A winter's pale
Oscar, Olympic fever push big pix to spring sked
Not until March will there be a single title with enough across-the-board strength to intimidate anyone. That's a shift from the past few years, when heavyweights like "Scream 3" and "Hannibal" posted huge weekends in February and set the tone for the seasons to follow.
By Darwinian box office law, of course, something has to connect in January and February. Those hits will by definition be sleepers, a notion that will delight anyone still reeling from the binge of hit-and-run bows in recent months.
U.S. audiences will be served platform-release Oscar hopefuls such as "I Am Sam," "Black Hawk Down" and "The Shipping News." Depending on their grosses and award tallies, "In the Bedroom," "Monster's Ball" and "Gosford Park" could also take up a considerable number of screens.
Several are quality pics; thus their gradual rollouts. But industryites who saw this roster last year and reflexively debate the pics' merits and demerits at every social gathering will soon be yearning for something new.
The holiday hangover is already so pronounced that when I told a studio publicist I was going to "Orange County," she wondered, "Where are they doing an Academy screening? Anaheim?"
The list of January and February titles with commercial thrust is short. Atop it are Disney's "The Count of Monte Cristo," MGM's "Hart's War" and "Rollerball," New Line's "John Q" and Warner Bros.' "Collateral Damage."
Golden games
There are two reasons for the bleak midwinter: the Winter Olympics, which run Feb. 8-24 in Salt Lake City, and the ever-growingimportance of February's Oscar noms announcement.
The awards angle is understandable. In this wide-open year, who wouldn't want a crack at a slow-burn winner before closing the book on 2001?
The Olympic excuse, though, is a nag of a different color. The last time studios steered clear of the Games was in September 2000, and the posture proved lamentable. By opting for flops like "Duets" and "Woman on Top," distribs held total grosses to anemic levels even as TV ratings for the Games vastly underperformed NBC's sky-high predictions.
Must-see TV
As a U.S.-hosted event in a time of war, the 2002 Games are expected to set ratings records. Other networks are ceding that by not scheduling new series against the NBC juggernaut.
Looking back to the last Winter Games (usually a bigger TV draw than the summer edition, incidentally), Hollywood took the same approach it's taking this winter. With "Titanic" dominating every weekend in that first quarter, new entries were limited to the ill-fated likes of "Replacement Killers," "Blues Brothers 2000" and "Sphere."
One surprise hit in the middle of those Nagano Games was "The Wedding Singer," which opened to $21.9 million and launched Adam Sandler's A-list run. It was the ideal combo: a star with an established young male fan base not entranced by figure skating, and a measure of date appeal for Valentine's Day.
This year's muted selection doesn't lack testosterone. But Hollywood appears determined to fulfill its own grim winter prophecy.
Spring is a much rosier story, however. The first three weekends in March boast Mel Gibson drama "We Were Soldiers," "40 Days and 40 Nights," "The Time Machine," Jodie Foster starrer "The Panic Room," animated pic "Ice Age," "Clockstoppers" and Robins Williams/Edward Norton laffer "Death to Smoochy."
The March 22-24 frame figures to serve as a symbolic turning point, as the only pic skedded that Oscar weekend is the 20th-anniversary "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." Only then, after paying full tribute to the past with statuettes and a theatrical re-release, will the studios finally be ready to start toasting the New Year.
