Analysis: Box-office battle lines form

LOS ANGELES, April 29 (UPI) -- U.S. movie-goers will have an ample number of titles to choose from this summer -- with so many releases on Hollywood's slate that it seems almost inevitable that there will be a lot of blood on the floor, and precious little money left on the table, at the end of the summer box-office season.

Summer pfficially doesn't arrive until June 21, but Hollywood has been pushing the summer for years -- and box-office summer begins earlier all the time.

This year it was April 19, when "The Scorpion King" made a movie star out of TV wrestler The Rock.

In its first 10 days in release, the spin-off from the blockbuster "Mummy" franchise has grossed $60.8 million. It may top $100 million before its run is over, but its days on top of the box-office charts are over -- "Spider-Man" arrives in theaters this Friday.

Starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, the big-budget screen adaptation of the comic-book classic is expected to kick major box-office butt on its opening weekend -- while more mature movie-goers might choose the new Woody Allen comedy "Hollywood Ending."

How well "Spider-Man" performs overall will depend on a huge opening and a relatively huge second weekend, because on May 16, "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones" comes to theaters everywhere, sucking most of the oxygen out of the box-office atmosphere.

The fifth installment of George Lucas' phenomenally successful movie series is getting relatively good advance notice -- based on Web sites like "Ain't-It-Cool-News" and public reaction to trailers for the movie.

Box-office analysts expect "Clones" to gross more than $100 million in its first weekend, and to go on to join the other four "Star Wars" pictures near the top of the list of all-time U.S. blockbusters.

Three major openings by the middle of May suggest that the U.S. box office will be fully cranked heading into the Memorial Day holiday weekend -- when summer movie-going traditionally began to peak. If the numbers that Hollywood is hoping for actually materialize, the 2002 box office will be in remarkable shape.

The numbers for the weekend just past were 24 percent better than those for the same weekend in 2001. Overall, 2002 is running 15 percent ahead of the box-office pace set last year, with an estimated $2.58 billion in the bank already.

Record receipts, however, do not necessarily translate into record profits. The costs of making, distributing and promoting movies have risen steadily in recent years -- and the sheer volume of big releases headed for theaters this summer means the competition will be as cutthroat as ever, if not more so.

Studios and exhibitors have -- wittingly or otherwise -- cultivated a marketplace in which movies more or less have to recover their costs on the first and second weekends in release. After that, audiences turn to other new releases, usually leaving holdovers to pick up new business where they can find it.

Mostly, for a movie to demonstrate "legs" in such an environment, it needs to have a fan base willing to see it three or more times. Such movies can also sell tickets to people who showed up at the multiplex too late to get seats for the newest release.

But mainly, Hollywood is looking at a crowded release schedule that will pit A-list stars and directors against one another -- and present movie fans with hard choices -- virtually all summer long.

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are expected to dominate the July 4 weekend with "Men in Black II," the sequel to their 1997 action-comedy. The only other major new release scheduled for that weekend is "Powerpuff Girls" -- based on the TV cartoon show.

"Stuart Little 2" is scheduled to open July 19, with competition from Harrison Ford as a Russian submarine commander in "K-19: The Widowmaker" and a pair of youth-oriented pictures -- an action-sci-fi comedy, "Eight Legged Freaks," and a slasher movie, "Halloween: Resurrection."

Adam Sandler -- looking for his first hit since "Big Daddy" (1999) arrives on June 28 in "Mr. Deeds" -- a loose remake of Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

The Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise project, "Minority Report," is scheduled for June 21. Fox has already spent a bundle promoting the movie in TV ads that started running more than one month ago.

It should come as no surprise that so many of the bigger releases are targeted at adolescent boys -- the demographic group Hollywood come to rely on most to drive its business.

"Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams," the sequel to 2001's surprise family hit, is coming this summer. So is "XXX," starring Vin Diesel as an extreme secret agent, and "Austin Powers in Goldmember," the third of Mike Myers' goofy James Bond take-offs.

"Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron," is an animated adventure about a wild mustang targeted at younger audiences and families. "Lilo & Stitch" is an animated adventure about a Hawaiian girl who adopts an alien. "Scooby-Doo" is a live-action take on the classic TV cartoon -- with a computer-generated Scooby.

Hollywood's A-list is well-represented in the slate of titles likely to appeal to grown-ups.

Mel Gibson shows up in "Signs," a suspense drama from M. Night Shyamalan ("The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable"), and Tom Cruise co-stars with Paul Newman and Jude Law in "Road to Perdition," about a hitman who begins to take his profession personally after his wife and child are murdered.

Matt Damon stars as an amnesiac spy in "The Bourne Identity," based on Robert Ludlum's novel, and Al Pacino stars with Robin Williams and Hilary Swank in "Insomnia," a murder mystery from "Memento" writer-director Christopher Nolan.

Eddie Murphy ("The Adventures of Pluto Nash"), Jennifer Lopez ("Enough"), Nicolas Cage ("Windtalkers"), Hugh Grant ("About a Boy"), and Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock ("Bad Company") are also scheduled to show up in theaters between now and Labor Day.

On top of that, Robin Williams stars as a photo clerk obsessed with a family in "One Hour Photo" and Ben Affleck follows in the footsteps of Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin, playing CIA analyst Jack Ryan in the screen adaptation of Tom Clancy's "The Sum of All Fears."

Julia Roberts reteams with her "Erin Brockovich" director, Steven Soderbergh, for a romantic comedy, "Full Frontal," and Richard Gere co-stars with Diane Lane in "Unfaithful," about a wife who risks her marriage for a brief affair.

Newspapers, TV and other advertising-dependent media may still be looking for a fill recovery from last year's harsh economic performance -- but the movie business is steaming ahead, with another record year in prospect.