all the freakin' time, he gets serious.
by Annlee Ellingson
Well, sort of—at least serious enough to
get a straight answer or two out of him.
At
first glance,
"Free 'Freddy Got
Fini e r e d "
could be a page out
of Green's own book.
As Gord Brody (the
eponymous Freddy is
his more grounded
younger brother).
Green plays a wannabe
animator who
HOOK, LINE AND SINKER:
Marisa Coughlan snags
Tom Green's heart in "Freddy.
resides in his parents'
basement while honing
his craft. His
father (Rip Torn) is
suspicious, however,
and urges him to go
out and get a real
jot>— perhaps work
ing at the pulp mill like he does. Gord is
determined, though, and continues to
pursue his dream while the battle with his
father escalates.
Green has been known to torture his
well-meaning parents on his
MTV show and before that
on his Canadian cable access
show, both named after him,
but he insists "Freddy's"
underlying themes are more
universal than just the complex
relationship he has with
his own parents.
COLD FISH: Tom Green examines his lunch
in "Freddy Got Fingered. "
"Ultimately at the end of
the movie, [Gord's] really
doing it because he wants to
impress his father and make
his father proud of him,"
Green says. "It's kind of this
weird cateh-22 situation that
a lot of young people find
themselves in. especially
today where they want to do
something that's their personality
and something they believe in
and maybe it's one of these new, new millennium-type
jobs, whether it's the
Internet or working in computers or working
as an actor or as a comedian or as a
writer or one of these things that wasn't as
accepted when our
parents were kids
and trying to go with
it while still fighting
off this negative feedback
that you get
from the people that
you want to impress
the most, which is
your parents, or, in
this case, the father in
the movie. ["Freddy"]
turns into this basically
'War of the
Roses'-type of thing,
except it's all ultimately
about, at the
end of the day,
[Gord] wants to make
his daddy proud of him."
Marisa Coughlan, who co-stars in the
film as Gord's horny, handicapped,
rocket scientist girlfriend, agrees. "It's
funny because you read [the script] and
you think it's just a bunch of craziness,
just Tom being crazy and funny and
kooky and trying to push the envelope
and the shock value," she says. "But I've
seen some cut footage of it, and it's really
amazing that he's managed to tell a
story that's actually poignant, and in the
midst of all this insanity, you're touched
by the truth of this guy who's constantly
being pushed down by his dad and
being told he'll never [achieve his
dream]: 'What are you thinking? Who
do you think you are?'
"It's actually a much more universal
theme and more touching than you would
maybe necessarily think Tom's vision
would be. [about] your own insecurities
and [how] you've been raised, what's been
told to you in terms of what you're capable
of, and then trying to reach past that."
That's not to say that Green's bigscreen
shenanigans will be a watereddown
version of what fans of his TV

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48 BOXOFFICE
. That
shows have come to expect, although he
does point out. "I'm proud to say that
there's actually no poo in this movie.
There's actually zero poo. It's completely
100 percent poo-free.
"I don't want people to think that the
movie is a toned-back. toned-down version
of anything, because there's plenty of bodily
liquids in the movie." he continues. "I'm
just saying that there's no poo. There is—is
there urine? There may not be urine either,
now that I think about it. There was almost
urine, but there's no urine, and there's no
poo. There's a lot of
blood, and there's
tears, and there's
saliva, and there's
other liquids that I
feel bashful mentioning."
In fact, knowing
what she was getting
into, Coughlan
considered very
carefully taking the
role. "To this day. I
still don't know if I
feel comfortable
doing this," she says.
"I really wavered.
It's a lot to bite off. I
didn't know if I was
quite ready for it.
[Green] never tiptoes
around anything,
and I'm a big
people pleaser, so
the first time [I
thought], 'I just
don't know if it's going to offend people."
"And then in the end I'm like, 'You
know what? He's sending a message. My
character is strong and beautiful and
great. It's a chance to really be crazy and
push the limits and push the envelope.'
And that's okay. It's art. That's why art
exists. It doesn't always have to be safe
and pretty and in a nice little box. This
certainly isn't any of those things."
Green made sure Fox and New
Regency, the production outfit on the
film, knew this going in. "I was very clear
that I want to whack off a horse in the
movie," he explains, "i know it says that
on the paper, and I fully intend to whack
off a horse,' [I'd say]. And people would
say. Are you really going to whack off a
horse?' And I would say, 'Yeah, I'd like to.
I'd like to whack off a horse if I could.'
"Square one [is] the movie's name is
'Freddy Got Fingered.' You can't go make
sort of a soft, feel-good movie. It's about
that kind of thing. It's not a middle-of-theroad
comedy—it's definitely go-for-it. All
the way through it, there are plenty of
scenes that I'm sure are going to offend a
lot of people, and I'm fully expecting people
to walk out of the theatre disgusted and
angry. I hope that everybody doesn't like. I
hope that it really pisses people off."
In a sense, Green will do whatever it
takes to get people's attention. "I find a
sense of accomplishment from being
able to trick people into letting me do
stuff that isn't customarily done," Green
says. "With my TV show on MTV, every
time we did something that was overthe-top
and crazy —
[like] the first time I
was sucking milk out of a cow's utter,
which is a gross-out joke—at the end of
the day, people wouldn't laugh at the bit.
People would sort of scream with disgust
and be grossed out.
"And then I would look at the person
beside me, Derek or [show regulars]
iy Got f
Glenn [Humplik] or Phil [Giroux], and
we would look at each other with this
sense of accomplishment that we can't
believe a major network is airing this s
kind of stuff never used to get
aired on television. And that to me is
kind of fun breaking that ground, even if
it's really horrible ground to be breaking.
"I get the same kind of sense of fun out
of doing that with the movie, where I
want people to be sitting there in the theatre,
and, whether they like it or not, I
want them to walk out saying, 'That was
not like any movie I've ever seen before.
There was something wrong with that.' I
would have rather have somebody walk
out of the theatre saying, 'That was the
worst movie I've ever seen in my entire
life. I hated it. It was disgusting and
awful." I would rather that, and in fact I
would enjoy that, than them saying, 'Oh.
it was alright.'"
Coughlan says that Green was likewise
unpredictable on the set. "There
was this restaurant scene where he and
his dad end up getting in this huge fight
in this fancy restaurant." she recalls. "He
purposely cast older people as extras
because it was supposed to be fancy,
stuffy place, so there were a lot of elderly
people as extras who don't at all know
what to expect [from him]. He starts
doing his thing, and you just saw [the
"That movie will
have lots of very genuine
reactions because
he just improv'd so
much as you're going
and just got nuttier
and nuttier."
But like Green says
above, at the end of
the day, "It's not
about whacking off a
|
horse; and it's not
about flinging a bleeding,
bloody,
|
sweat-
covered baby by the
[
umbilical cord around
your head; and it's not
about beating your
handicapped girlfriend with a bamboo
stick; it's not about whacking off an elephant;
and it's not about bloody, broken
bones and cutting deer carcasses open
and jumping around on a highway with a
rotten deer on your back—it's not about
anything gross. It's about a kid that wants
to be an animator." ^~
"Freddy Got Fingered. " Starring To,
Green, Rip Torn, Eddie Kaye Thomas and
Marisa Coughlan. Directed by Tom Green.
Written by Tom Green and Derek Harvie.
Produced by Anion Milchan, Larry
Brezner and Lauren Lloyd. A Fox release.
Comedy. Not yet rated. Opens 4120.
PS. from Tom Green: "I would actually
kind of hope that you don't mention
to anybody about the robots, if you
know about the robots in the movie. I
think there's certain things in the movie
that obviously if you know about the
robots, then that's going to ruin most o(
the story. If when you're writing about
this, about 'Freddy.' please at all costs
don't mention the robots. If you could
actually mention in the article 1 don'l
know ii" I can do this but it I could ask
you to mention in the article to pie
mention that I actually asked you lo i
mention the robots." [Oops! How did
that get in there'.'
/-.'

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.d&r?-
Cover
"HARBOR
SWEEP
Disney Recreates
the Hell and Heroism
of America's Day That
Will Live in Infamy
in "Pearl Harbor"
by Michael Tunison
V
'&
-
A

.
• ' ... • *
A
• • •.
'ichael Bay figures it was the
biggest movie explosion of
.all time—450 dynamite
lbs triggered to blow up six
decommissioned United States Navy
ships in a single sensory-overloading
blast. Add in nine vintage planes
buzzing around at different altitudes,
and the seven-second sequence in the
middle of the World War II epic

complicate

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battleships, all with different
of explosions and different le
damage to them. Some are su
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ghter jocks try
igainst the dev
. Hartnet
ng scenes on the call sheet-
Writes letter'—that was actuif
- ~iost terrified for
wasn't exp» ,f
er hand,
inded by authentic vehicl
progs andHrther details made it e
ier for the actors to slip into the
1940s period mood.
"We had the planes, we had the
trucks, we had the boats—we had
all the toys," Hartnett says. "We
had the best costumes. Everything
I of that period or a
if that period,
;e you didn't have
ust there."
lerry Bruckheimer
at Pearl Harbor's
•cations,
1
past
you-
tmosphere from day*i
; bullet holes axestill in
"'
buildings," Bruckheimer sa> s.
airfield's still there, all this s
that was there at Ihe time of
attack that wasn't blown up. E
'"".„ U p
W±
and other WWII voter
ing famed tlghti
loss. JpPPyd^le
aircraft they usei
e film.
"We took a kind of crashl
course—oh, that's a terrible way toi
put it!—a crash co'
le planes," Hartnett says. "Wi
learned how to fix the B-25 and thu
P-40, and they took us up in IJ-25s
a few times."
Striving for as much accuracy r
ossible, Bay and screen
Randall Wallace ("Braveheart"!
interviewed more than 80 sur "
of the attack, recording coi
war stories on videotape. Man\|
details from tJiese first-ham
accounts ended up in the film,
"^hat's where I think you get th.
von hear tht
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Cover
I WAS THERE
The Star of "Pearl Harbor" Describes His Experiences
and Emotions While Making the Epic War Film
did a lot of research and
read several books
I about Pearl Harbor,
World War II, the Battle of
Britain and the campaign in
the Pacific. I met several
survivors and veterans.
There's no substitute for
hearing people's first-hand
accounts of events. That
was a real education.
The boot camp experience
was also profound for
me as a person. They put us
through training for a week
and it was the most grueling
and difficult physical
and psychological experience
that I've ever gone
through. We were doing it
alongside other military
people who were having a
really tough time.
It left me with a real
sense of achievement after
having finished. It left me
with an enduring respect for what men
and women in the United States military
go through on a daily basis, along
with the sacrifices that they make—not
just the men and women who have lost
their lives, but the personal life sacrifices
they all go through.
characters in Pearl Harbor are
Theamalgams. Everything that happens
to the many characters in the
film actually happened to a real person
during the war. The film doesn't put
Superman all of a sudden in a U.S.
Army uniform. But for the sake of a
Note to readers:
In this piece, Mr. Affleck is
responding to questions asked
of him by the writer of the
issue's first "Pearl Harbor"
story, Michael Tunison.
by Ben Affleck
narrative and story telling constraints,
you have to condense characters and
combine situations.
was a very moving, very humbling
Itexperience. I hadn't visited the
Arizona Memorial before but had
done a great deal of research. To see
where the attack took place in the first
person was astonishing.
There were all these strafe marks,
bullet hits that had been left from
Zeros [Japanese fighter-bombers] during
the actual attack on Pearl Harbor.
All of a sudden I realized, "Oh, my
God, I'm standing in a place where
these people were, where this event
actually happened."
It became very profound for me. At the
beginning of production, we attended a
ceremony held at the Arizona Memorial.
You're standing over this ship that was
sunk—it's still there. You're looking at it,
and you are overwhelmed by the history
of it all. It gives you a very strong sense of
the weight of the whole incident, the
whole war. You usually do a movie with
the hope that you will entertain
people a little bit. But
being there and seeing things
first-hand made me realize
the great debt we owe to the
men and women who died in
the attack, to those who survived
and to those that
served and are now serving
in the American military.
One of the bigger thrills
was being able to fly in this
B-25 off of an aircraft carrier.
It was done with the
Doolittle Raid [a 1942 longrange
bombing of Tokyo off
the carrier Hornet] and has
been allowed to take place
only a couple of other times
since by the U.S. Navy.
n terms of logistics and
sheer production value, I
i; had never experienced
anything like [the filming of
"Pearl Harbor"]. It required so much
building and destroying: Refabricating
all this period stuff and then destroying
it in a way that was so visually realistic,
you thought you were seeing the real
thing. The combination of the planes,
old trucks, old bases and battleships all
added to the incredible production value
of the film.
It was monumental—and that was
before the 170 odd CG shots were added
to enhance the real footage. One of th{
things I liked about the use of compuj
er-generated effects in our film was lha
it's the same up-to-the-minute technoll
gy used in "The Matrix," but it's applie<
to the real world.
With the real world, you have a visua
to draw from. Combine that with the ad
vanced technology, and you can't quiti
tell what's an effect and what's not, I
magic and yet very real.
Michael [Bay. the film's director] is I
extraordinary photographer. 1 thiffl
what's really going to surprise people l
the level to which Michael went to mak
a classic, epic romance.

31 s^

\
The
audience will get a sense
that this isn't the kind of rahrah,
bang-the-drum attitude
toward war. It's a more serious and
weighty thing, and even the winners
suffered enormously. That's what we
were trying to present.
This was the biggest production I
had ever seen—not only the attack
at Pearl Harbor but the whole re-creation
of an era and a time period.
We all deferred our money and
essentially did this movie for free
because we wanted to be a part of
this grand and incredible experience.
I think that everybody responded
to the story. There's a point in making
movies where you become frustrated
with telling stories that you
don't feel mean anything. I wanted
to tell a story that meant something,
and this story means so much
to so many people.
really do believe that you could
make a case for Pearl Harbor
I being the most significant single
event of the 20th Century. Ultimately
what emerged later was that
most people in America didn't want
us to be in World War II.
A Gallup poll showed that 80 percent
of the people in 1939 opposed
getting involved in the war. There
was a strong isolationist sentiment
and people had just had it with foreign
wars.
The veterans would come back
and be shell shocked and miserable.
They wondered, "Why did we fight
this war?" It's the victory of democracy
over fascism, and it
established
a lot of other things that weren't
necessarily great, like the Cold War.
But I think everybody believes the
most important thing that ever happened,
to have come out of WWII,
was the defeat of Nazism and fascism
in Italy, Germany and Japan.
Somestimes I experienced] a
sense of shock, bewilderment
and amazement. There's a
scene in the movie where a guy is
running along as he's watching these
planes drop bombs with all these
people being killed and he says,
"Gosh, I didn't even know the Japs
were sore at us."
That came from a survivor—this
person actually said that. That
fact—that the attack happened completely
out of the blue and was so
vicious and violent—makes it a particularly
striking and symbolic act.
hear about great heroism
Youand you think of whether it's
just these people who were
heroes, when in fact they were actually
very ordinary folk who did really
extraordinary things. I just hope
that the people who see this movie
are as moved and affected as I am by
the men and women who fought and
helped support this country during
World War II. I think it's a valuable
lesson to learn. So often when you're
young you think that nothing else
mattered before you came around.
I
wanted to do something different.
I wanted to make a different
kind of movie. I wanted to make a
real movie, and I worked as hard as
I possibly could to see that I accomplished
that goal.
Hi
DANNY BOY
Retired Nebraska Exhibitor Danny
Flanigan Recalls His Time at Pearl
Danny
by Bridget Byrne
Flanigan was at Pearl Harbor.
Not, luckily for him, on December 7,
1941, when the Japanese bombing
raid sunk or damaged 18 ships, including the
USS Arizona and the USS Oklahoma, and
left more than 2,300 dead—but soon enough
after to see "the terrible mess" and witness
the shattered morale of fellow sailors.
The following year, as World War II raged
on, Flanigan was sent to the Hawaiian naval
base, a stopover on the way to the battle areas
of the Far East. But again he was lucky.
Because his wife was expecting their third child
(who turned out to be his second son,
Richard), he got 10 days leave. So he wasn't on
his ship when, sailing into combat, it was sunk.
Through much of his wartime duty,
Flanigan was assigned to work with underwater
sonar sound equipment. It was a far
different assignment than putting the needle
on the gramophone, which is how he had
started his lifetime love affair with projection
and theatre management.
Back in his school days, when movies were
silent, he would work alongside the projectionist,
playing the records that provided the
music. This disc jockey-style activity led to a
longtime career in the exhibition business,
much of which was spent with the Douglas
Theatre chain in Omaha, Neb. "I did a bit of
everything. I always loved all of it."
Flanigan, now 86, is long retired. He
recently moved to his daughter Judy's
home. She is one of his six children
besides her and Richard, the family includes
Dan, Kathy, Rita and Debbie.
So will the movie "Pearl Harbor" get
Flanigan to the movies? Actually, it doesn't
sound likely this love story set amid "a date
which will live in infamy" will attract him.
"I like musicals," Flanigan says emphatically.
Bing Crosby? "Are you kidding? One of
the best," he exclaims with undimmed enthusiasm.
He was also a major fan of Fred
Astaire. He's disappointed that Hollywood
doesn't make that kind of entertainment anymore.
It was, he says, the type of movie the
sailors stationed in Hawaii used to enjoy
most, when he helped arrange the screenings
for them. In a world where everyone was
"tore up," as he puts it, song and dance
brought joy. "I don't much like the movies
they make now," he says.
i
Like many who experienced war, he prefers
not to have to talk too much about what he
remembers. "I was really glad to get back." he
says. After spending two years and two
months in the theatre of war, he was lucky.
He was able to return, to home, family and a
job he loved, unlike so many of those who
were stationed at Pearl Harbor—just a little
bit before him.

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SPECIAL REPORT: Sundance 2001
THE VIRGIN SUICIDES
The Cast and Crew of "My First Mister
Debate Ageism in Hollywood
poignant opening
A
nighter for the
2001 Sundance Film Festival.
"My First Mister" is so unique in
its vision and original in its story arc that
at a post-screening press conference, journalists
focused on what they expected it
to be rather than what it actually is—
gentle story about family love.
J (LeeLee Sobieski) is a multi-pierced,
black-clad Goth girl who drafts her own
eulogies in her spare time. R (Albert
Brooks) is an uptight sweater wearer who
reads a book everyday while he eats
his
lunch on a bench outside the men's suit
store where he works. The pair forms an
unlikely friendship that is met with skepticism
from both the other characters in the
film and audience members, but in the
end, it's less "Lolita" and more "Harold
and Maude." ("You mean you think I look
as old as Ruth Gordon?" Brooks quips.)
Yet at a festival founded by Robert
Redford, who has cast himself in such
May-December relationships as Michelle
Pfeiffer in "Up Close and Personal,"
Demi Moore in "Indecent Proposal" and
Kristin Scott Thomas in "The Horse
Whisperer." the older manyounger
woman coupling
was something helmer
Christine Lahti and her cast
just couldn't avoid discussing,
despite their greatest
efforts to the contrary.
"I didn't see ['My First
Mister'] as a man's wet
dream. I didn't." Lahti says.
(To which Brooks adds, "If
this story is someone's wet
dream, we need to help
them.") "I saw that there
was sexuality [and] tension
between them. I dealt with it
the way that [screenwriter] Jill [Franklyn]
wrote. You deal with it, you acknowledge
it,
it's there, and then you move beyond it.
"I had people read the script and say,
'Well, they have to end up in bed or no
one's going to want to go see it,'" she
continues.
"Then they
should go see
another movie.
It was never my
intention, never
Jill's
intention.
by Annlee Ellingson
trend, the panel agrees. "I have a theo-
It wasn't hard to walk back, to get away
from [the Hollywood] cliche. I never perceived
ry," Lahti says. "My theory is that a lot
of the studio executives are male, and a
it that way."
For Brooks, it was the unusual friendship
that attracted him to the script. "I've
lot of them are adolescent."
"George Burns, bless his heart, took a
20-year-old girl to the Academy Awards,
and everybody thought it was cute,"
Brooks adds. "If it
was the other way
around, people would
be confused. So I
always felt myself in life that people of different
age groups see
so many walls between
the generations," he
says. "Why can't people
who are looking
desperately for friends
find them wherever
they can find them?
And it doesn't automatically
mean that
they're going to this
hotel for the night.
That was the good
part of the movie, and
that's what I don't see
in a literature a lot: some sort of a bond
that isn't simply sexual between a man and
a woman of that age difference."
"It's so much more fascinating to have a
friendship with somebody that comes from
a different place than you—a different
country or a different age,"
adds Sobieski. "That makes it
all the more interesting. I
would definitely describe it as
an incredible friendship and
mental love story."
"What I love about this
movie is what Albert and
LeeLee were talking about."
Lahti chimes in. "It's the
commonalities, the humanity
that we all share, underneath
the external. [The
characters] look so different.
They come from completely
different worlds, and yet
they share a loneliness and a need to be
loved. We all want that."
That one sees a younger woman on
the arm of a much older man so often in
the movies is symptomatic of a larger
1
think it begins there.
The fact that society
itself allows it seems
to be okay, and these
movie stars at that age
are going to take
advantage of that."
These very issues
apparently figured
into Sundance coiristine
Lahti director Geoffrey
Gilmore's selection of the film to open the
festival. "What I love about this film is what
again Christine and Albert and LeeLee
have been talking about," he says. "It's a
film that you have certain anticipations
about that completely go in other directions.
And they do it beautifully. They don't
do it the way—and I say this with all due
respect to the good work coming out of the
studios—they don't do it
the way studios
often do. which is you try and make a film
that's melodramatic. [Instead.] you make it
with a touch and feel and a sensibility here
that's really something special, which really
showcases talent, which too often we don't
see these days.
"People aren't sure of their audiences.
They read them in ways that they think
they can't be subtle anymore. And a film
like this has subtleties that make it
really
beautiful."
flHtf
"My Firs! Mister." Starring Albert
Brooks. LeeLee Sobieski, Desmond
Harrington. Carol Kane. Mary Kay
Place and Michael McKean. Directed by
C 'hristinc Lahti. Written by Jill Franklyn
Produced by Carol Battm. Jane
Go I den r i n g,
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ANNLEE'S
JOURNAL
Living the Cinema Life
in Park City
by Annlee Ellingson
Thursday, .January 18
I love airports. There's such a sense of
adventure. Families are reuniting, lovers
are saying good-bye. And going to the
Burbank airport can actually be a pleasure.
It's so small that even if you're
dropped off at the wrong terminal (like I
almost was), you'd only have to walk
about 100 yards to get to the right one.
Once inside, you can virtually walk right
up to ticket agent to check in.
The passengers there are generally business-types.
As I looked around this morning,
1 noticed that everyone was wearing
black, except for one, and she was wearing
brown. And while the wailing area could
use a little more leg room— I
the chair across from me when 1
actually hit
tried to
cross my legs and the bathroom stalls
look like they're a temporary installation,
it's downright romantic walking right out
onto the tarmac get on the plane.
The passengers I ran into during
my layover in San Francisco weren't
quite so demure. A group of boisterous,
big-haired Southern ladies wearing
"Red Hot Mamas" apparel
sweatshirts, crazy caps, including a
jester hat. and big. bright, bouncy, poofy
earrings—attracted attention throughout
the terminal. One of the women,
cognizing the looks she and her girlfriends
were getting, looked directly at a
looky-loo and confronted him with a
big, friendly, pointed "Hi!" Caught off
guard, he slinked sheepishly away.
Overall, my journey to Park City was
rather uneventful. None of my connections
were late, my bag was among the
first off the plane, and I got right on a
shuttle to Park City. I even had enough
lime to get over to the pressroom to
check in before it closed at five.
My day got a little more interesting
once 1 arrived at my hotel, a little B&B
on Main Street. After lugging my bag up
the icy wooden steps, 1 was greeted at the
front door with. "We don't have any
more rooms." What a kidder.
Little did the stranger
know that those halfdozen
words were my
worst nightmare come
true. The place is so intimate
and charming that it
doesn't take credit cards,
and, having not confirmed
my reservation, 1 was
afraid the little old lady
who runs it forgot. But the
guy who greeted me. Jim,
doesn't even work here.
He's a writer for Hits magazine
who stays here every
year, but he knew the
ropes, and the proprietor,
Carol, was out, so he gave
me my key and showed me
to my room, saying. "This
is like slaying at Grandma

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68 BOXOHKK
GREENE PARTY: "FIRST THINGS
by Ray Greene
first
The
thing that
strikes you
about Park City
during Sundance
2001 is that it is
very, very crowded.
No doubt the
skiers have hit the
slopes, but the
movie diehards
outnumber them for now, and they are
out in force from day one, which is a
departure from Sundances past. As
recently as two years ago, the first four or
so days of the festival were a time when
you could walk the streets of downtown
in relative quiet and solitude before the
Hollywood hordes—the agents, the managers,
the publicists, the distribution
executives—landed like locusts with cell
phones, prepared to swarm over, chew up
and in some cases spit out the latest crop
of indie films and filmmakers.
The industry insiders bided their time
because the first few days of the festival
are relatively without buzz, and an industry
insider is nothing without buzz.
Nobody has seen enough new films to
have an informed opinion about the
Sundance slate, so nobody is really in the
know yet. Add to that the steady increase
in recent years of films that arrive in
Park City with distribution already in
place, and you have the worst of both
worlds for any movie exec whose status
revolves around being the first person to
repeat someone else's opinion: a combination
of stale news and the unknown.
Downtown Park City on January 19 is
in fact a bit like the mad carnival of
Cannes, only with well-below-freezing
temperatures and mediocre Tex-Mex
restaurants standing in for the wine and
song of the Riviera. Youthful film hopefuls
who would have been founding garage
bands and memorizing back issues of
Rolling Stone and Crawdaddy in an earlier
time have mobilized, using their parents'
credit cards or their student loans, and
landed in the streets of this former-mining-town-gone-upscale-boutique
community,
to stand in the frigid air, watching
their breath congeal in humid clouds of
awed, sarcastic and hypermanic conversation,
and wait for their dreams to materialize
right there on the icy sidewalks.
Some of them have completed projects
under their arms—mostly short films,
created to take advantage of the proliferation
of four-minute movies on the
Internet that was last year's hot new hype.
The web companies that dominated
Sundance in 2000 have vanished like a
bedouin caravan in the wake of latespring
stock market catastrophes and
never-launched IPOs, but the news of
that burst bubble has yet to penetrate the
robust young metabolisms of all these
proud young men and women, or else the
negative change in their distribution
prospects has left them undeterred.
Around one out of every four has some
sort of video rig, from the high-end package,
complete with a camera-mounted
light that would be the envy of most TV
news crews, to miniaturized variations
that might easily be mistaken for electric
shavers or slightly bulky cellular phones.
This is the brave new world Sundance
prophesied. The world where filmmaking
moves out of the backlots and into the
streets, where every eyeball has a camera
trained on every other eyeball, where
making a movie is as simple and portable
as strumming an acoustic guitar.
There's
been a subtle shift in the
core population of the festival in
recent times, thanks in large part
to Internet hype and the amazingly swift
popularization of the pro-sumer video
gauge known as Mini-DV. It is an actual
fact that a novice filmmaker can now
create a low-end broadcast-quality video
production unit for about $6,000—or
roughly 25 percent of a year's tuition at
a mediocre American university.
And forced to choose between writing
another fistful of uninspired term papers
or becoming the next Scorsese, Truffaut
or Tarantino, which would you choose?
In a few days, the tenor of the festival
will no doubt change and revert to something
like its old identity as Hollywood's
unofficial farm system. If you listen hard
enough, you can almost hear the jets
landing on the runway at Salt Lake City,
disgorging the bottom-line types into
their waiting rental cars. Although the
acquisition heat has definitely been off
ever since Miramax lost something in the
neighborhood of $30 million on a
Sundance purchase called "Happy,
Texas" a few years back, Harvey
Weinstein is returning in person this year,
and has been vowing to set the pace.
But whether the headline-making
deals are cut or not this year, the streets
belong, at least momentarily, to a motley
and portable and infectiously enthusiastic
community of "filmmakers," the majority
of whom will never complete a project,
let alone find an audience for their work.
They are emblems of something that
too easily evaporates in the hard cold
morning-after glare of the serious
world of professional film. And if
Sundance 2001 does nothing but provide
them with a moment of hope,
encouragement and victory that may
carry one or two of them through the
years of struggle and hardship that
accompany almost every fledgling
career in the creative arts, the festival
will already have done its job.
Saturday, January 20
I saw a car accident this morning, anc
tonight, on the way home, there was at
ambulance and, I believe, a fire truck. It'
a wonder there aren't 10 major collision:
a day. Main Street is packed from mid
afternoon on, and the festival is runninj
its own line of shuttles in addition to thi
city buses. Driving is a nightmare. I don'
want to look out The window on the shut
ties for fear of seeing an accident about t<
happen at every moment. One of our dri
vers actually said, while turning left ont<
a busy road, "They'll stop when they hi
us broadside."
Sunday, January 21
Speaking of accidents... today one o
our bus drivers gave us a tour of some o
Park City's more popular hangouts dur
ing Sundance. "For those of you stayil
past today," he said, "there's the Park Cit;
liquor store," also pointing out a wine cei
lar for those with more refined tastes.
Then he gave us a rundown of Utal
liquor laws — you can't buy the stuff oi
Sunday, thus the "past today" commenl
or holidays—but he was unclear abou
the difference between 12 a.m. and 1
p.m., so we were just as confused as eve)
At which point one of the oilier passer
gers, noting the driver's intimate know!
edge on the availability o! alcohol, saic
"That's why he's swerving all over th
road!" Fortunately, we were near on
destination by then.

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Monday, January 22
I guess I've lucked out on the whole
starf— -ing culture (see "Greene Party,"
page 72) so far. Tonight, at the world
premiere of "Enigma," was the first time
I was at a screening that celebrity gawking
was truly in force. I was looking forward
to seeing Kate Winslet in person,
but neither she nor her co-star Dougray
Scott were in the audience. Instead, the
press was lined up with their video and
still cameras with ultra-long zoom lenses
to capture the unusual producing pair
Mick Jagger and Lome Michaels
and possibly audience member Kyle
MacLachlan, whom everyone
around me referred to as "that guy
from 'Twin Peaks.'*'
Tuesday, January 23
It has come to my attention that
one of the goofy photos that I
allowed my co-workers to take of me
during a lapse of judgment is now up
on the web. Maybe my boss is giving
me the hint to get that Sundance-y
photo in to him. If so, his plan has
backfired: I figure if there's a photo
up—any photo- then that little task
has dropped down on my list of
orilies. (I'm not keen on si
pose and asking a complete
stranger to conduct
a cheesy impromptu
photo shoot.)
Besides, I wouldn't want
all of the time he spent
Photoshopping out the
incriminating material
hanging on the wall
behind me replacing it
with a pastel pink background, no less
to go to waste.
Wednesday, January 24
I feel like I'm finally over the hump.
Actually, yesterday was hump day, but
somehow three days left of films seems a
lot more manageable than four. And with
the exception of tomorrow, they consist of
only three films each. Carol told me this
morning, the first time I've been able to
eat her breakfast, that I looked pale and
should get more rest —just like Grandma.
But apart from the brutal schedule,
which is an adventure of sorts in itself, I
love Sundance. I love going to see films
that I know absolutely nothing about, a
rarity in trailer-happy Hollywood. And
last night I saw "Donnie Darko," a truly
original film that reminded me why I
studied the medium in the first place. I
had become disenchanted as of late, not
caring to see the studio product once it
hit theatres after being inundated with
hyper promotional campaigns for
months in advance. But "Donnie
Darko" is a sci-fi teen angst comedy
that's captivating from beginning to end,
refuses to spoon-feed its audience and
leaves one with concepts to contemplate
long after the screen has gone dark.
Thursday, January 25
I saw a shooting star tonight. I was
looking up into the night sky after my
last screening while waiting for the shuttle
because you can't see the stars in Los
Angeles. I was searching for the Big
Dipper (the only constellation I know)
and low and behold, there it was—
streak of light just above the horizon. I
don't think anyone else around me spotted
it, so it was my wish to make. But
pathetically, I didn't have anything to
wish for. At that point, all I wanted was
12 hours later. I was
so tired, I could
I
barely walk in a straight line.
to get back to the
hotel and lie down.
My first screening
had started at 8:30
that morning, and
my last one got out
In line to see "Manic," some people
involved with the film needed to get an
extra ticket and so lined up in the wait list
line behind me, the obnoxious entourage
perpetually growing as the hour licked by
and eventually spilling out of the ropes
and into the walkway beside it. The ringleader
seemed to be a co-producer who
also had a small role in the film, to which
"audiences have really been responding."
or so he said. Of course, I awaited Mr.
Star-Waiting-to-Be-Discovered's scenes.
There were two. They were each a split
second in length. He had no lines.
Friday, January 26
I forgot to mention yesterday that
there were some technical difficulties at
two separate screenings I went to, and
it's interesting to note that one was projected
with DPI technology, and the
other was old-fashioned film print wearand-tear.
In the digitally projected
"Manic," the screen became pixilated
once in awhile, obscuring the image, like
|
when the cable goes out. In the 35mm
"Green Dragon," there was a thick green
line near the center of the frame
throughout the entire film, and a thinner
black one that flickered in and out.
Some poor projectionist is going to get
j
his butt reamed for that one. How frustrating
for the filmmakers to make it to
Sundance with their labors of love, only
to have the viewing experience mangled.
In light of these problems, it's interesting
to debate the merits of the two technologies.
I'm a celluloid loyalist,
and on the one hand, you could
still watch "Green Dragon,"
even if there was a constant
source of distraction. On the
other, "Manic's" difficulties
were much more jarring but are
fixable, and the copy isn't
destroyed for future viewings.
Saturday, January 27
My last screening of the festival
was today at noon. It felt
like the weight of the world had
been lifted from my shoulders. I
couldn't help but to smile on my
bus ride home. Did I use the
afternoon and evening to pump out
as many reviews as possible before
coming home and facing a looming
deadline? No. Did I sit there, waiting
sleeplessly for the morning shuttle
to arrive to whisk me home? Yes.-
Don't get me wrong— I love this
fest, but I'm ready to go now.
Sunday, January 28
I left Park City this morning)
around 7 a.m., having planned my
itinerary around the Super Bowl,
thinking my Minnesota Vikings
might be playing in it today. That'
was before they got skunked by the
Giants in the playoffs two weeks
ago. Nonetheless, I was back home in
time to catch the game or. rather, the
commercials, as it was among the most
boring championship games one could
conceive of. I ended up rooting for
Baltimore, though, probably because
Sundancer on my early-morning shuttle
was proudly wearing his Ravens hat. He,
too, had scheduled around the game and
was particularly excited to get home
because no one had really predicted his
leant to be playing today.
He wasn't the only one with places to
go. At the San Francisco airport, I
encountered a very harried gentleman
scurrying down the terminal as though
trying to catch a flight and shouting
frantically into his cell. "Of all the daj '
I need to get home for the Super Bowl
70 BOXOFFICE

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GREENE PARTY: "MOLLY RINGWALD'S DEAD" by Ray Greene
met Mick Jagger, Jacqueline Bisset unknown to be near the famous, with a the lodge. Ms. Stein Erikson turns as if
and a cowboy named Kim today. chorus that goes:
the dead animal wrapped around her
I The Sundance Film Festival is now "Star f— a star f— a star f— a star f- throat had just come to life and bitten
well and truly underway. And the - a star./f— a star f— a star f— a star f-
quote-unquote "glamor" is so thick you -- a star f— a star/Star f— a star f— a
her. "Uh...What? Look, I don't need to
be there for another hour and a half.
can cut it with a knife. If you take out
its bodyguards first, that is.
Star sightings have become a corro-
star f— a star f— a star."
I can't get "Star Star" out of my head.
Later that night, I am riding in a taxi
Can't you see I'm talking here?"
We pull off at the liquor store as
scheduled. Andrea and I take as much
with my new best friend Andrea, a TV time as needed to make sure we get
producer I met at the festival. Our driver
something nice for ourselves. By the
is a long lanky man in full western time we get back to the cab, Ms. Stein
Erikson is highly indignant that we have
inconvenienced her new old friend: "I
mean, really, don't you realize Jackie is
long, and the fan attention directed at
him by the small crowd that gathers
where he stops is something that might
be more appropriate to the risen Lord.
A Baldwin brother (Adam? Billy?)
shares a heated doorway with me for a
moment, eyes my press badge warily. I
ignore him, as I ignored Swayze, feeling
almost smug.
Then, in the midst of it all, I am hired
to slog down to Main Street with my
professional digital camera package and
shoot an interview in an empty restaurant
with one of the dozen or so biggest
celebrities of the century: Rolling Stone
Mick Jagger, here to promote a dramatic
film called "Enigma" that he's just
produced with "Saturday Night Live"
creator Lome Michael. When I get to
the shooting location, it's really him.
He shook my hand—dutifully, politely,
and in a way that somehow managed
to indicate this was all
the social interaction
Mick Jagger and I will ever have,
even if we both live to be 100 and everyone
else is wiped out from eating mutated
genetically engineered corn.
He insisted on repositioning his
microphone after I pinned it to his shirt,
and he had definite ideas about the light
in the room and how it was falling on
him. He asked for a large glass of spring
water, which he barely drank from. And
sive and regular occurrence, and the
daily pursuit of tickets to the evening
parties has replaced the pursuit of
movie tickets as the favorite audience
pastime. On the buses and vans, you
overhear conversations: "...Met the guy
who played that guy in that movie...."
regalia right down to the black Stetson
hat, so we ask if he's an honest-to-god
cowboy. He says he raises and breaks
horses for a living, and that his name is
"Hear Courtney Love and her new Kim. Andrea says, "A cowboy named
boyfriend are staying in Deer Valley...."
"...Said he'd look at my tape.. .watch my
Kim? Is that like being A Boy Named
Sue'?" Kim smiles and says, "Let's just
trailer.. .take my one-sheet home with say it toughened me up."
him," or with her, with them, with it....
It is midweek, and it's starf—ing time.
We have prearranged with Kim to
stop at one of Park City's only liquor
In the streets I spot Patrick Swayze,
walking slowly, as if wanting to be recognized.
He does not have to wait for
stores so we can each buy a bottle of
wine, which is a hard and controlled
substance in the teetotaling better world
of Utah, settled as it was by the
abstemious Brigham Young. Before we
make it to the liquor store, our cab
(which, like all Park City cabs, is actually
a van) stops to take on other passengers,
including a noisome and petulant
woman in a fur coat who forces her way
onto the cab (you are supposed to call
first) and insists that the driver take her
immediately to the Stein Erikson
Lodge, some 30 minutes away.
Kim explains he can't do that—she has
to reserve a cab on a busy night like this.
The woman becomes indignant.
Apparently, the world will stop revolving
if she can't get to Stein Erikson
lodge, and all the people in Park City
and everywhere else will fly off into
space without the gravity generated by
her timely arrival at parties to hold
them.
The van stops again. A handsome,
well-heeled couple steps on. The
woman in particular gives off an air of
almost regal glamor and speaks with a
musical English accent. I am reminded
of a more middle-aged Elizabeth
Hurley, although it never enters my
mind that a real movie star might ride
around town in a van. Then Andrea
leans over and whispers, "That's
Jacqueline Bisset." Of course it is.
Ms. Stein Erikson recognizes Ms.
he was taller than I expected.
Bisset, too, and begins to talk a blue
I was in his presence for all of 20 streak: "What a beautiful coat! Have you
minutes, and I was not his interviewer. been to the Zona Rosa yet? It's not all it's
And I know nothing more about Mick cracked up to be—I prefer the
Jagger (other than his height and the Gamekeepers Grill. Do you ski? They're
fact that he likes to stay hydrated) than saying the powder is the best it's been in
I did when I walked into the room.
years.... And I loved you in.... I loved you
The day rushes on. Stones songs rattle
around in my head, especially one Ms. Bisset appears to be eating it up.
in.... I loved you in...." To my surprise,
from the "Goat's Head Soup" LP entitled
"Star Star." It's a song about bent the rules and has radioed in for
Our driver leans back and says he
groupies and the desperation of the permission to take Ms. Stein Erikson to
going to be late for her premiere?"
I smile to myself and at Andrea,
thinking about the glass of Chardonnay
I'm going to have when I get back to my
room. Because of course we had no way
of knowing that.
Molly
Ringwald's dead in '16
Candles'!" cries the young female
voice, shrill with emotion.
I turn and spot: A girl with long dark
hair, parked in front of the pay phones.
She is holding a small knapsack in front
of her, which she fondles as she talks
like a favorite doll.
Molly Ringwald? Dead? Are you sure
you're not thinking of Ally Sheedy?
"That's right! And that's, like, one of
my all-time favorite movies! I just saw
this guy on the street and I said, like,
'You look familiar! Have you, like, been
in anything?' And he said, 'I've been in,
like, a lot of things.' So I said, 'Like anything
that I would have seen?' And he
said, like, '16 Candles?' And that was
when I realized, "You're Molly
Ringwald's dad in '16 Candles!'"
Certain she would run into major
stars while in Park City, the young
woman, named Nicole, came equipped.
In addition to her knapsack, she's lugging
around a black Sharpie marker,
"Permanent, Fine Point."
Each time Nicole runs into a personality
she recognizes, she gets them to
sign her bag. Presumably she will wear
it
to school later and be the envy of all
those who spent late January back in
whatever affluent suburb she comes
from, rather than here in Park City,
touching the hem of greatness.
In addition to Molly Ringwald's dad,
whose name, according to Nicole, is Paul
Dooley, her rogue's gallery of second-tier
celebrity signings includes "Leelee
Sobieski, a bunch of people from MTV's,
like, 'Real World,' and that Australian
guy Sam somebody who played the
archaeologist in 'Jurassic Park.'..."
Sam Neill? "That's it! But, like, meeting
Paul Dooley is the best thing that,
like, happened to me ever!"
For the third act to "Greene Parry."
logon to www.boxqffice.com/sundancel
greenejarty3.html
72 BOXOFFICE

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SPECIAL FEATURE: Books On Cioema
SUMMERTIME TOMES
BOXOFFICE'S Annual Summer Reading List
for the Literate Movie Buff
by Francesca Dinglasan
ROGER EBERT'S MOVIE YEARBOOK 2001
by Roger Ebert
Andrews McMeel Publishing
912 pgs./ $16.95
The country's
most
influential
movie critic
has just released his latest collection
of big-screen praise,
barbs and condemnations in
the whopping 912-page "Roger
Ebert's Movie Yearbook
2001." Ebert, who has suggested
that any film reviewer
worth his or her salt is one
who has attended all of them,
proves his point by including
an exhaustive collection of his
most recent critiques, which
cover more than 600 theatrical
releases from the first day in
EBERT'S
MOVIE
YEARBOOK
2001
1998 to June 30, 2000.
From the most hotly anticipated Hollywood fare,
including "Fight Club" ("the most frankly and cheerfully
fascist movie since "Death Wish") and "Star Wars
Episode I: The Phantom Menace" ("an astonishing
achievement in imaginative filmmaking"), to the smallest
art-house releases, such as "20 Dates" ("The film has the
obnoxious tone of a boring home movie narrated by a
guy shouting in your ear"), Ebert's observations, peppered
with insight and humor, always please—regardless
of whether you agree with him or not.
In addition to hundreds of movie reviews, the reference
work features Ebert's on-the-spot reporting from
some of the world's largest film festivals, including
Telluride, Cannes, Sundance and Toronto; interviews
with several influential moviemakers, such as Woody
Allen, Martin Scorsese and Lars von Trier; and excerpts
from his syndicated column, "Questions for the Movie
Answer Man"— an absolute must-read. The section covers
a wide variety of issues related to the cinema experience,
ranging from audible conversations during a feature presentation
("People who talk during movies may have rabies
and should be approached cautiously") to the role of the
critic ("In most cases, they love film more than the average
moviegoer, which is why they hold it to a high standard")
making "Yearbook" a nice addition to anyone's collection.
"THE MOVIES ARE"
CARL SANDBURGS
FILM REVIEWS AND ESSAYS, 1920-1928
Arnie Bernstein, Editor
Lake Claremont Press
638 pgs./ $17.95
While
Roger Ebert is, of course, the
first name that one associates with
the words "Chicago film reviewer,"
the Windy City also produced another great
mind that loved to ponder the meaning of celluloid art.
Although canonical for his poetry and biographies, for
which he won two Pulitzer prizes. Carl Sandburg was a prolific
writer of movie criticism, producing several hundreds of
pieces for the Chicago Daily News.
Arnie Bernstein has compiled an impressive number of
Sandburg's writings on film and handily assembled them into
the scholarly, yet wholly accessible collection, "The Movies
Are': Carl Sandburg's Film Reviews and Essays, 1920-1928."
Displaying a depth of knowledge regarding the intricacies of
the medium, Sandburg's reviews explore not only plot and
narrative, but also technical innovations of the day, such as
the use of color and three-dimensional
photography and developments
in sound. Sandburg's writings
also convey an interest in auteurism,
made all the more evident by his
interviews with some of the era's
most famous filmmakers.
Bernstein prefaces each of Sandburg's
film reviews—which here
cover theatrical releases throughout
the 1920s—with historical data
relevant to the particular film,
which helps put each entry into
perspective. Bernstein informs the
reader, for example, that the 1921
pic "The Scarlet Letter" "was
under scrutiny by various selfappointed
watchdog groups overseeing
Hollywood"— illuminating
Sandburg's observation that the feature is "filmed. ..with
sufficient closeness to the letter to escape the censors."
Apporpriately enough, Roger Ebert wrote the introduction
to "The Movies Are." noting, quite accurately, that it
"reopens a chapter of journalism that might have remained
closed forever." Now, thanks to Bernstein's painstaking
work, everyone can access it.
74 Boxoiiki

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THE MOVIE BOOK
Phaidon
512 pgs./ $39.95
Art-book
publisher Phaidon has
assembled an absolutely breathtaking
tome in "The Movie
Book." Featuring black-and-white and
color stills from hundreds of the 20th century's landmark
films—in their relation to the big-screen's most
important actors and filmmakers—the book is like a
compact version of the history of cinema—in all its
full visual glory.
Arranged alphabetically by last names of individuals
who established careers behind or in front of the
camera, "The Movie Book" serves more as an aesthetic
reminder of some of cinema's most beautiful and
ICONS OF FILM:
THE 20TH CENTURY
Peter W. Engelmeier, Editor
Prestel Books
192 pgs./ $29.95
"The Movie Book," "Icons of
Film: 20th Century"
£QL:ike
is a visually
sumptuous peek into the universe
of cinema. Part of a series published by
Prestel Books that includes "Icons of Architecture,"
"Icons of Art," "Icons of Design," "Icons of Fashion"
and "Icons of Photography," the publication documents
the most memorable moments of the medium
with the difference being that it also serves as a useful
reference tool for film students or buffs interested in
learning about the historical and cultural contexts that
helped propel each film to iconic status.
Arranged chronologically, the tome spans seven
decades worth of cinematic landmarks, from Charlie
Chaplin's "The Kid" in 1920 to Sam Mendes' Academy
Award-winning "American Beauty" in 1999. Each
entry in this coffee table volume is accompanied by film
credits, a timeline of the director's life, the movie's most
famous quotes, a synopsis of the critical and general
reaction to the film at the time of its release and, of
course, beautiful photographs of the images that have
become filmatic icons: Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh
locked in a pre-embrace kiss in "Gone With the Wind";
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergmann as Rick and
Ilsa looking into one another's eyes in "Casablanca":
Rita Hayworth's notoriously sexy strip tease using only
gloves in "Gilda"; and Marlon Brando perfecting his
Method Acting by peeling off that sweaty shirt in "A
Streetcar Named Desire" are just some of the many
visual delights that lie waiting for curious eyes between
the hard covers of this oversized folio.
A beautiful addition to any film lover's table, "Icons
of Film" is as substantial as it is stylish.
epic onscreen moments, rather than a practical reference
source. Accompanying text, however, succinctly
captures the spirit of the depicted shots, putting each
respective still into its historical context.
Take, for example, the entry for Jean-Paul
Belmondo, star of Jean-Luc Godard's French New
Wave classic, "Breathless." The famous scene along
the Champs-Elysees is described, "Sauntering down
a Paris street next to Jean Seberg, hat pushed back,
cigarette stuck in his mouth, Jean-Paul Belmondo in
Godard's "Breathless" (1959) was the essence of
French cool, a gallic Humphrey Bogart." Turn to the
entry for contemporary director Quentin Tarantino,
and a face-off between actors Steve Buscemi and
Harvey Keitel in "Reservoir Dogs" is preceded with
the description, "'Reservoir Dogs' had great dialogue
and unflinching graphic violence. Tarantino both
wrote and directed, putting into action everything he
had learned from his years of watching films while
working in a video store."
Replete with both classic figures and modern-day
masters, "The Movie Book" is bound to be enjoyed by
just about anyone, from the casual film enthusiast to
the diehard aficianado, able to get their hands on this
massively heavy collection of published elegance.
i • Tj Icons ol
Film
The 20"' Century
76 BOXOFFICE

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CASSELL'S MOVIE QUOTATIONS
by Nigel Rees
Sterling Publishing Co.
416 pgs./ $29.95
more than 4,000 of the
most famous and amusing lines to
ever come off of the big-screen,
Featuring
"Cassell's Movie Quotations" is sure to
contain whatever witty exchange, snappy catchphrase or
overused cliche you ever wanted to know—as long as it
emanated from the world of movies.
The book is organized as an alphabetical listing of
films, actors and moviemakers, with each of their most
memorable or particularly interesting quotes listed
below them.
In addition to faithfully reproducing lines directly
from the films themselves, including "I want you to get
up right now and go to the window, open it and stick out
your head and yell: Tm mad as hell, and I'm not going
to take this anymore!'" from 1976's "Network," or
Humphrey Bogart's lament in "Casablanca," "Of all the
gin joints in all the towns in the world, she walks into
mine," the book has also assembled an immense collection
of quotes made off the camera, made about a particular
talent and even those that are attributed to a particular
celebrity.
SPACES IN EUROPEAN CINEMA
by Myrto Konstunturakos
Intellect
188 pgs./ $24.95
ilm students on summer break
beware: If you're looking to avoid
scholarly books while off-duty,
1 '
perhaps nerhar "Spaces in European Cinema"
is not for you. However, if your mindless best sellers
are getting a little repetitive, try this well-written and
accessible assortment of essays that examine the use of
setting in European film.
Although clearly biased towards French cinema—no
less than five essays focus primarily on Paris—the collection
offers interesting insight into the function of
setting within film narrative.
An exploration of urban space, the collected essays
examine films from the 1920s all the way up to the 1990s,
touching on their various political, social and cultural
contexts. Contributions include David Berry's "Underground
Cinema: French Visions of the Metro"; Susan
Hayward's "The City as Narrative: Corporeal Paris in
Contemporary French Cinema (1950s- 1990s)"; Keith A.
Producer Joel Silver, for example, has boldly proclaimed,
"I don't make art. I buy it," while the remark,
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work.
I want to achieve it through not dying" has been widely
attributed to director Woody Allen. Rex Reed is said to
have stated "To know her is not necessarily to love her"
about Barbra Streisand, while "In good films, there is
alway a directness that entirely frees us from the itch to
interpret" is a much quoted extract about cinema from
Susan Sontag's book, "Against Interpretation."
Although obviously not the summer romance to get
absorbed in while laying on a sunny beach, "Cassell's
Movie Quotations," the first comprehensive collection of
its kind, is nonetheless an entertaining and well-organized
source of cinematic verbage for the casual and
professional movie fan.
Reader's "Subtext: Paris of Alexandre Traunet";
Raynalle Udris' "Countryscape/Cityscape and
Homelessness in Agnes Varda's 'Sans Toi ni Loi' and
Leos Carax's 'Les Amants du Pont Neuf"; Carol
Diethe's "Anxious Spaces in German Expressionist
Films"; "Deniz Gokturk's "Turkish Women on German
Streets: Closure and Exposure in Transcontinental
Cinema"; Martin Jesinghausen's "The Sky Over Berlin
as Transcendental Space: Wenders, Doblin and the
Angel of History'"; Leonardo Ciacci's "The Rome of
Mussolini: An Entrenched Stereotype in Film"; David
Forgacs' "Antonioni: Space, Place, Sexuality"; "Myrto
Konstantarakos' "Is Pasolini an Urban Film-maker?";
Alberto Mira's "Transformations of the Urban
Landscape in Spanish film noir"; Elizabeth Lebas' "The
Clinic, the Street and the Garden: Municipal Film-making
in Britain Between the Wars"; Lieve Spaas' "Centre,
Periphery and Marginality in the Films of Alain
Tanner"; Jukka Sihvonen's "Between the Two:
Dimensions of Space in Finnish Cinema"; and Graham
Robert's "East Meets West: Mapping the New Europe in
Yury Manin's A Window to Paris.'"
HI
78 BOXOI I

j
CINEMECCANICAU.S. INC.
-. 8753 Lion Street
"|i| Rancho Cucamonga, California 91730
*
p: 909-481-5842 f: 909-481-5845
4 e: cinemec@earthlink.net
Response No 103
CINEMECCANICAS.p.
Viale Campania, 23
20133 Nlilano, Italy
p: 39.02.748.1151 f: 39.02.701.00470
e: cinemeccanica@attglobal.net
c

SPECIAL REPORT: AMPAS Exhibit—
MAGIC
MOMENTS
Photographer Leigh Wiener Captures Unique Images*
of Film Icons in the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences' Exhibit "Hollywood Moments''
80 BOXOFF1CE
by Bridget Byrne

H.-.j .< if.'.. t J. I'll i
BUCKY
ENJOYS
SOME
TIME
OFF...

Marilyn—her gorgeous mouth
ajar. Judy and Mickey—his
hand gently soothing her
troubled brow. Frank—deep into his
song. Groucho—in stocking cap, chewing
his cigar.
These images of our treasured
icons
adorn the lobby and the fourth floor
gallery at the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS),
part of the exhibition "Photographing
People: Hollywood Moments by Leigh
Wiener." running until April 8.
Portraits shot with the eye of a photojournalist.
Photojournalism shot with
the eye of a portrait artist. Whichever
way you look at these black-and-white
images, they represent Wiener's stated
goal to "try very hard to get people as
they are."
Whichever way
you look at these
black-and-white images,
they represent
Wiener's stated goal
to "try very hard
to get people
as they are."
Wiener died at age 64 in 1993 after
several years of ill health, but his opinions
about photography live on. A
videotape of excerpts from interviews
he gave and those he conducted with
82 BOXOFFICE
Wiener snaps a snatched of tenderness between Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in 1963.
other photographers on "Talk About
Pictures," an Emmy-winning TV show
which ran on L.A.'s NBC station,
accompanies the Academy exhibit. His
verbal back-and-forth with the stars,
politicians and captains of industry he
Wiener captures Warren Beatty, oily T-zone and all, in September of 1961
photographed are on record in his book
"How Do You Photograph People?*',
published by Viking Press. His son,
Devik, is the proud custodian not just
of his father's archives but of memories
of his father's attitude toward his work.
"In many way he was pretty humble,
but he was also extremely opinionated,"
says Devik. "He certainly left an impression
on people." This combination of
modesty and boldness, like a trick of
light, seems to have enabled Wiener to
get his subjects to reveal the simple truth
about themselves, stripped of the facade
of fame. "Whatever their station in life,
he saw them as just another human
being he could learn something from,"
says Devik, pinpointing the give-andtake
that engendered the revelations:
"He was a wonderful technician, but
also a very good psychologist. He would
defuse that thing that will pop up in all
of us. that image we have of ourselves
we think should be captured."
Ellen Harrington, Special Events and
Exhibition Coordinator for AMPAS,
says, "I think he had both a sense of timing
and a sense of people as real, private
individuals." She is impressed with the
quality, quantity and orderliness of
Wiener's archive, now housed in a stylish
modern vault in Hollywood. "His hobby
in retirement was printing everything
was boxed, indexed, well documented."
she says, noting that Wiener was able
throughout his career to retain his own
negatives.

8
Supplying Cost Effective Solutions to Exhibitors
Around the World
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'

A glance into the vault reveals the
alphabetized stacks, full onsnticing juxtaposition:
Ellington, Duke, above the
Everly Brothers, above Errol Flynn,
above Redd Foxx. Another row:
Stravinsky, Igor, above Adlai Stevenson,
above local California newswoman
Tricia Toyota.
Job number, roll number, image number
are all on the back of every printed
image, a direct reference line to the negative.
Wiener took his first photo with a
shoebox pinhole camera when he was
13. He sold his first image to Collier's
magazine when he was just 15. The bulk
of his work lensing the rich and famous
was in the late '50s through the '70s. He
preferred if possible to use existing light,
but he also like to be able to spend time
on the job, often managing to entice the
subjects to let him stay around much
longer than they had planned.
Eleanor Roosevelt, when he photographed
her in 1957, said, "I'm an old
woman. I need lots of makeup, young
man. Don't you ever use any on your subjects?"
His portrait of her, wrinkles and
all, captures her warmth and directness.
Jimmy Durante's
wonderful rude nose
and trademark hat is
accompanied by his
query, "Do you use
diffusion filters?
Ifeel diffused enough
as it is."
Miserly tycoon J. Paul Getty asked in
'68, "Why do you take so many pictures
just to get one? Don't you know what
you're doing?" He captured the always
grim-faced Getty petting his dog in
front of the vast expanse of his English
mansion.
He even managed to worm his way
into the graces of reclusive poet
Robinson Jeffers, who asked, "When
you are lighting people for portraits,
how do you decide whether to shoot
them as they want to look or as they
really are?" It was Wiener's stated
truth that he never asked his subjects
how they saw themselves, because,
after all, we never see our whole physical
image. He photographed Jeffers in
1956 at home and on the beach at Big
Sur.
Wiener's photographs appeared in
such periodicals as Life, Time,
Fortune and Sports Illustrated. In the
'80s he stuck closer to the darkroom,
which Devik calls "his passion," creating
limited editions of his prints, usually
in 16 x 20 format or 1 1 x 14. He favored
Kodak Ektalure paper, now out of
84 BOXOFFICE
This photo of Groucho Marx could be cross-referenced under both cigars and nightcaps
stock, but the Academy was able to
acquire the last of it in order to match
prints made by Wiener.
Along with immortalizing how people
looked, Wiener kept close tabs on
what they said. The AMPAS exhibit,
which showcases 110 of the thousands
of photos he took, records some of
those remarks. Many more are printed
in the "How Do You Photograph
in
Wiener's elaborate indexing system.
People?" book.
Jimmy Durante's wonderful rude
nose and trademark hat is accompanied
by his query, "Do you use diffusion filters?
I feel diffused enough as it is."
Jack Benny, always pretending to be
a penny pincher. said he'd heard "a
photographer is only as good as his
equipment," so asked how expensive
Wiener's camera was. Upon being told,
he said, "Good— that means the picture
will look rich." Wiener, never
afraid to meet his match, shot back
that il really "depends on me more
than the camera." Benny, pausing for
his usual three seconds, with just an
embryo of a smile, responded, "Now
you have me worried!"

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I
There's a run of famous cigar smokers:
Groucho Marx, of course, in '66,
but also songwriter Cole Porter from
'54, studio mogul Darryl Zanuck from
'63, writer Ben Hecht from '56, hands in
pockets, inquiring of the then-youthful
Wiener, "How old are you, kid?"
People smoked back then, especially
at the industry parties, fundraising dinners,
studio premieres and performances
that Wiener had access to. The
Hollywood galas with their mix-andmingle
dynamic often provided unique
POP Culture
"Marquee Madness" Show at
UCLA's Fowler Museum
Glorifies the Art of
Movie Advertising
by Melissa Morrison
A14-foot-tall Sandra Bullock and encountered a 35-foot advertise
packing heat, Clive Barker's ment for the movie "Space Cowboys
Pinhead munching a human at the Westwood Village Theatre. Th
victim, Gary Sinise transforming him- sheer scale prompted him to reflect oi
self into Harry S. Truman—they're not how movie advertising had changed
the offerings at your local cineplex, but Thus, "Marquee Madness" was born,
Wiener likely switched to panoramic mode
for this shot of Jimmy "The Schnozzola" Durante.
couplings and candid moments, which
Wiener astutely snapped.
There's William Holden, glancing
adoringly at ravishing Grace Kelly.
There's Warren Beatty and Natalie
Wood, looking too cute for words.
There's a '55 grouping of Golden era
names, Mary Pickford, Ronald Coleman
and Cecil B. DeMille. There's Marion
Davies, the fun-loving star who was
William Randolph Hearst's longtime
mistress, grown plump by '56, embracing
arch gossip columnist Hedda
Hopper. There's a svelte Elizabeth
Taylor with Robert Kennedy. There is a
trio of moguls—Sam Goldwyn, Darryl
Zanuck, Jack Warner. There's Angie
Dickinson looking absolutely perfect.
There's the very famous photograph
that Wiener got by sneaking into the
lighting booth at the Pantages Theatre
and shooting down into the audience at
the 1960 Oscars. As the names for Best
Actress are read out, Simone Signoret
leans forward in anticipation, her hands
on her breasts, listening to "...And the
winner is ...." She won for "Room at the
Top." After the photo was published in
Life magazine, she wrote to Wiener, "I
think your photograph just goes to
prove the old adage that in moments of
crisis we reach for those things we treasure
the most!"
'or those who treasure Hollywood's icons.
Wiener's work is a valued legacy. H
exhibits at a museum that examines "It sounded kind of wacky, to to
international culture. Whether in West honest with you; the more I looked a
Africa or Hollywood, the selling and examples, the more I saw connection
creating of movies, it seems, can be as w'th the Ghanaian movie poste
entertaining as the films themselves. show," Mayo says. "They obviousl;
UCLA's Fowler Museum of share the same goal—to get peopli
Cultural History is currently hosting interested in going to the movie—anc
the three shows that star Sandy, the aesthetic is as dramatic as in thi
Pinhead and company. "Marquee Ghanaian material."
Madness: The Attack of the 50-Foot For artists and sign-painters ii
Poster," a collection of advertising Ghana, painting a movie poster mean
from the last holiday season's films, free reign, including inventing scene
shows how the studios spend those that weren't in the actual film, such a
notoriously monster-sized advertising Pinhead cannibalizing a victim on the
budgets. In another gallery, "Death- "Hellraiser" poster. The posters, paint
Stalking, Sleep- Walking, Barbarian ed on flour sacks and recycled canvas
Ninja Terminators: Hand-Painted advertised film clubs that showet
Movie Posters from Ghana" shows videos in towns that didn't have cine
how African artists did the opposite, mas. The art was apparently inspirei
publicizing movies
with miniscule money
but loads of talent.
And the third
exhibit, "Making
Faces, Playing God:
Identity and the Art
of Transformational
Makeup," spotlights
the kind of makeovers
that would have
teenager girls who
had hoped for a new
back-to-school look
suing for malpractice,
divided as it is into
categories such as
"Demonic" and
"Almost Human."
The Ghana poster
art show had been
planned first when
David Mayo, the
museum's director
A grandiose "Space Cowboys" promotion
exhibitions, was driving
near UCLA's atop the Westwood Village Theatre
West L.A. campus
in Los Angeles.
by video covers bu
then embellished b
the artists.
"It's definitely goin
well beyond the rot
duplication of infoi
mation." Mayo say
"You can see they'r
getting inside of th
subject and havin
some fun with it."
Ghana's poster-ai
heydav lasted until th
mid-'90s, when VCR
made their way iat
more households, can.
ing the clubs to die on
The exhibit, on lc(i
i collectors, ft;
four feet by eight be
Most are of Hollywoc
films, but some featu:'
Bollywood and Hoi;
Kong movies. Tl
paintings share
humor and color.
86 BOXOIIKI

FAX:
"There's a boisterous energy that you
see coming across in the art form," Mayo
says. "It's not dark. It doesn't have this
kind of cool sophistication that I
think a
lot of art is produced under. It has this
more ebullient energy that kind of bursts
off the canvas. It's a pop quality."
One wonders what the Ghanaian
artists would have made of Sandra
Bullock with a gun in her garter. The
giant mural for the movie "Miss
Congeniality" is on display as part of
the marquee exhibit, which includes cutouts,
transparent window clings, banners,
mobiles and floor graphics. To
acquire materials. Mayo asked movie
studios to drop off advertising material
from the holiday movie season. The idea
was to take movie advertising off the
streets, where it competes with the rest
of the world for our attention, and put it
in a museum, where its powers of persuasion
can be studied.
After Mayo's encounter with the
Space Cowboys, he started noticing how
marquees had evolved beyond black letters
on a white background.
"Even though we've lamented the loss
in L.A. of old movie houses, in fact it
has morphed into something else." he
says. "It's changed but it's still very
dynamic, and I found the aesthetics worthy
of taking a closer look at."
The more material Mayo saw. the
more similarities he noticed between
Hollywood movie art and the African
movie art.
"We're always looking for opportunities
to illustrate the global continuity,
and trying to dispel the myths other
A Ghana movie poster, painted on a flour sack.
parts of the world are somehow primitive
or less sophisticated than Western
world," he says. "They're things we're
used to, but used to in a different way."
The third exhibit, "Making Faces,
Playing God," dovetails with the publication
of a book of the same name by
Thomas Morawetz. Morawetz, curiously,
is a professor of Law and Ethics at
the University of Connecticut not
exactly your average Hollywood insider.
"He's managed to track down very
talented people that do this, sit down
with them and get some examples of the
work," including documenting it with
photos. Mayo says.
The exhibit contains 140 before-andafter
photos of actors being transformed
for productions such as "Buffy
the Vampire Slayer," "X-Files" and
"Tales From the Crypt." In addition to
the "Demonic" and "Almost Human"'
examples, the exhibit is grouped into
"Aliens," "Disguise," "Old Age" and
"Impersonations." The latter category
includes actor Sinise becoming Truman,
as well as Jason Robards becoming
Abraham Lincoln and Ron Silver morphing
into Henry Kissinger.
Lest anyone believe the exhibit is just
about cool transformations by real people
into dead presidents and vampires,
remember that Mayo is a museum guy,
not a movie guy.
"A lot of our world is becoming suspect
as to what's real and what's fabricated,"
Mayo says. "This is an opportunity
to see in a direct way how this is
manipulated in our entertainment
industry." And how it's marketed, tam
PHONE: 913.384.3488 I
913.384.1074 I
HTTP://WWW.0IMIN.C0M

SPECIAL REPORT: Wired World
MOVIE BOSS MADNESS
Now Playing on a Computer Screen Near You,
the Online Game for Theatre Operators
Introduces its Act II
88 BOXOFFICE
I ro
recess
aeeop
ssesp
®
'
a&eap
J
I
we had something with
very broad appeal to
movie lovers. On the
other, we were rapidly
reaching the point where
the expenses of operation
were going to overwhelm
our level of income."
The owners knew that
they needed a complete
upgrade of equipment to
stay in operation. Players
began to experience slowdowns
and difficulties
logging on to the game.
Short of funds, and
unwilling to compromise
in player
satisfaction,
Movie Boss
reluctantly
announced
that they
SCREEN SHOT 1 : The Movie Boss main page
would have
to temporarily
suspend the game
month, online game Movie
This
Boss (www.movieboss.com) celebrates
its one-year anniversary. As could streamline its pro-
until such time as they
with most new companies, the year was
gramming and afford new
filled with both optimism and challenge.
The interactive game, which was
designed to mirror the real theatre
industry in many ways, also faced struggles
that any exhibitor both large and
small will find familiar.
The free game, in which players begin
by managing a six-screen theatre and
attempt to create a large circuit, grew
very quickly. "When we debuted last
year, we were expecting steady growth,"
says company president Alan M.
Stanley. "However, initially BOXOFFICE
Magazine, and then several other entertainment
publications, wrote about us
and our player registrations went
through the roof."
In fact, after six months of operation,
the number of Movie Boss screens had
surpassed the total of actual theatre
screens in North America. "It was when
we hit the 40 thousand screen mark that
our equipment became overburdened
and we faced some tough decisions,"
says Stanley. "On the one hand, we knew
server equipment.
PLAYERS TO
THE RESCUE
It was at that point that
Movie Boss introduced a
new concept in the universe
of the dot com business.
Players asking if they could
pay a monthly fee to help
keep the game online
flooded the email boxes of
Movie Boss. The owners
decided against charging
the players money to play.
Instead they created a way for
®El
players to send in voluntary contributions
to help keep the game afloat.
The players responded beyond all expectations.
Contributions from players,
along with advertising revenue, kept the
"picture on the screen," and the game
continued without interruption while a
complete upgrade of the game's hard-
ware and software was completed.
"We were stunned," says Stanley.
"When we finally did close our doors, it
was to transfer the game to the new
equipment and server lines. The
switchover process itself took a very
short time. We had developed several
ideas to make the game more exciting
for the players and took this opportunity
to make those additions. The outpouring
of loyalty shown by our players
was reward indeed for our efforts to that
point, but it also increased our dedication
of bringing the best possible movie
game to the Internet. We recently
debuted what we have come to call
Movie Boss Act II."
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SCREEN SHOT 2: The Bookings page.
ACT II BEGINS
The most popular aspects of the orig
inal Movie Boss remained unchanged in
Act II. Players still begin by managing ;i
six-screen theatre and booking the exact
same films real theatres are showing ir
North America. They also have to decidt
upon a strategy for growth and increasec

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evenue. Choosing from a host of
upgrade options, including
adding screens, stadium seating,
game arcades and even espresso
bars, also allows the players to
customize their theatres.
HALF DOZEN DOES IT
In the original Movie Boss,
players were not permitted to open
a second theatre until they had
expanded to
10 screens. In Act II,
players can open new theatres as
soon as they can afford to with as
few as six screens. This allows players
to have more control over the
size and configuration of their circuits.
Says Stanley, "we wanted our
players to have the freedom to
grow their empires the way they
wanted to grow. We knew some
players expressed a desire to manage
different sizes of theatres, so
we gave them that ability."
Players earn income the same
way a regular theatre does:
through concession revenue and
by showing the most popular
films. The Per Screen Averages
(Total daily box-office gross/
number of North
American screens
showing the film)
earned by actual
films in current
release determine
how much each theatre
earns each
night.
The Movie Boss
game is itself an
extremely close
business model simulation
of a real
motion picture theatre.
Film rental,
concession supply
costs and advertising
budgets are just a few
of the expenses that
are calculated on a daily
basis. Of course, certain
liberties have been taken
in order to streamline
various aspects of running
a theatre and to
make the game highly
enjoyable for even casual
players.
l
(B^(B3(Mi^d3SXB6i3wS
Think you can book the films with the highest PSAs?
Book your predicted highest PSA films on screens
1 through 6 in your home location and see how you
stack up to the competition!
Your Stats:
Ranks 1-100
768 $6,124 MB Player
Select a rank range to view other ranks and scores.
Rank Range
1 1 - 1 00 z\
Rank: PSA: Player:
1 $50,956 Ender Cinemas
2 $50,711 Star Taylor
3 $50,494 Worden Cinemas
4 $50,438 We Care Theaters
5 $50,359 CINEPLEX MULTIPLEX'
SCREEN SHOT 3: The Best Bookings page.
SCREEN SHOT 4: The History page.
J
players and game administrators to
communicate in almost real time.
Movie Boss now also tracks players
who consistently book the highest
moneymaking films in their
home theatre. This is reflected in the
highly popular, new "Best Bookings"
scoreboard. Each quarter, the
players who rank the highest in the
Best Bookings category are awarded
game prizes.
"Our players responded with
overwhelming approval to Movie
Boss Act II," says Stanley. "But the
real surprise has been how quickly
we have begun to grow again. We
decided not to mount an immediate
promotional push for the game until
we had fully tested out the new programming
and equipment. We projected
minimal growth at first."
Movie Boss reached levels exceeding
one million page views per
month prior to the relaunch as Act
II. In the few short weeks of operation
since the upgrade, new player
registrations are increasing the number
of theatres in the game by 15
percent each week, largely through
word-of-mouth.
PSA Income = $1486
Screen Upgrades = $0
Attraction Upgrades = $267
Film Rental Fee = -$701
Rev-Gen Upgrades = $281
Concession Income = $877
Concession Supplies = -$146
Early Booking = SO
Total -$2064
FRIENDLY
COMPETITION
EXPANSION
AND EXPENSES
Among the
recently
introduced revisions to
the game are unlimited
expansion opportunities,
revamped and more
realistic expense and
cost matrixes, new scoreboards
and an improved Boss
Board system that allows

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92 Boxoiiki
wait and see," laughs Stanley. "We
launched Act II with a full slate of additional
plans for the game. Some of the
things we have in the pipeline will only
begin to appear to the players as they
expand their circuits and grow. They will
make growth a little more exciting and
add some spice to the game itself."
Possible future considerations include
random or mirroring actual regional disasters
and a virtual loan program that
can be used by theatres to expand more
rapidly. There is even discussion about
creating a virtual "trade organization"
that players can join in order to learn
more about the movie business. "We
would certainly entertain involvement
with NATO, the MPAA or others in
jointly developing an entertaining way
to utilize Movie Boss to better educate
the public at
large about such issues as
ratings and other issues which spark the
attention of the public at large," says
Stanley.
In addition, the owners of Movie Boss
are considering opportunities with outside
companies that will bring about a
Movie Boss' Ten Steps
to the Virtual
Exhibition Fast Track:
1. Proceed to www.movieboss.com and click
"Register." Fill out the required information. In the
beginning, it helps to start out with as much money
as possible. For maximum beginner's opportunities,
fill out the survey on the registration page and
receive extra game cash.
2. Login with your new Login ID and password.
3. Follow the Startup Guide for a brief tutorial on
Movie Boss and gain crucial beginner knowledge.
r Upgrades:
Attraction Upgrades
(subject to film rental fees)
Extra Parking (JSOJXO) |7% psaj
4. Spend some money upgrading your theatre
and/or purchasing additional screens.
Neon Lighting (IE .000) |2% psa]
Electronic Marquee ($20,000) [3% psa)
Radio/TV Advertising (JO) (6% psa)
Video Arcade (JO) [1 % apsa) ESS
Slide Advertising (J5.00O) [7% apsa) YES!
Espresso Stand ($15,000) |5% apsa) €23
In-house ATM (110,000) |3% apsa) EHI
Other U
«:i>.*t.iih E s ft
Jl'Ci A.:hev.er
5. Go to the Films page and look at the selection
of titles available to show to your virtual
patrons. Research is key, so be sure you
understand what you intend to book and what
you believe it will make at the box office (in
terms of Per Screen Average).
(3 location
SCREEN SHOT 6:
The Theater Upgrades page.
merger of the game role with the necessary
revenue streams required to expand
Movie Boss and to develop new games.
Many
Movie Boss players often
suggest improvements to the
game for added strategy or
realism. "What's great is that the community
we've built is not only totally
into the game, but they feel a particular
pride as if it were their own baby," notes
Stanley. "They want to make a great
game even better and we intend to deliver.
We're really proud of the level of dedication
and commitment our players
have for us, the game and toward each
other. It really does feel like an extended
family.
"Our players helped us survive the
odds and made us stronger than ever. Act
II is our ongoing thanks to them." UH
J1.S00/wMrieate
6. Click the Bookings icon to view your theatre
booking schedule.
7. Select a beginning date for your first booking
(usually a Friday, the opening date for most films) by
clicking the appropriate green checkmark box on the
screen of your choice.
8. Select the film you want to book and adjust the
dates you want to show it on your screen.
9. Click the "Book Film" button and repeat from step
seven until all screens are booked.
10. Visit the Boss Boards often for game announcements,
player strategy, technical support, general
movie discussion and more. The Boards are linked
from the main menu on every page within the game.

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For more information, contact Adina Ix-bo (416) 969-7057 Fax (416) 964-6007
Visit our website at: www.mptac.ca. E-mail mptac@inlommp.net

SPECIAL REPORT: Exhibition Financials
BEHIND THE NUMBERS
A Kagan Exhibition Analyst Details the Figures Behind the
Current Gloomy Terrain But Forecasts a Brighter Horizon
by Derek C. W. Baine
Rarely in
the media has an entire
industry gone almost completely
bankrupt. When it has happened,
it has usually been an emerging
one such as interactive TV, which tried
to bring a technology to consumers
before its time.
The year 2000 was supposed to ring in
a new digital millennium, with a bevy of
new consumer-friendly devices such as expectations for growth were even
digital video disc (DVD) players, digital higher. (See Table 1 below.)
television,
version of DTV—electronic cinema.
and eventually the widescreen
Although DVD and to a lesser extent
DTV have come to fruition, almost all
of the top motion picture exhibitors
have either filed for bankruptcy protection
or are on the verge of doing so.
Cinemark is one of the notable top-tier
players that has avoided fiscal disaster,
but there is no question that the majority
of big movie theatre owners took a
giant step backward in 2000.
There were a number of early warning
signs following the massive screen overbuild
that swept through the country.
The total number of screens grew at a
rate of more than eight percent per year
in both 1998 and 1999. Although that
slowed to just one percent in 2000, attendance
grew at a tepid compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of only 1.1 percent
over the past five years.
Even with the average ticket price on
the uptick, with an average rate of
growth of more than five percent per
year over five years, the total box-office
growth of six percent per year between
1996 and 2000 was not enough to support
the increased number of screens.
Ticket revenue per average screen
peaked at $21 1,000 per screen in 1998.
and that number has been sliding
downward ever since. In addition, even
these numbers are misleading— the
new screens built recently had more
seats than those built in the past, so
Exhibitors continued their growth
spurt despite clear signs that the
megaplex and multiplex phenomenons
were not turning out to be as hot
as expected. Cash flow per screen began
to fall slightly in 1998 and then went
down dramatically in 1999 (-11.6 percent
for the average public theatre
chain). Although full-year results for
2000 have not yet been reported, this
trend of double-digit cash flow declines
on a per-screen basis has continued.
(See Table 2 on p. 95.)
Table 3 (also on p. 95) shows the average
cash flow margin dipped from 15.1
percent in 1998 down to 13.6 percent in
1999. Massive margin erosion is evident
in year-to-date results that have been
reported by the major chains.
There
are a number of ironies to
the financially disastrous business
of showing movies. First,
movie producers have implemented a
number of measures to mitigate downside
risk (e.g., shared rights and presales)
and were actually able to rein in
production and releasing costs.
The year 2000 was a great year for the
top and bottom lines of studios, which
saw distributor revenue leap to a record
$33 billion, up 10 percent from 1999.
AOL announced it would buy Time
Warner in 2000 (the $117 billion deal
closed in early 2001), while MGM has
been seeking a joint venture and could
end up being sold in 2001.
There is no question that library values
remain; however, with the movie theatre
business in great turmoil, there is a
danger that the apple cart could be upset
over the next few years.
The residual value of a motion picture
in large part depends upon its boxoffice
performance in the U.S. If not
entering into a presale agreement, international
agents use this benchmark to
determine the advance given, while in
the U.S. pay TV contracts tie payments
to box-office performance.
If the state of the nation's theatre circuits
deteriorates, this is likely to cause
more consumers to view movies via payper-view
(PPV), video-on-demand (VOD),
pay TV's version of VOD (subscription
KAGAN TABLE 1: TICKET REVENUE PER AVERAGE SCREEN ($000)
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1990
214.9 190.3 195.4 202.0 206.3 201.5 205.3 207.4 211.2 200.7 199.6
Copyright 2001 Hollywood Media Corp. Estimates and analysis of company data. All rights reserved.

Insurance ^lHJ^ll \

forward, the kinks are likely
to be worked out and the
Going
electronic
distribution of movies will
help exhibitors- which will be able to
offer higher-quality films—as they compete
with other movie delivery mediums.
These include sending movies over
broadband connections directly to the
consumer's home, as well as higherquality
pictures from packaged mediums
like DVD and multichannel services such
as basic and pay cable, which will eventually
be aired in high definition.
The Big Screen
has been around
for almost a
century and it is
unlikely it will
disappear
anytime soon.
Although this poses a clear threat to
the exhibition industry, we doubt the
nation will become one of stay-at-home
hermits watching movies only via the
TV. The Big Screen has been around for
almost a century and it is unlikely it will
disappear anytime soon.
The social phenomenon associated
with "going to the movies" is a strong
bond that exhibitors maintain with consumers,
and we believe that they will
emerge from the current crisis with more
modern theatres, better equipped to
compete in the 21st century. HUM
Derek C. W. Baine is Senior Analyst
for Paul Kagan Associates, Inc.. a media
research firm that publishes a number of
newsletters and special reports on the
entertainment industry, as well as providing
expert witness testimony, fair market
valuations and strategic consulting for
leading entertainment companies. Mr.
Baine s knowledge of the value t I dm.
television and video libraries and trends
affecting them has made him a frequently
quoted source in stub national publications
as BOXOFFICE. Forbes. Fortune.
Newsweek, Time Magazine. ISA Today.
Video Store Magazine and The Hall
Street Journal. Mr. Baine has more than
15 years oj experience in accounting and
finance and graduated cum laude from
Golden date University with a B.S in
accounting and magna cum laiulc with
both (Hi MBA and an MS. in finance
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OU U(t\ null 1
SPECIAL REPORT: Movers & Shakers
THE DEALMAKER
OF DENVER
Sports Franchise and Railroad Magnate
Philip Anschutz Sets His Sights on Exhibition
by Jon Alon Walz
Denver billionaire, entrepreneur
and sports fan Philip
Anschutz already owns more
toys than most people could play
with in several
^
^^H
^flf
lifetimes: seven
professional
soccer
teams, the Los
Angeles Kings
chise, 25 per-
tne
JH Los Angeles
gBBfR. #^.S
Lakers, major
BlUiD ports arenas
in London,
Movie theatre
Berlin and Los
mogul
Philip Anschutz. Angeles, oil
refineries, oil
pipelines, a Hollywood production
company and a huge stake in the
fiber-optic and data transmission
company Quest Communications.
But now, he wants to buy your
theatre.
Since early 2000, the Anschutz
Corp. and its partner Oaktree Capital
Management has been steadily
acquiring controlling debt positions
in exhibitors United Artists, Regal
Cinemas and most recently Newport
Beach, Calif-based Edwards Theatres.
When the deals and bankruptcy
proceeding conclude, the company
have purchased control of close
will
to 20 percent of the screens in
America at an unimaginable discount.
In the corporate structure of
healthy companies, equity holders
and stockholders rank as the most
powerful and have the most influence
over normal business operations. But
as companies with large sums of outstanding
debt begin to fail, the holders
of that debt, specifically holders
of a company's "senior" debt, wind
up at the top of the list for any cash
or asset disbursement and have the
power to negotiate an ownership
position if a company is forced to file
for bankruptcy protection.
A filing under Chapter 11—most
importantly for a potential buyer like
the Anschutz Corp.—gives a company
and it's debt holders a window to
renegotiate leases and abandon
underperforming assets.
Operating essentially as a corporate
raider over most of his life, and
having experience in the buying and
selling of companies, Philip Anschutz
knew to stay hush-hush about
his debt purchases, and the fact that
he was interested in exhibitors at all.
Unlike individuals or corporations
who must immediately make themselves
and their intentions known to
the SEC upon purchase of five
percent
or more of a company's stock,
there are no such filing regulations
with purchases of debt.
According to industry analysts, in
the cases of United Artists and
Regal, Anschutz had the ability to
buy the debt from banks and lenders
at a discount. A lender who held $1
of Regal's debt, knowing that the
company could possibly become
insolvent, might take $.60 or $.70 in
cash right now, rather than risk taking
less or potentially zero later.
So far, United Artists has been the
first chain with holdings nationwide
to both enter and emerge from the
bankruptcy process. Beginning the
restructuring process with slightly
more than 2000 screens, the company
has shed over 400 screens, renegotiated
a number of leases and reduced
debt by close to $500 million, primarily
by swapping Anschutz's debt for a
controlling equity position.
"We got rid of locations that were
losing money," says Kurt Hall, president
of United Artists. "The goal was
to come out of bankruptcy with
absolutely no losing theatres, or any
theatres for that matter, that looked
like they were going to lose money
anytime soon."
rom his speculative purchases
of land in Wyoming and
Utah that yielded oil, gas and
the beginning of a fortune reported
at somewhere between $12 and $18
billion, Anschutz fell also into the
railroad business, buying Colorado's
Denver and Rio Grande
Western. In the late 1980s he used
the assets of the Denver and Rio
Grande, and took on massive debt
himself, to buy the substantially
larger Southern Pacific Railroad in
a hostile leveraged takeover.
In 1996 Anschutz merged his
Southern Pacific with Union Pacific,
creating the largest railroad company
in the country. He is the combined
company's largest shareholder and
serves as vice chairman of the board.
The Anschutz Corp. controls close
to 20,000 miles of traintrack as well
as the right-of-way along those lines.
In the years past, the company has
laid miles of oil piping, and, most
recently, it has buried a web of fiberoptic
cable capable of the fastest and
highest quality delivery of data and
video information, virtually
stretching
from coast to coast.
"They obviously knew we were
negotiating with the banks to restructure
the company," Hall says. "The
Anschutz company made themselves
known sometime in late April, but
had been acquiring debt before that
time. I think they called the banks
and made themselves part of the
process in late April early May."
As of press time. Anschutz officially
controls LA and a significant percentage
of Edwards. Regal, which has
yet to file Chapter 1 1 . is m restructuring
mode, according to Michael
Campbell, chairman and president of

—
Regal Cinemas. "I think that Chapter
1 1 is a possibility, but I don't have any
specifics right now," he says.
Ansehutz currently holds the
largest debt position in Regal with
over S350 million, or 35 percent of the
reported total outstanding in this private
company. Using the UA deal as a
guide, it is only a matter of time until
Ansehutz guides the company into a
Chapter 1 1 filing, sheds the underperforming
locations and takes control.
"'At this point in time the Ansehutz
Corporation is a big holder of
Regal's senior debt." Campbell says.
"And my understanding is that based
on timing and based on the valuation
of exhibitors across the board, the
Ansehutz Corporation feels that it is
an opportune time to buy."
Campbell has already shuttered
about 50 Regal locations over the
past year and expects to shed more
throughout 2001. "This process will
continue." he says.
Notoriously media shy. Ansehutz
has only given one substantial interview—in
1974, to a historical organization
in Colorado. Calls to the Ansehutz
Corp. from BOXOFFICE requesting
comment were not returned.
With Regal likely to fall under his
wing. Ansehutz will become by far
the key player in exhibition. With a
total of 6.500—and possibly more
screens, the company will have more
than double the number of screens of
nearest rival Loews Cineplex
Entertainment. Loews, however, isn't
completely out of Anschutz's circle:
The mogul's partner Oaktree Capital
Management, along with investments
firms Onex Corp. and Pacific Capital
Corp., acquired the New York Citybased
chain last February.
But
even with prices this good,
why would Philip Anschut/
want tremendous ownership in
a business notorious for not being
able to create economies of scale even
at half the size?
Many point to two words: digital
delivery.
Qwest Communications spawned a
division last year. Quest Digital
Media, which teamed with Twentieth
Century Fox -whose owner. Rupert
Murdoch, is a co-owner along with
Ansehutz of the Los Angeles
Kings to present digital screenings
of the studio's animated release
"Titan A.E."
With digital delivery to theatres.
economies of scale at the 6,000-
sereen level and above might finally
he possible freight and projector
maintenance costs are eliminated, as
is the job of film splicer ami. Ii all
practical purposes, projectionist.
However, many in the filmmaking
community feel that digital projection
must improve substantially
before it is able to match the current,
albeit cumbersome, technology.
"I've seen both major digital projection
systems, and 1 haven't been
that impressed." says Matthew Irving,
director of photography on last summer's
Sony Pictures Classic release
"Groove." "The images are too pixilated
and the range of black-to-white
contrast is poor compared to film, but
this will hopefully improve over the
next few years. If it is perfected, however,
it does eliminate many of the
variables that compromise the image
from theatre to theatre, and finally
takes the proverbial final cut away
from the projectionist."
Fewer than a dozen screens
equipped with digital projection are
available to the paying public at the
moment. Most are situated in the Los
Angeles and New York City areas,
and there is one General Cinema
location in Boston. The Pacific El
Capitan in Hollywood presented an
extended and high-grossing digital
run of "Toy Story 2" in 1999, and
several screens in New York and Los
Angeles presented experimental digital
screenings of "The Phantom
Menace" late into the film's run.
he prospect of a categorykilling,
virtual Wal-Mart of
exhibition certainly does not
sit well with some major regional
players who fear that Ansehutz might
have the clout to demand more favorable
rental rates and other perks from
the studios, possibly forcing smaller
players out of business entirely. Some
exhibitors feel that if a large circuit,
like the one proposed by Ansehutz,
becomes too predatory, federal antitrust
problems could arise.
"We all need to be able to compete
at the same level." says Dan Harkins.
president of Arizona-based Harkins
Theatres. "If [Ansehutz] is able to
create economies of scale with lower
rental rates than I can get, he can just
open a theatre across the street and
put me out of business.. ..But if he is
able to cut better deals on popcorn,
then that's great."
Anschutz's connections to the
Hollywood business community are
quite deep. In his 20s. he reportedly
made $100,000 from Universal Studios
by allowing them to film a famous airborne
fireman dousing an out-ol-control
fire at one of his lather's oil wells,
flic trail from oil to railroad lo spoils
lead back to I. os Angeles, where he has
quietly become the king of sports ami
live entertainment.
He owns the majority share of the
Staple I enter in downtown
I os
Angeles, home of not only the Kings
and the Lakers, but also the city's
other NBA franchise the Clippers.
The Ansehutz Entertainment Group
(AEG), his live events production and
promotion arm, was recently hired by
TrizecHahn Development Corp. to
book events at the Kodak Theatre on
Hollywood Boulevard— an underconstruction,
4000-seat home for
all
future Academy Award ceremonies
and touring Broadway shows.
In the past year, AEG has booked
the Staples Center with top concerts
and events, including the Grammy
Awards, the MTV Music Awards,
and ironically, the Democratic
National Convention.
A lifelong Republican and patron
of religious and conservative causes,
Ansehutz has given $336,000 in soft
money to the Republic National
Committee since 1997, according to
the Federal Election Commission. He
has supported groups working to promote
Colorado's highly publicized
Amendment 2, which would overturn
laws protecting gay rights, and with
groups working to stop a ballot initiative
promoting marijuana legalization.
From a more national perspective.
Anschutz's relationship with the current
Republican administration might
be seen as troubling, especially for
cash-starved exhibitors who cannot
buy influence and afford to expand
their operations at the same level.
But
how large can Anschutz's
circuit become? Only time will
tell. He has the resources, the
proprietary access to new distribution
and projection technology and is
closing in on over 6000 screens.
The good news for exhibition is
that no matter what happens, and no
matter how many screens one individual
acquires, the industry is still
vibrant and will be more so after the
pains of contraction and restructuring
are over. No matter how superb
home entertainment systems become,
people still want to leave their homes
and see a movie on a big screen with
an attentive audience.
With only the best screens on-line
and with the coming mass-introduction
of digital projection into theatres,
it is truly a new game tin everyone to
play. A new economic model that factors
in not only the advantages oi' digital
delivery but all the other time and
money-saving devices and technologies
thai are rolling down the pike is
definitely in work. Today's small
regional player might verv well
become tomorrow's categorj killei
keeping competition alive and well in
the exhibition industry
HI
April. 20(11
')>>

100 BOXOIIKI
INDEPENDENT EXHIBITION SHOWCASE
An XJnCommon
Experience
Entrepreneur Larry Miller Converts
a High School into His Dream Theatre
Jordan Commons, Utah's Indie 17-Plex
by Paul Clinton

EQUIPMENT FOR SALE

IOXOFFK 1
Larry
H. Miller saw a hole. So he
filled it. When he cut the ribbon
on his sprawling entertainment
complex The Jordan Commons,
anchored by a 17-screen megaplex.
Miller gave Sandy, Utah something it
hadn't seen before. With its 70mmformat
Super Screen and nostalgic
architecture. Miller's theatre is eyecatching
to say the least.
Jordan Commons wasn't just a business
opportunity for Miller—who owns
about 40 auto dealerships in six
Western states but is probably better
known as the owner of the NBA's Utah
Jazz basketball club. He had longed for
the theatres he remembered as a boy
living in the Salt Lake City of the 1950s.
Theatres like the Uptown, the Centre.
the Utah and the Gem.
So he built Jordan Commons, incorporating
the design of those nowdefunct
theatres into the $135 million
entertainment center. He wanted history.
But he also wanted all the modern
amenities of a five-star multiplex. With
that in mind. Miller included numerous
eateries (including a Mayan-themed
restaurant), a 10-story office tower and
children's arcade.
"What we set out to do is to make the
whole site a place that we didn't have in
this market." Miller said. "It's all to lend
an awareness of community—a historical
awareness."
Miller wanted a theatre linking the
present to the past: Old photos of Salt
Lake City from the 1870s were used in
the design. And while the multiplex
itself has been open only 15 months
the first showings were in November
1999—the property Miller chose has its
own legacy.
The Jordan Commons' CityScape cafe area.
Back in 1913, the area's school district
constructed Jordan High School on
the 21.83-acre parcel of land. It served
the area for more than 80 years. Not
long after the aging structure was
retired, Miller swooped in to claim the
land for his dream theatre.
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The Uptown-themed section of the Jordan Commons, designed after one of Miller's favorite boyhood theatres.
For
the 57-year-old Miller, the
perfect movie house mixes oldtime
atmosphere with state-ofthe-art
sound and projection technology.
It's a balance he has tried to strike at
Jordan Commons.
Breaking up his cinema into four separate
but connected buildings allowed
Miller to develop a specific theme for
each in homage to each of the four
theatres he attended as a boy. Plush carpeting,
lighting sconces, wall decorations
and interior trees were all carefully
chosen to enhance each theme. One
lobby even sports a waterfall.
The theatres themselves range in size
from 225 seats to 600 seats. Miller was
reluctant to install the pair of 600-seat
auditoriums after he was told they were
passe. But now he says he hasn't had
trouble filling them when a top draw is
onscreen.
The Commons is a first-run house,
showing most of the mainstream fare
and some independent movies. Utah
patrons can see about two-thirds of the
new releases at the < ommons. though as
an indie exhibitor Miller doesn't have
the same relationships with distributors
that the circuits do. As a result, he struggles
to book some of the studio movies.
"It's been tough in that sense," Miller
said. "They don*t just come to us."
Miller feels he's learned a lot in his
short time in the business. Theatrical
exhibition may be new to Miller, but
when it comes to entertainment he's an
bid hand. Under the banner of the
1 .iir. II Miller Group, he has built a
arena (where both teams play home
games). Salt Lake television station
KJZZ, Sprint magazine and Larry
Miller Advertising. And he's never been
shy when he's selling cars, using easygoing
slogans like "You know this guy"
in ads for the dealerships.
Fitting with the nostalgic atmosphere
at Jordan Commons. Miller periodically
shows movies — from Golden
Age Hollywood "Gone With the
Wind," "The Wizard of Oz" and "The
Sound of Music" have all packed the
house.
To complement the 16 35-mm
screens. Miller fitted Jordan Commons
with a Super Screen, where he's shown
such IMAX hits as "Everest" and
"Mysteries of Egypt" to huge crowds.
("Michael Jordan to the Max," also
shown in the 70mm format, wasn't as
successful. Miller took solace m the
JORDAN COMMONS
9400 S. State St.
Sandy, Utah 84070
(801)304-4636
www.jordancommons.com
fact that the film underperformed
nationwide. But he also acknowledges
there aren't many Chicago Bulls fans in
Utah—certainly not after the team
defeated Miller's Jazz in the 1997 and
1998 NBA Finals.)
The Super Screen shows 70mm
movies backed up by 20,000-watt digital
sound. It's the largest movie screen in
Utah, measuring 60 by 80 feet and six
stories tall. The screen hangs in a 445-
seat theatre equipped with stadium style
seating.
Miller has also begun showing 35mm
movies, such as "Top Gun," in the hall,
using the technique known as masking
(placing black bars at the top and bottom
of the image).
Miller is pleased with his movie
palace. But for others, the theatre business
has been humbling. Just ask the
chains that have filed for Chapter 1
bankruptcy protection over the past
year. In 2000 alone. United Artists Co.,
Edwards Cinemas. Carmike Cinemas
and General Cinemas all followed that
route.
If the bankruptcies weren't enough,
behemoth AMC Entertainment
announced in January a plan to place
about 80 of the company's 181 theatres
on a "watch list" for closure.
This contraction follows one of the
biggest building sprees in the history of
the theatre business. With attendance
down slightly in 2000. even though ticket
revenues inched higher, theatre owners
continue to grapple with a glut of
screens.
Some have blamed the Hollywood
studios, crying out for higher quality
commercial fare. Others have pointed
to a universe of other entertainment
options. Whoever is the villain, one
thing is clear: Only the strong will survive.
As long as there are good movies.
Miller's bottom line is that there's
nothing like a quality movie to get the
turnstiles moving. "What I've really
learned here is that this industry is all
about content."
^H
formidable conglomerate In addition to
the
i i. ili Jazz, group owns the
W\K\, Utah Star//, the Delta (enter

i
INDEPENDENT EXHIBITION SHOWCASE
Los
VISTAVISION
Lance Alspaugh Keeps History Alive
Angeles' famous Hollywood Boulevard begin;
inconspicuously at the foot of a mountain and
ends 4 1/2 miles later at the doors of the
Theatre to the east.
From end to end, this congested four-lane black
top, punctuated virtually every 100 yards with a Ion
red light, is shrouded in the mysteries and wonders
of a glamour long past. Throngs of storefronts now
hawking t-shirts, souvenirs and pizza once catered i
to an upscale clientele of working actors, execu
tives and travelers in need of the finest couture
—primping and entertainment only this little
desert city could provide.
So it was no surprise that in 1922 an
ambitious exhibitor named Lou Bard was
racing alongside legendary impresario
Sid Grauman to premiere the first major
moviehouse in Hollywood
—the first attempt
outside of downtown
Los Angeles. Grauman
I
had a long head-start
on his lavish Egyptian
Theatre, just two miles
the west—and with 1,
seats he needed it. Bard,
meanwhile, with the cooperation
of his builder,
Woodhouse and Son, envi
sioned a slightly smaller
theatre of 800 seats built in
the style of the great Spanishrevival
buildings in Havana
or San Juan. But suddenly,
November of 1922, King Tutmania
swept across the nation
like a tornado. With the opening
of King Tutankhamen's tomb,
America's imagination was captured.
Everything Egyptian
became stylish, prompting a
season of bizarre clothing fashions,
architectural designs and
even concept cars. Sid
Grauman, already at work on
his Egyptian Theatre, again
proved his reputation as a
visionary showman, forcing
Lou Bard tot
play catch-up.
on top of what just
before was the set of
riffith's monumental
>r 19
"Intolerance" (the set
remained as a tourist attraction
for several years after
by Jon Alon Walz
j
filming ended), the Lou Bard Hollywood Playhouse, as the
Vista was called at the time, shifted gears into
Egyptian-theme mode more than halfway through
construction. The beautiful and detailed Spanish
facade was already in place, and some interior
work was already completed in that style.
Lance Alspaugh, president of Five Star
Theatres, owner of the Vista and 15 other
screens in Southern California, believes that the
massive Egyptian heads ensconced in the walls
of the auditorium and other original detailing
i
in the cinema were salvaged from D.W.
Griffith's set.
"'Intolerance' was filmed right
here," Alspaugh says, pointing to the floor
of the theatre. "And from what I understand,
the heads, designs and the general
look of the theatre was inspired by the
movie itself, and it makes sense if
you've ever seen it."
Alspaugh, an energetic and charismatic
exemplar of independent
exhibition's future, was born in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, and has
worked in exhibition since
the age of 16. His
mportant
work
began, he
contends.
1978, when
he accepted a job
with Mann Theatres
in Los Angeles.
"The Chinese was
my first theatre job in Los
Angeles," Alspaugh says. I
ought that I'd made it,
couldn't pay the rent and
couldn't afford to eat, but
was working at the Chinese
Theatre."
From Mann, he segued to
Twentieth Century Fox's dis
tnbution department and
then to a general managei
position under Five Star's
prior owner. At the time.
he circuit was just twe
screens the Los Feliz
which was being choppec
into three auditoriums, anc
the aging, dilapidatec
Vista. Soon, however, i
golden opportunity for tin
e to become tin
boss would surface.
04 BOXOFF1CE

—
"The previous owner got into a financial
problem right in the middle of the
botched-up renovation changing the
Los Feliz from one theatre to three,"
Alspaugh says. "It turned into a mess,
and he ran out of money." The company's
investor seized the theatre in 1993.
"That's where I came in," Alspaugh
says. "The investor didn't want to be in
the movie theatre business, and said to
me, 'Look, here's this debt, it can probably
be paid off do you want to buy
the company?' And of course I said yes.
That's really how it all started."
Alspaugh did his best to complete the
construction job on the Los Feliz, and
set out to acquire uniquely situated
theatres in Southern California. The
other theatres in the chain include the
Northridge Five Star, the Garden Grove
Four Star and a discount house in Santa
Fe Springs. But the jewel in the crown
and the main reason for taking on the
troubled circuit—is the historic Vista.
"October 10. 1923, was the opening
night." Alspaugh says. "The first movie
was Baby Peggy in Tips.' a silent film
with a child star. They had a vaudeville
show to go along with it. and in our
museum we have pictures of the giant
crowd trying to get in on opening night."
The theatre had lasted under the
name Lou Bard Playhouse until about
1930 before being re-christened the
Vista. Various owners, including Thomas
Theatres and Landmark, had attempted
The Vista's recently renovated auditorium boasts seating with a luxurious four feet between each row.
unsuccessfully over the years to maintain
a program of revival and art films.
"It went through various owners, but I
recall that [an owner in the 1960s named]
Shan Sayles tried some of the Russ
Meyer films here way back when, and I
think he made a fortune because you just
didn't see them anywhere else," Alspaugh
says. "And the theatre was an adult gay
porno theatre for a time as well: although
very few people remember, once in a
while we'll get someone who comes in
and says, i remember when...'"
Historically, East Hollywood has
always been a welcome home for
artists, musicians, writers and freethinkers
of all types who support their
community and local businesses with
vigor. Los Feliz Boulevard, the main
drag of East Hollywood, has seen a
revival of sorts over the past five years,
starting, ironically enough, with the
film "Swingers" and its focus on the
boulevard and the area's Sinatra-era
hangout, the Dresden. Soon, the opening
of a large independent bookstore.
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106 BOXOFFICE
followed by several cafes, a hip
24-hour diner and the renovated
Los Feliz 3 (where ticket prices
are still at the reasonable 1993
level of $7.50) marked the total
revivification of this cozy neighborhood's
business district.
Situated less than one mile
from the Los Feliz 3, the Vista is
located in a rare free-zone in Los
Angeles. "There was a void, and
the potential to do bigger business
was here at the Vista all
along," Alspaugh says. "But
knew we'd have to spend about a
million bucks to get it done
right. In 1995 we very slowly
and methodically started restor-
long, long time."
The restoration became a team effort
within the company. Several managers
took on some heavy construction duties,
and Alspaugh's assistant Nancy became
a key historical and restoration
researcher. South African designer
Ronald Wright came on board to supervise
the restorations. And the quality of
his work—from the simplicity of adding
dramatic red curtains to the side walls,
to the expensive gilding of the Egyptian
heads and organ grills, all the way to the
new Hieroglyphic designs in the lobby.
The Vista restoration team (L-R): Eddie Lopez. Nancy Martinez,
head designer Ronald Wright, Ernesto Santiesteban, Manuel Simental
ing the place piece by piece, bit
and Five Star Theatres president Lance Alspaugh.
by bit, as I was able to find
income to do it. One of the first things we ladies' room and box-office—has transformed
a once dark, gray and did was the Egyptian heads. It just took a
dungeonlike
space into one of the most beautiful
small theatres in the West.
"All this construction took place
while the theatre was open," Alspaugh
notes. "We closed for two days to put
the new snack bar in, because we had to.
but other than that, even when we did
the seats we did them in sections so we
could continue to run. It was a labor of
love and a team effort. We were blessed
[by not having] any real panic situations."
Meanwhile, two miles down Hollywood
Boulevard, the non-profit American
Cinematheque was, as fate would have
it, also racing to restore
Grauman's Egyptian. Over the
years, both the Vista and the
Egyptian had fallen on similar
hard times, regularly changing
formats between revival and second-run,
losing their audience.
In one of the worst cases of
historic desecration, the
Egyptian was walled into two
theatres before being left to die
in the early '90s. Both movie
palaces were just waiting for the
right time, and the right owner,
to make the big Hollywood
comeback.
With the restoration of its
interior, the Vista simultaneously
restored its programming
back to first-run features.
Recent runs of "Gladiator," "Almost
Famous" and "Hannibal" have been
shown to full houses, due in part to the
fact that the Vista's large auditorium,
which once held 800 seats, now has just
400, with an average of four feet
between rows. "This is overkill, and in
any other theatre you wouldn't see this
much space between rows, but I tell you,
the biggest complaint we had from people
before we started this was that it was
so cramped," Alspaugh says. "When you
have a space like this, in this day and
age, very rarely do we need more than
400 seats. If we have a [blockbuster],
yeah, we're going to be turning away

was
remember
people. And sometimes it's almost good
to turn away people: When they eome
up and see 'sold out,' it just makes the
place seem even more happening."
The Vista's technical sound and projection
array arc all new and state-ofthe-art.
featuring a bright new 55-foot
darkness Hall screen, Dolby and DTS
digital platforms and a speaker system
that can send a thunderous rumble
across the wooden floor and straight
up the seats. "There is maintenance and
there is an expense to all of this, but
you have to spend money to make
money." Alspaugh contends. "It used
to be that an independent theatre
owner would come, milk a theatre and
then get the hell out. They wouldn't
maintain it. But that's where you begin
to lose your audience. These days audiences
don't have to put up with anything,
and if you as an owner don't
take that seriously, you're done."
With the plague of bankruptcies in the
exhibition industry, Five Star is being
offered theatres almost daily, but the
company is particular about the areas it
will and will not expand into. Five Star
does not buy daily newspaper ads. relying
successfully on word-of-mouth and support
from the theatres' neighborhoods.
From a financial standpoint, however,
independent exhibitors are still
r
—
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Gold Medal's complete lineup of all
needs are the best in the industry
forced to compete with the better-funded
major circuits for new technology
and top films. "I would love to THXcertifv
this theatre, but the cost to do it
would be about $30,000. and I can't justify
that expense right now," Alspaugh
laments. "And I know that it's very easy
to point a linger at the film companies
and unjustly crucify them, but there's no
question that the film terms are too
high. At one time I said they are borderline
unreasonable, but now I think they
are very unreasonable—maybe five to
10 percent too high.'"
Edgier and darker films, as well as the
recent revivals of "Hard Day's Night"
and the Rolling Stones' "Gimme
Shelter," have tended to play best for the
theatre's core base. "We get great film
audiences at the Vista—a lot of eclectic
people, actors and artists. Madonna was
THE VISTA, 4473 Sunset Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90027
(323) 668-9004; theatres@aol.com
EARLIEST MOVIE MEMORY: "The jungle
Book" at the Delman Theatre in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. It was a huge theatre with
a huge screen, and every word would
reverberate. I it clearly, the
animation and the whole experience—
I fascinated with movies
from that point on.
FAVORITE MOVIE: There are so many
movies I love, but not these days.
Today you may get one great film a
year—that's about it.
your concession
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here lor 'The Cell' witli Guy Ritchie.
and nobody even bothered her, nobody
hassled her— it's a really cool, hip audience,"
Alspaugh notes.
—
After almost 78 years of entertaining
Los Angelenos in various guises, the
Vista literally has a new lease on life.
Now enhanced and restored to the same
historic splendor as Hollywood
Boulevard's other grand dames
Pacific's El Capitan. Mann's Chinese and
the Egyptian—the Vista is again the site
of wonder and magic in an architectural
environment unlike any other. But
Alspaugh is philosophical about the success:
"It is here today, but it might not
be—and almost wasn't—here tomorrow.
So we have to behave ourselves." WW
FAVORITE CONCESSION ITEM: I'm burned
out on all of them right now! But you
just can go wrong with freshly
popped corn—that's my favorite.
FAVORITE B0X0FFICE FEATURE: The color
release chart with the list of upcoming
movies. It's the first thing I look at."
ADVICE FOR OTHER INDEPENDENTS:
"There are hard times, and I guess
that what we've done that others
might not is that when we get an
influx of cash or have had a good
three or four months of film, we put
some of it away for a rainy day. As
owners, we have to remember that
this is a cyclical business."
XI
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INDEPENDENT EXHIBITION SHOWCASE
POWER "HOUSE": The lobby and concession stand of Baltimore's Charles Theatre, built in what was designed in : i power house and cable car barn.
CHARLES IN CHARGE
A Nephew-Uncle Team Brings the Bigscreen
Experience and Indie Personality to Baltimore
not a mom-and-pop store.
It's It's
not a father-and-son business. It's
an uncle-and-nephew theatre.
It's The Charles Theatre in Baltimore.
Md., rescued, resuscitated, revived and
restored by John Standiford and James
"Buzz" Cusack.
The 1,150-seat, five-screen theatre is
in a downtown building that is designated
as a National Historic Landmark.
Standiford had been working there as a
projectionist when the previous owner,
David Levy, had closed down the theatre
in 1993.
"The Charles was a great revival
repertory house that suffered the same
problems that had closed down many
such theatres in the early '90s, the
biggest problem being video," says
Standiford.
film. (That's why the
newly revitalized
Charles has five big
screens.) Standiford
approached his uncle
for help, knowing
that Cusack "likes a
challenge."
"I was surprised
that he wanted to
help—but he likes to do things that benefit
Baltimore. And Baltimore needs
people who are pro-Baltimore," says
Standiford.
Standiford, now 36, had worked as a
projectionist at the Baltimore Museum
of Art before coming
to the then-onescreen
Charles. He
"The uncle is a very
loves big screens and [conscientious] businessman.
The nephew is a
cinema buff. Together, they
have money and charm.
It's a lovely combination."
—George Manso
Booker for The Charles
by Bridget Byrne
Cusack, 59, who has
been in the construction
business for 25
years, was able to
finalize a deal with
Levy and the building's
landlord. The single
screen re-opened
and in March 1999
work was completed
on the adjacent building,
adding four more
screens.
"The response to
the expansion has been
very strong," says
George Mansour,
whose Boston-based
company. Cinema
Selections, functions
as the theatre's booking
agency. He notes
that The Charles can
now run the gamut
between the best of
Hollywood to unique
product from overseas
and independent producers.
He mentions
that support from local
newspapers and critics
enabled a film like
"Two Family House,"
which had not prospered
much elsewhere,
to premiere successfully
in this family-run Baltimore venue.
"The uncle is a very [conscientious]
businessman. The nephew is a cinema
buff. Together, they have money and
THE REEL STORY: The Charles, founded ii
had been an all-newsreel theatre 20 years earlier.
charm. It's a lovely combination,
laughs Mansour, who could actually be
seen in one of the movies he booked at
The Charles—"Divine Trash." the 1998
documentary about John Waters. (That's
because back in the early '70s he found
the first theatre—albeit a Boston porno
house willing to run fell
Baltimorian Waters' eventual hit "Pink
Flamingos.")
About the Charles' restoration and
expansion, Cusack, ever the businessman,
notes, "The historical significance
of the site provided a helpful tax credit.
The masonry building was basically a
shell, but Cusack says "it lent itself easily"
to accommodating the four new
screens because of the two-story struc-

look
i
ture with a high-trussed ceiling with no
interior posts to obstruct sightlines.
In 1892 an architect named Jackson
Gott had built the beaux-arts structure
for the Baltimore Traction Company as
a power house and cable car barn. Later
it was used as a bus barn, then as a
library tor the blind, then as a ballroom.
In 1939 part of the structure became
The Times Theatre, an all-newsreel
house. Around 1959 it was renamed the
Charles and in 1979 became a revival
house.
experience, and double walls to the ceiling
have eliminated any possibility of
sounding bleeding.
Cusack believes The Charles provides
an atmosphere that is much more personal
than any multiplex and represents
the city more appropriately. But there is
always the problem of getting suburban
people to the heart o\' the city. The
Charles is just outside the newly revitalized
inner harbor area, but the district is
beginning to benefit from the growing
trend for upgrading downtowns. The
Charles' mix of foreign, arthouse,
independent and revival
draws audiences from the
Charles Village, Federal Hill.
Fells Point. Mount Washington
and Roland Park sections of the
city. In a demographic survey, 80
percent claimed post-college
education. Standiford says a
movie like "Shine" would probably
be the average ideal. The
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1
^Theatre Service StSuppy^
SPECIAL SERVICES
Consultation,
Architectural
Review & Engineering
Service
for:
Theatres
Viewing Rooms
Auditoriums
Sound Equipment
Seating
John Standiford and James "Buzz" Cusack.
"We were struggling with a single
screen so we thought we*d put in more
screens to allow tor some more commercial
crossover and to shed those problems
that come from lack of flexibility. It
seems to be working." says Standiford.
Architect Alex Castro, along with Joe
Adamczyk, designed the expansion.
"[Castro] had never designed a theatre
before but he did an excellent job," says
Standiford. ""It's an interesting and
incredibly efficient use of space—a real
jigsaw puzzle that exploits every inch."
Jon Maxwell, a former projectionist and
plant manager who now has his own carpentry
and metal work design company,
helped to design the box-office and the
concession stand in a lobby that looks
more like an upscale lodge than a movie
theatre. Coming soon is a cafe/bar.
The original theatre is now 485 seats;
the additional auditoriums contain 230,
165, 155 and 115. Because the expansion
started at the time stadium seating was,
in Standilbrd's words, "such a craze,"
that's the interior structure, fortunately
suiting the space the high ceilings pro-
Vide. I lie amount of space (23,000
square feet in all) also allowed for the
big screens Standiford believes to be so
important a part of the moviegoing
audience for repertory is still
hard to come by. though
Standiford cites "The Third
Man." "8 1/2" and "The Sweet
Smell of Success" as revivals
which did well. He says "serious publicity"
is essential and is grateful for local
media support. The theatre's own outreach
includes their www.thecharles.com
website.
The "Cinema Sundays" series has
proved very successful. Founded by the
late George Udel, now hosted by
Gabriel Wardell, the informed sneakpeak
screen session is in its sixth year. Its
mission, according to the website, is "to
bring Baltimore's film lovers the finest
programs of independent American and
foreign film." It begins at 9:45 a.m. with
bagels and cream cheese, coffee, tea or
steaming hot chocolate in the theatre
lobby. Then a preview of an upcoming
film is unspooled with an introduction
from a guest speaker drawn from the
pool of local film critics, filmmakers and
cineastes. A post-screening discussion
follows.
It's a regular event that is personal,
pro-movie lovers, pro-Baltimore.
Standiford used to come to the original
Charles in his teens. His youthful memory
of the old Charles was that "'It had real
personality; it was great place to be. It
still has |that] lingering vibe." He hopes
the expanded theatre has kept that sense
of the magic of moviegoing.
HMti
FILM HANDLING
Platters
Rewind Tables
Guidance
Hardware
Reels
Film Cleaners
Splicers
Footage Counters
Storage Cabinets
AUDITORIUM
Seating
Screens
Wall Covering
Aisle Lighting
Draperies
Acoustical Panels
PROJECTION
BOOTH
Projectors &
Sound
Reproducers
Lamphouses &
Power Supplies
Consoles
Xenon Bulbs
Lenses
Booth Supplies
Porthole Glass &
Frame Assys
SOUND
Speakers
Stereo Sound
Systems
Digital Sound
Systems
THX Sound
Custom Amplifiers
BOX OFFICE &
LOBBY
Poster Cases,
Frames & Special
Signs
Crowd Control
Ropes & Poles
Waste
Receptacles &
Sand Urns
theatTeser(atwLcom
Marquee Letters
B&B TECHNOLOGY
INC^ A SUBSIDIARY
OF THEATRE
SERVICE & SUPPLY
Projection & Sound
Installation, Repairs
Maintenance &
THE CHARLES
1711 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland
410-727 FILM www.thecharles.com
MOST USEFUL and FAVORITE B0X0FFICE
FEATURE:
Standiford: "The upcoming film listings,
i [also] like the business-oriented
features and, ol < nurse, the indepen
ili-iii theatre artii les."
Cusack: "I find the first thing I
at
are the equipment adsl I'm interested
tosecwh.it people are selling."
EARLIEST MOVIE MEMORY:
Standiford: "Seeing |ohn Waters'
'Female rrouble'at rhe Charles."
Cusack: "Going in rhe Charles."
FAVORITE CONCESSION ITEM:
Standiford: "Pop< orri. And < offee."
Cusack: "Coffee and popcorn go well
togethei
9582 Tofivyn Canyon 'Bivd
Cktmrtfi,ck9Bll
(818) 701-4475
[101(818)701-0394
1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Response No 86
\pril. 2(1(11 109

111) ItOXOIIK I
SPECIAL REPORT: Online Ticketing
E-TICKETING:
A HARD RIDE, OR FAST?
As Movie Theatres Move Deeper Into Online Ticketing, We
Look at Perils and Possibilities Experienced by Other Venues
by Rukshan Mistry
Sentimentalists, be warned. Your
days of storing memories of a first
date and kiss by saving a crumpled
movie ticket might be numbered.
A torn, yellowing stub might no
longer serve as your ticket to the past; it
might be the past itself. "The future of
entertainment tickets is not paper." says
Jane Kleinberger, chief executive officer
at Paciolan, an Irvine, Calif-based technology
provider, enabling entertainment
venues to sell their tickets to customers
online. "Tickets will evolve into a digital
ID carried on credit cards and Palm
Pilots. I expect to see the emergence of
the digital ID in about two to three
years. Everyone, venues and consumers
alike, will have to start embracing this
new ticketing technology."
Whether offering consumers paper or
digital tickets, the ticketing process has
been revolutionized by the introduction
of the internet. More than $350 million
dollars in event tickets were sold online
during 2000 and that tally will increase
to $3.9 billion by 2004, according to
analyses by Forrester Research. So the
question is not whether, but how: How
can entertainment venues, such as movie
theatres, sports arenas, symphonies and
the like, best capitalize on the endless
new technology and the burgeoning
popularity of online ticketing?
That and other questions will be
addressed during Internet Ticketing
2001, a two-day conference being held in
Note to Readers:
After discussing with a leading
exhibition internet executive his very
positive experience while attending
last year's Internet Ticketing 2000
conference, we arranged with the
event sponsor for a 1
percent
discount for BOXOFFICE readers.
Make sure to mention code B636
when registering.
Chicago on March 26 to 27. E-ticket
executives (including interviewees here,
who will serve as panelists) will converge
to discuss how to increase profits, retain
customers and develop stronger electronic
partnerships in the growing field.
But one early "how" answer seems to
be: keep it simple. "Simplicity works
best," says Rise Walter, ticketing services
manager at the San Francisco Symphony.
"Whether the ticketing is done in-house
or not, the site must be transparent to the
patron and user-friendly."
Vince Rieger, director of business
development at Shubert Ticketing Services
in New York, concurs. All transactions
should be limited to as few clicks
of the mouse as possible, he says.
"The most important thing is to make
the patron's experience simple and clear.
We want them in and out quickly, with
the purchase process easy," Rieger says.
"The site should not be cluttered or
fancy, but 'industrial.'"
A ticketing site should, however, con-
Paciolan's software goes a step further
and allows patrons to actually view the
stage or stadium as it would appear from
the seat they are considering. It also provides
a seat-availability meter that
informs a patron, as they scan over the
seating, how likely they are to actually
get those seats, using ratings like
"good"or "poor." Such features could
be useful in the movie theatre internetticketing
marketplace.
Whether
the movie industry will
rely heavily on promotion to
drive patrons to their ticket
websites remains to be seen. Of the three
main movie ticketing sites. MovieFone
alone has gained something akin to
household-name status; of course, both
of its main competitors, movietickets
.com and fandango.com, were only
announced a year ago and have been live
less than that. Still, the challenge ahead
looms large; even large-scale ticketing
services, like Shubert 's, list site promotion
as one of their biggest challenges.
"Our biggest challenge has been to
make ourselves as known to the public
as possible," Rieger says. "We are still
tain all the information necessary to trying to develop our brand more internationally
and would like people to pur-
drive a decision. Shubert 's site provides
information on disabled access and chase their tickets for a New York show
show schedules. Although the task is online from home, instead of waiting
daunting for a website featuring more until they arrive in New York. We also
than 100 shows, the site is updated daily have other more heavily trafficked websites
carry information on our and all the information is current.
shows.
INTERNET
Iticketing
For more information:
call 1.800.882.8684
or visit www.iqpc.com
2001
1
These sites then link back to us when a
patron is ready to purchase a ticket."
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra
has found success in promoting its web-
4*
march 26-27, 2001 • Ambassador West Hotel • Chicago, IL

site through direct mail. Occasionally,
the Symphony's website is also displayed
live on a large screen in the symphony
hall, capturing people's attention.
"It is not true that, if you build a site,
people will come," says Lisa Remby,
director of arts services at Pittsburghbased
ProArts, which represents midsized
arts companies. "We did not expect
that it would take six months to build a
group of users. Promotion is definitely
key and now we have our web address on
everything—tickets, envelopes and even
banner ads in regional magazines."
On the West Coast, however. Bill
Schlough, vice president of baseball's
San Francisco Giants, found exactly the
opposite to be true. "We are lucky up
here that we haven't had to deal with
promotions at all. If you build it, they
will come, and we have been shocked by
how many people are buying tickets
online." Of course, the Bay Area is home
to a diverse number of internet companies
and is just a short drive up the 101
or 280 from San Jose's Silicon Valley, so
consumer familiarity with new internet
options and a willingness to give them a
tickets available to Giants fans online,
because the system is so efficient and
fast that tickets might get sold out before
people lining up at the stadium ever have
a chance to buy them.
The San Francisco Symphony and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra have both
ETICKETEER: San Francisco Giants' Bill
Schlough will soon need to cap online ticket sales.
experienced similar success. According
to Walter, during the complete 1999- their machine, so service is crucial.
whirl might be accelerated there.
2000 season the San Francisco Symphony
transacted $615,000 in online their requests were processed—or dupli-
Patrons must receive confirmation that
On their first day of Giants ticket
sales this February, more than 50 percent
of the purchases were completed this year, only halfway through the sea-
Last year, Harding says, complaints were
ticket sales. However, by mid-February cate ticket sales will result." Case in point:
online. Schlough says that soon he will
continuously launched at ticketmaster
actually have to limit the number of
.com as patrons could not track orders
son, the Symphony has already achieved
$642,000 in online business.
Current numbers are similar in the
Windy City. "Last season, we had
$220,000 in online sales," says Kevin
Giglinlo. director of e-commerce at the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra. "By mid-
February this season, we have already
done $650,000 in online business."
Executives from most venues agree
that about 75 percent of the internet
ticket sales represent purchases
by new customers—which if achieved
in exhibition could be a boon to the
struggling industry—and yet the phone
volume and foot traffic at box offices
have shown no signs of decreasing. But
success doesn't come without effort.
Ticketing sites like that of the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra would
not and could not be successful without
excellent customer service facilities in
place. Laura Harding, communications
manager for the International Ticketing
Association, which is headquartered in
New York, believes customer service is
the key to online success.
"Customer service is the biggest challenge
all ticketing sites face," Harding
says. "People cannot ask questions of
online and had difficulty reaching a customer
service representative.
Response No. 520
\nriL 20(11 111

If such an operation is not in place,
it's likely that the offline ticketing
department in the box office will get
swamped with computer-related questions
about its sister site selling tickets
online. In that case, the box office must
be ready to morph into a help desk.
"We totally underestimated how much
support our patrons using the site would
require, just for basic navigation or a simple
'error' message," Rieger says. "People
need to be trained to handle these customer
service-related telephone calls."
Also, although patrons do expect to
be able to reach a service representative,
they do not expect to receive a 1 . 1 Server
Too Busy error—the internet equivalent
of a busy signal—when connecting to a
website. That places an added burden on
heavily trafficked ticketing sites.
is, and we haven't experienced the error
there since the upgrade]
"A busy signal on the web is one thing
to avoid at all costs," the Giants'
Schlough says. "People should be conscious
of devising ways to spread
demand out across time—maybe a
month or so for an event with a high volume
of ticket sales expected."
Smaller
performance theatres, not
challenged by high demand, are
often plagued by the tremendous
expense of actually creating and operating
an online ticketing site. That's a
problem likely to be faced by many of
[Ed. Note: When we reviewed exhibition's
big three ticketing sites (see our
October 2000 issue "9 on the Net"), we
noted that we received a number of 1.1 PALM READING: Paciolan's Jane Klanbcrgcr
errors one Friday at movietickets. com and forecasts digital IDs on handholds for ticket bui/s.
wondered why the site was not akamaized
like its hollywood.com sister site. It now the independent movie theatres spread
across the American landscape.
"It's a huge challenge for small performance
arts theatres to put money
toward developing a site," says the
Chicago Symphony's Giglinto. "It's hard
to look at it as an investment and not an
expense. But, in fact, people should
spend the extra money to make the site
run properly, because eventually it will
pay off." Giglinto says he encourages his
friends at smaller houses to get a site up
and running right away.
Many such venues realize the importance
of online ticketing, but experts suggest
that most small entertainment facilities
do not realize the urgency of starting
a site. "I am surprised at how slowly
venues are adopting the new technology,"
says Paciolan's Kleinberger. "There are
still so many organizations that do not
have an online ticketing presence."
Some venues that do have a successful
site are still
struggling with selling tickets
in real time. The Denver Center for
the Performing Arts has a "manual"
site—not only must patrons make their
seat selection from a particular area and
price range, but their ticket requests
once received are processed by hand.
"Our site would work a lot better if
people could see exactly what seats are
available at the time and choose among
them," said Anita Edwards, web and
research manager at the Denver Center.
"People go on the web and they want
instant gratification. We expect to transform
the site and be real-time in about
six to eight months."
Remby of ProArts advises smaller
venues to do their research and determine,
most importantly, whether their
patrons are likely to buy their tickets
online. If so, they must next understand
what their constituency is expecting to
find on the website.
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ProArts services about 30 small and
midsized venues and, according to
Remby. some audiences are not as likelj
to look to the Web for ticket sales.
"Anyone starting e-commerce should do
their homework." she says. "If I were
selling to an audience that generally
skewed older. I might not consider e-
commerce. because older patrons typically
do not buy tickets online.."
Even at larger venues like the San
Francisco Symphony, this demo trend
can be detected. According to Walter,
the online sales for the Symphony are
regularly between 12 to 15 percent of the
overall total sales. However, during the
Christmas season, when the shows
appeal to a younger crowd. 20 percent of
the overall business is transacted online.
Online
non-movie ticketing is further
challenged by the fact that
tickets are all different. Selling 100
tickets online is not like selling 100 onesize-fits-all
baseball caps. Each ticket is
unique and perishable (that last factor
being just as true for movie theatres).
They must be sold by a specific date and,
if oversold, a vendor cannot rely on a
back-order system to replace them the
way a seller can with consumer goods.
"People have no conception of how
difficult online ticketing really is.
Everyone is focusing on the event, and
no one thinks about what takes place
behind the scene." Kleinberger says.
"The internet was not designed for such
high-level inventory processing. It was
developed simply as an informational
tool. But. I think most people will agree
that we've managed to crack it and we're
making it work very well for us."
In looking to the future of online
ticketing. Giglinto says he hopes more
sites can avoid intermediaries like tickets
.com and ticketmaster.com.
"These sites force patrons into a specific
purchasing path that is unnatural
for the site. We have created our own
system that works in step with our site,"
he says. By next year, the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra hopes to abandon
its ticket allocation system altogether,
thereby allowing patrons to receive all
possible ticketing options online. When
only a specific amount of tickets have
been allocated to the web, a patron's
choices are unnaturally
If
limited.
the first word in internet ticketing
is simplicity, the last word is likely to
be growth. Like the Chicago Symphony,
Shubert Ticketing Services has
ako experienced an increase in online
ticket sales. Last year. Shubert transacted
10 percent of its
overall sales online:
this year, about 20 percent of its sales
are occurring on the internet.
"Growth in this industry is terrific."
said Rieger. "I don't see it scaling back.
I think that web ticket sales will continue
to grow exponentially."
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120 Bedford Road
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114 BOXOFFICE
SPECIAL REPORT: Digital Cinema
DIGITAL
DEMONSTRATORS
Barco, Boeing, Christie, Digital Projection,
NEC Technolgoies, Panasonic and Technicolor
Preview Their ShoWest Activities
and Talk About the Future of Digital Cinema
HARRY MATHIAS
Director of Digital Cinema
Barco
What will
Barco be
demonstrating
in its digital
cinema
suite at
ShoWest?
First of
ill. we'll be
demonstratthe
;
additional
engineering
and the
idded features
to our
projector. Barco is committed to
adding original engineering and additional
value to the projector whenever
we can. That will be a continuing,
ongoing process, and we're going to
show that at the show.
What is the most important topic that
Barco will be discussing with conventioneers
at the show?
The single most important question is
the future. The direction that digital cinema
is heading is primarily to give more
options to cinema owners and to give
them solutions for additional sources of
revenue. We're working on providing as
many options as possible for that.
Barco is committed to the long-term
solution. We intend to be here for years
to come, and we intend to continue to
contribute engineering and technology
to digital cinema.
It's also important to us to bring the
current cinema community of dealers,
technicians and installers into digital cinema
and leave no one behind. We're very
committed to working within the system.
to working with existing vendors and to
take the skill set of cinema into the future.
What advances have been made in digital
cinema technology in the past year, especially
from Barco's point of view?
We've been working on dependabilityand
engineering-quality attributes of the
projector. There are plenty of places
within the optical assembly of the digital
projector where dust can accumulate
and either be visible on the screen or
reduce contrast by scattering light. The
optical unit in the Barco projector is
sealed, and there's a micropore filtering
system and an airflow filtering system in
the projector head.
We've added our own digital diagnostics,
our own interface to theatre
automation and a touchpanel
system that allows
control without a laptop of
projector functions. We
also have a two-lens turret.
What advances will be made
in the coming 12 months?
We're ready for the implementation
phase. It's much
sooner than people think it
is. This requires the selection
of a common file format,
and within a theatre chain
and distribution organization, you've got
to have the input equal the output. That's
fairly simple to do, and it
doesn't require
worldwide standardization— it requires
over-the-desk standardization.
One [argument that implementation
will take a long time] is that it's expensive.
But "expensive" is a relative term.
Computers are expensive, too, but if
they give you an increase in productivity
or an advantage, it's only too expensive
if you can't make a return on your
investment. If there is a return on your
investment, then the expense is a prudent
business risk.
One can demonstrate with digital cinema
that there is a return on the investment,
and it's not just the cost of prints.
Alternative content is a big advantage for
digital cinema, but in addition to that,
we've seen a year where re-releases have
done very well. For example, "The
Exorcist" did better than five films that I
can name that were first-run, major
movies. That being the point, the cost of
doing the re-release on film is restoring the
negative and then making the prints and
doing the marketing. But making the
prints is a big cost factor. In a digital
world, all you have to do to do a re-release
is first of all make a high-quality master.
You need a high-quality master for DVD
pressing anyway. Then what you need is
that master on a server, and
you do a test market or you
do a wide release, but it is
simply a download operation,
which is fairly painless.
And if the film doesn't do
well in the first week, you
pull it, and you haven't made
1,000 prints. So that right
there is an argument for digital
cinema—the easy and
relatively painless re-release
of a movie.
In addition to that, there's art-house
releases. There's only one print of
"Planet of the Apes," and it's pink. In a
digital world, you put one good copy of
"Planet of the Apes" on a server, and
revival theatres can call it up, give their
account code and load a copy. And that
doesn't only apply to art houses and
revival houses— it could apply to screen
number 13 in a megaplex that's dark for
a week.
1 believe where digital cinema is going
is to a broadband, high-quality theatre
network. Think of it as a privately
owned, high-quality broadcast network.

FRED MEDINA and DAVID BAKER
Co-Directors of Digital Cinema, Boeing
What »ill Boeing be demonstrating in its
digital cinema suite at ShoWest?
Boeing's digital cinema demonstration
will be providing an overview and education
of the fundamental elements that
make up the complete distribution
process. This will include content submission,
Boeing network operations. Boeing
content management and security and an
emulation of digital theatres.
What is the most important topic that
Boeing will be discussing with conventioneers
at the show?
Our objective is to provide an understanding
of the tools, benefits, simplicity
and security offered by digital cinema.
What advances have been made in digital
cinema technology in the past year, especially
from Boeing's perspective?
Boeing is pleased to have participated
with Miramax Films in the first digital
transmission over satellite and fiber of a
[major] feature motion picture:
"Bounce." This milestone event proved the ability to send
films securely and without
degradation. This same technology
can be used to send digital
film to one or 1,000 theatre
locations simultaneously.
What advances will be made in
the coming 12 months?
Product and service rollout
in the first quarter of 2002.
DIGITAL CINEMA:
PROMISING TECHNOLOGY, SERIOUS ISSUES
by John Fithian, President, NATO
In January. NATO president John
Fithian spoke at the National Institute of
Standards and Technology about the business
of digital cinema, addressing the 700-
memher organization's concerns about the
technology and its implications. What followi
is an excerpt of that speech, which can
he found in its entirety in the March issue of
NATO's publication In Focus.
For motion picture studios, movie theatre
operators and their patrons, digital
cinema may become the most important technological transition
since the advent of sound. Indeed, our industry has operated
with the same basic technology for decades. Digital cinema
could revolutionize the business by transforming the nature
of production, delivery and exhibition; by saving distributors
hundreds of millions of dollars annually; and by making it easier
for exhibitors to offer alternative content.
None of this will come easy, however. Significant issues and
challenges confront the potential transition, not the least of
which is the issue of costs. No one knows for sure which technology
will prevail, when the transition will occur, nor how it is
going to be financed. Nonetheless, the transition will come....
For theatre operators, there are many important questions
that must be answered before a full-scale rollout of digital cinema
will make sense as a business proposition:
For exhibitors, is the new technology worth the cost?
In
the current environment, a theatre operator can equip a
(coat, on page 116)
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(Fithian, cant, from page 116)
projection booth with a new 35mm film projection unit for
about $30,000. That equipment will last for many years, even
decades. Digital projection units currently cost several hundred
thousand dollars. The best estimate of cost once rollout begins
seems to be about $100,000 at the least. And how long will this
equipment last before upgrades are necessary—two years'?
It's very simple math. If anyone expects theatre owners to
pay for the transition, they simply don't understand the math:
$30,000 over 20 years, or $100,000 over two. Digital cinema
could never drive enough extra traffic through our box offices
and to our concession stands to make up the difference.
Some say that equipment costs will come down as the rollout
(cont. on page 119)
MICHAEL M00NEY
Director of Digital Cinema, Christie
What will Christie be demonstrating in
its digital cinema suite at ShoWest?
Christie Digital Systems is demonstrating
alternative content and our
digital on-screen advertising system.
Several forward and store-server manufacturers
will
be showing their systems
in our suite with an alternative-content
resident on each of their systems. Those
companies are QuVis, Grass Valley and
,y-
-*VSB:
Avica. Christie is not demonstrating the
DigiPro (DLP Cinema Projector) at
this show as Texas Instruments is showing this technology at
three different venues at ShoWest.
What is the most important topic that Christie will be discussing
with conventioneers at the show?
Alternative ways of generating revenue with our new digital
cinema system.
What advances have been made in digital cinema technology in
takes place, just as personal computers or cellular telephones
became vastly less expensive over time. Those observers haven't
examined the numbers. For a product's cost to decline, there
must be economies of scale. Hundreds of millions of consumers
worldwide own computers or cell phones. In our world, there are
approximately 36,000 movie screens in the U.S. and roughly
120.000 total worldwide. Those numbers do not produce sufficient
economies of scale to drive down costs.
There are potential cost savings for exhibitors. In a fully
the past year, especially from Christie's perspective?
implemented digital regime, we may need fewer staff and less
On the projector side, we have made enhancements to the
real estate to operate. Those savings will take years to materialize,
however. In the short term, the implementation will
DLP Cinema reference design that allows more flexibility in
how the system operates. The various server companies have
actually cost us more staff time and more real estate. We will
made significant strides in their products. This progress will be
have to train employees and position digital projection units
shown and talked about in our suite. Each of these companies
next to traditional equipment. Only when all product is available
in digital format, and when all theatre staff understand
will present their ideas at the close of the show on Tuesday and
Wednesday nights. We will have presentations from the three
the new technologies, will our savings occur.
companies mentioned above, as well as Qualcomm.
Finally, the present economic challenges facing the exhibition
industry exacerbate these cost concerns. With nine major
What advances will be made in the coming 12 months?
The key advancements will come from a number of companies
introducing their business plans as to how digital
companies in bankruptcy and others fighting to stay
cinema
will roll out over the next few years. Funding for the digital
systems will be a key area to watch over the next 12 months.
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RICHARD GELFOND and
BRADLEY WECHSLER
co-chairmen and co-CEOs
IMAX
BRIAN CRITCHLEY
CEO and Managing Director
DPI
What will IMAX and Digital Projection
be demonstrating in its digital cinema
suite at ShoVVest?
l\l \.\ Corporation and its subsidiary
DPI. leaders in visual image
technology, will exhibit static displays of
our DIGIMAX projectors, our newest
DLP Cinema products. These are configured
to meet the unique requirements
atrical venues more faithfully serve the
medium). DPI will participate with
Texas Instruments in their theatrical
DLP Cinema demonstrations.
What is the most important topic that
IMAX and Digital Projection will he discussing
with conventioneers at the show?
IMAX and DPI, as leaders in the creation
and production of digital products,
will be discussing moving digital cinema
from the pilot network (sponsored by
Disney. Technicolor and
Texas Instruments) to the
beginnings of a full rollout.
The DLP Cinema pilot network
has proven the reliability
of the platform as well as
the enthusiasm of the public
for the quality this technology
delivers. There is also
tremendous interest among
smaller independent theatre
networks and d-media
entrepreneurs looking at
new business models to deliver
of diverse d-cinema applications including
production, postproduction and the-
events, advertising and business
live programming, special
atrical display. ShoWest attendees will be content through digital distribution
and display technology.
able to study these "cinema displays of
our future" in extensive detail and gain a What advances have been made
clear understanding of the important in digital cinema technology in
differences between the amazing DLP the past year, especially from
technology and the even more compelling
DLP Cinema execution.
perspective?
IMAX and Digital Projection's
Although no DLP Cinema demonstrations
will take place in our suite (the-
extraordinary advances in
IMAX and DPI have made
taking
the DLP Cinema platform and integrating
it into additional chassis designs.
For example, the primary platform that
previously existed was a DLP Cinema
head mounted on a traditional lamp console—the
type commonly found in nearly
every cinema in the world. Although this
configuration provides an excellent transition
to digital for an existing multiplex.
it may not be the right solution for postproduction,
location-based digital
screening and new cinema
venues specifically designed
to capture the architectural
efficiencies digital technologj
delivers. IMAX and DPI
are complementing the first
generation DLP Cinema
projectors with its own proprietary
technologies to create
d-cinema displays tailored
to excel in specific
applications.
What advances will be made
in the coming 12 months?
IMAX and DPI will tap
into 12 years of digital cinema
display research and more
than 30 years of expertise in
image technology and image
quality to propel the performance
of today's DLP Cinema
systems to greater capabilities.
We hold intellectual property
in a number of key areas, from
illumination and optical systems
to digital signal processing and
motion interpolation. Digital Projection
is in a unique position to complement
the performance of today's DLP Cinema
projectors with our legacy of brilliant
imaging performance and engineering.
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STEVEN P. JACKSON
Dir. of Product
Development
NEC Technologies
What will NEC be demonstrating in its
digital cinema suite at ShoWest?
NEC will demonstrate electronic/digital
cinema projection systems (including the
NEC XT5000-DC and SX6000-DC with
TriDigital Image Processing) designed
specifically for the small- to medium-size
theatre venue (screen sizes up to 40 feet)
and the postproduction environment for
telecine transfer applications.
What is the most important topic that
NEC will be discussing with conventioneers
at the show?
Standards are on everybody's mind.
An electronic projection system expressly
designed for digital cinema will be a
costly investment to any theatre venue or
post facility. Its use is also limited to just
that one application, bringing into
debate whether the projector is a useful
tool within the post facility for purposes
other than mastering content to be displayed
on projection systems exactly like
it within the theatre venues.
The debate continues in earnest when
you realize that there are no established
standards to guarantee that the mastering
procedures and techniques used
today for digital content displayed on
these projectors will be functional or
even practical several years from now.
The successful implementation of any
digital cinema system will be bolstered
by the projector's ability to display content
that is not specifically mastered for
it.
In other words, any signal in,
nothing but terrific images out.
So, what is your best insurance
against emerging standards?
At NEC, we do not
think that it is a rigid, inflexible,
dedicated projection system
that will display only one
specific type of signal. In our
opinion, a successful solution
is one designed to embrace all
standards. NEC Digital
Cinema Projection Systems
have the flexibility to display virtually
any signal source— present or future.
What advances have been made in digital
cinema technology in the past year, especially
from NEC's perspective?
From a business standpoint, projection
systems marketed specifically for
digital cinema applications today are
certainly excellent performers that have
proven themselves and their benefits to
the exhibition industry worldwide.
However, the cost for these systems is
prohibitively expensive for wide scale
deployment. At one-fifth the volume,
one-third the weight and a far more
affordable price, the NEC Digital
Cinema Projection Systems provide
spectacular image performance, operational
simplicity, reliability and a long
service life at a price point that begins to
make sense for the theatre venues.
From a technical standpoint, TriDigital
Image Processing Technology entails three
key steps to optimally decode
film transfer material for digital
projection to produce deep, dark
blacks that still exhibit the contrast
and detail of the original
film material without increasing
the noise level or producing
detail contours. The TriDigital
system also overcomes the RGB
characteristics of the projector—characteristics
that would
otherwise make the image
appear as video. The TriDigital
Image Processing system strives to duplicate
the "age-old" mechanical and optical/light
interaction of film within the
"new-age" digital domain.
What advances will be made in the coming
12 months?
From an electronic projector manufacturer's
standpoint, I think there will be
more choices for the marketplace in terms
of display technologies. The DLP technology,
widely used in the digital cinema projection
prototypes today, may see competitive
new technologies in laser and other
reflective formats introduced as viable
alternatives to the theatre venues. In any
event, NEC will continue to develop products
specifically to help continue to make
going to the theatre an exciting experience.
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Response No. 151

JEFF MERRITT
Product Mktg. Manager
HD/Cinema products
Panasonic
VV hat will Panasonic be demonstrating in
its digital cinema suite at ShoWest?
Panasonic will be showing our latest
version of the PTD9600U 12.000-
Luinen DLP projector along with our
newest model, the PTD8500U 7.000-
Lumen projector, which ban
our new "Edge-Blending
technology that allows seven
projectors to fill a screen with
no lines between the projected
images. Also look for our new
42-inch plasma fiat panel display
with increased contrast
and Panasonic's newest
DVCPRO-HD camcorder with
multiple-frame rate acquisition
to show how images might be
captured for digital cinema con
What is the most important topic that
Panasonic will be discussing with conventioneers
at the show?
Our main message is that Panasonic is
totally dedicated to the concept of digital
cinema and. to that end. has developed
several technologies and products
to meet the requirements of customers.
We are working with some of the main
players in this field and hope to have
some announcements soon.
What advances have been made in digital
cinema technology in the past year, especially
from Panasonic's perspective?
Panasonic has developed the concept
of leveraging one successful technical
application to the benefit of
another. For example. Panasonic's
Emmy Award-winning Universal
Format Converter technology is the resizing
engine of our DLP projectors.
thus giving superb picture performance.
In addition, due to
our technology, it is possible
to play back original 24-
frame-originated content with
no flicker on the screen.
Finally. Panasonic has perfected
"Edge-Blending,"
where multiple numbers of
projectors can be stacked side
by side and up and down and
spread the full-motion images
over the many projectors for
higher brightness and higher
resolution with no lines between the
projected images.
What advances will be made in the coming
12 months?
I think we'll continue to see advances
in contrast ratio specifications, perhaps
higher resolution chips, and certainly
different models from which to choose.
With the advent of acquisition of content
on multiple frame rate video cameras,
we may see digital cinema progress
even faster.
(Fithian, cont. from page 116)
alive, paying for popcorn supplies can
be challenging enough....
Who will control the system and the data?
In
the current world, distributors ship
films to exhibitors in metal canisters.
From that point on. as long as they comply
with their contractual obligations, theatre
operators control the show.
Exhibitors assemble their show elements
and determine their screen times.
Exhibitors know and interact
with their
customers. In other words, movie theatre
operators operate their business.
In a digital world, data controls, and
he who has the digital keys controls the
digital data. Theatre owners do not
want to be reduced to little more than
brick and mortar businesses who build
new complexes which the studios then
operate remotely.
Will digital technologies open new business
opportunities to exhibitors?
Movie houses need not be just movie
houses. From 1990 through 1999.
domestic screen count grew from
23,814 to 37,185. The number of
movies, however, did not expand at the
same rate. Indeed, in the past several
years, production has declined.
Granted, there are too many screens
in this country, and the exhibition
industry is suffering as a result. But
(cont. on page 120)
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(Fithian, cont. from page 119)
even as our industry is now reducing
screen count, we could still use new product.
Digital cinema technologies would
make it easier for our members to show
musical concerts, religious events and
even educational programming.
Motion pictures will always be our
biggest business, but digital cinema
may open new doors to essential new
revenue streams.
Will the digital revolution be open to all
potential participants?
I represent more than 700 members.
They range from large international circuits
to small one-screen operators in
small towns. The digital experience must
be open to all potential participants.
Some say that digital cinema will
wipe out the small-town theatre operator.
I disagree. Today, the small-town
operator is often overlooked by the
distributors. My smaller members
often cannot get that print they need
on the first-run break. With digital
cinema, the costs to produce that print
and ship it across the country or across
the world will be virtually eliminated. I
believe digital cinema might make it
easier for those smaller operators to
provide service to their customers.
Digital cinema can be good for competition
and good for the patrons, but
only if managed correctly....
DAVID ELLIOTT, CEO
Technicolor Entertainment
Services, and acting CEO
Technicolor Digital Cinema
What will Technicolor be demonstrating
in its digital cinema suite at ShoWest?
Technicolor Digital Cinema will be
demonstrating the actual hardware that
will be installed in theatres. This includes
the Auditorium Management System
and the Graphical User Interface that
the theatre employees will use to schedule
their movies. There will be side-byside
comparison demonstrations of digital
cinema and film platforms.
What is the most important topic that
Technicolor will be discussing with conventioneers
at the show?
Technicolor Digital Cinema is hosting a
special lunch presentation and announcement
on March 7 that will have major
implications for the future of the entertainment
industry. Technicolor Digital Cinema,
a joint venture between Technicolor and
QUALCOMM announced last year, is
making its first public appearance with
exciting news about the future of digital
cinema and answers to some of the industry's
most important questions. The lunch
program will reveal how the company will
provide the enabling skills and technologies
the industry needs to start the transformation
of the way entertainment distributes
and displays its content in movie theatres,
while enhancing the experience of all
moviegoers.
What advances have been made in digital
cinema technology in the past year, especially
from Technicolor's perspective?
Digital cinema technology is ready for
commercial rollout. The QUALCOMM
decoder has been put on a simple silicon
chip. That chip has been integrated into
simple-to-use equipment that is ready to
be installed in movie theatres. The overall
evolution of the industry also
includes an array of new services that are
available in the digital world.
By enabling the motion picture industry
to gracefully, and at their own speed, transition
from 35mm film into today's digital
communication world, digital cinema carries
with it the promise of industry economic
savings, convenience, flexibility, reliability
and unprecedented levels of security
against theft and piracy. The creative
community, studios, distributors, theatres
and patrons are all expected to benefit.
What advances will be made in the coming
12 months?
Technicolor Digital Cinema will continue
to work in collaboration with the studio
and exhibition communities to advance the
digital age of motion pictures. We expect to
see digital cinema technology integrated
into an increasing number of movie theatres
around the world. We will continue tc
work with our distribution and exhibition
partners to identify opportunities enabled
by digital technology.
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