LOS ANGELES -- Sony Corp.'s much-discussed dry spell at the box office this year will end soon, thanks not to a blockbuster but an improbable $2.8 million comedy-drama about the Million Man March by Spike Lee. 'Get on the Bus,' focusing on 15 black men from South Central Los Angeles traveling across the country to the march, has already generated a strong pre-release 'buzz' that should lead to solid business for the rest of this year. Both trade dailies, the Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety, have forecast significant box office for Lee's 10th movie. The formercalled it 'raucously funny but utterly serious' and the latter described it as 'a vital regeneration of a filmmaker's talent as well as a bracing and often very funny dramatization of urgent socio-political themes.' Columbia will roll out 'Bus' Oct. 16 on the one-year anniversary of the march, an event best known for being organized by Louis Farrakhan. However, Farrakhan's ideology is hardly mentioned in the film, which focuses instead on the motivations of the men on the bus to attend what they view as an important historical moment. The film was shot in three weeks and financed by 15 black men, including actors Danny Glover, Wesley Snipes, Will Smith and Robert Guillaume, music executive Jheryl Busby, screenwriter Reggie Rock Blythewood and attorney Johnnie Cochran. The early reviews noted particularly strong performances Charles Dutton, whose character has organized the trip, and by the eldest player, Ossie Davis.
Although few of the men know each other, they start the trip enthusiastically, even singing together, but eventually discover they don't like each other much. Characters include a one-time gangster converted to Islam, an egotistical actor, a cop, a film student, a gay couple whose relationship has fallen apart and an absent father shackled to his son by virtue of a court order. When the bus breaks down, Richard Belzer takes over briefly as a disapproving bus driver and Wendell Pierce has a memorable performance as a cigar-smoking Republican car salesman who is kicked off the bus. Despite being best known as a Nike spokesman and New York Knicks fan, Lee has become one of Hollywood's most prolific filmmakers over the past decade, turning out a movie a year on a wide variety of topics. So moviegoers know his track record and if 'Bus' delivers on its promise of being an entertaining drama with big laughs, Sony could have its first seriously profitable film in quite some time. His first six films -- 'She's Got to Have It,' 'Do the Right Thing, ' 'School Daze,' 'Mo Better Blues,' 'Malcolm X' and 'Jungle Fever' -- performed reasonably well at the box office in addition to being supported by critics for strong scriptwriting and performances. His last three films, 'Crooklyn,' 'Clockers' and 'Girl 6,' reveived mixed reviews and were largely ignored by the public. Still, with only three comedies having performed well this year ('The Birdcage,' 'The Nutty Professor' and 'The First Wives Club'), 'Bus' may be well-timed enough to attract as much as $30 million. For Sony, 'Bus' could be a major relief from its unending series of misadventures in the film business. The Japanese conglomerate has seen its $4.8 billion investment produce massive losses from big-budget flops like 'The Last Action Hero,' 'Lost in Yonkers,' 'First Knight,' 'Mary Reilly,' 'The Cable Guy,' 'Multiplicity,' and 'The Fan.' It has shuffled and re- shuffled management, deciding recently to hire United Artists president John Calley and to place one of its own executives to act as direct liaison with Tokyo headquarters. Should 'Get on the Bus' succeed, Lee may convince Sony or one of the other studios to back his long-planned biography of baseball legend Jackie Robinson. (release at will)
