Analysis: Hollywood's hot summer

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- The U.S. box office sizzled with record grosses this summer, but the movie business -- still struggling to get ahead of last year's pace -- will need some pretty hefty receipts during the upcoming holiday season to outdo its 2002 finish.

Led by the unexpectedly strong performance of "Finding Nemo," the box office took in either $3.3 billion or $3.76 billion -- depending on which set of figures you use. There is disagreement in Hollywood on when the summer box-office season actually begins.

The Hollywood Reporter regards Memorial Day as the official start, while the industry tracking service EDI Nielsen starts counting summer receipts on the first Friday in May. This year, that fell on May 2.

Either way, the summer was comparatively strong for the movie business and it was the third straight summer that the business racked up higher grosses. It was also the first summer to register at least $100 million in overall grosses every weekend.

However, DreamWorks Pictures distribution chief Jim Tharp told United Press International that higher ticket prices were a significant factor.

"Most of (the higher grosses) was driven by ticket prices being up 8 to 12 percent over last year," said Tharp.

Estimated admissions were actually down by a little more than 4 million from last summer.

Given the rocky start that the U.S. box office got off to in the early part of 2003, the record summer grosses were not enough to push the year-to-date numbers ahead of the pace set in 2002, when the box office set a new yearly record based largely on the strength of "Spider-Man" and "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones."

"Finding Nemo," the fifth collaboration between Disney and Pixar on a computer-generated feature, grossed more than $332 million and climbed to No. 8 on the list of all-time U.S. blockbusters. The fish tale also became Disney's biggest hit ever, and overtook the studio's 1994 hit "The Lion King" as the top-grossing animated feature of all time.

Along with "Finding Nemo," four other pictures topped $200 million at the U.S. box office and cracked the list of the 50 biggest hits of all time.

"The Matrix Reloaded" smashed most box-office records when it opened in May, and went on to take in $278.8 million, good for No. 19 on the all-time list.

Johnny Depp had his first blockbuster hit with Disney's first-ever PG-13 movie, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." Based on a popular ride at Disneyland, the comedy-action-adventure has taken in more than $274 million -- good for No. 20 all-time -- and is still doing healthy business after two months in release.

Jim Carrey scored his biggest hit ever with "Bruce Almighty." The comedy took in $240.4 and made it to No. 32. "X-2: X-Men United," another May opener, grossed $214.9, topping out at No. 44 on the all-time list.

It was the first time that five movies topped $200 million in one summer. The box office also saw 15 movies -- also a record -- go over $100 million.

The summer of '03 was notable for the number of numbers behind the titles --as studios brought an unusually large contingent of sequels to the marketplace. Some paid off, and some didn't.

In addition to "The Matrix Reloaded," sequels that performed well included "Bad Boys II" ($135.1 million), "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over" ($107 million), "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" ($149 million) and "2 Fast 2 Furious" ($126.7 million).

Even though "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle'' and "Legally Blonde 2: Red White & Blonde'' came in at or near the $100 million level, both were tagged as commercial disappointments, owing to the high costs of producing and marketing them. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the summer was "Hulk" -- which fell considerably short of expectations and topped out at just over $131 million.

"Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" managed only $63.5 million, even though it was better reviewed than the first Lara Croft movie, which took in $131 million in 2001.

The summer featured at least two strong contenders for the next Razzie Awards -- presented each year to dishonor the worst Hollywood has to offer. "Gigli," which paired the celebrity couple of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, and "From Justin to Kelly," which featured two newly minted "American Idol" stars, are both prime contenders for Razzies, said award chairman John Wilson.

The summer also saw the intensification of a recent trend in opening patterns -- with pictures opening to increasingly larger grosses only to experience sharp drops in business after that. According to box-office analysts, the average drop from the first weekend to the second was 50 percent -- up from just 46 percent last summer.

DreamWorks' Tharp noted, though, that the highest-grossing non-sequels of the year -- "Nemo" and "Pirates" -- opened well and then continued to do strong business beyond their opening weekends.

Disney marketing president Oren Aviv told Daily Variety those two titles may also have benefited from the underperformance of the competition during their runs.

"Honestly, it starts with great-playing movies, and perhaps we also got lucky when other movies underwhelmed," Aviv said.

The fall season will feature a few major releases -- including writer-director Robert Rodriguez's "Once Upon a Time in Mexico," the Nicolas Cage comedy-caper "Matchstick Men" and "The Human Stain," a drama starring Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins.

The upcoming schedule also includes Russell Crowe in "Master and Commander: The Far Side of The World," and Sharon Stone's return to big Hollywood movies, as she co-stars with Dennis Quaid in the crime thriller "Cold Creek Mountain."

The heavy artillery rolls out in November, when studios begin opening their big holiday releases -- as well as the titles they hope will contend for Oscar gold.

The holiday season menu will include "Matrix: Revolutions" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" -- two titles that almost no one in Hollywood can conceive will misfire at the box office. Other prestige titles coming in November or December include Oscar-winning director Ron Howard's "The Missing"; Disney's "The Alamo"; and Oscar-winning writer-director Anthony Minghella's adaptation of Charles Frazier's novel "Cold Mountain" -- starring Kidman, Renée Zellweger and Jude Law.

If the movie industry expects to turn in bigger numbers for 2003 than it did in 2002, those titles will have to perform up to expectations. Given the strength of last season's holiday slate -- which included "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," "Catch Me if You Can" and "Die Another Day" -- the box office will also need a sleeper hit here and there the rest of the way, if it is to have any chance of overtaking last year's record-setting performance.