Analysis: 'Shrek 2' to the rescue

LOS ANGELES, May 24 (UPI) -- The calendar says summer is still a little more than four weeks away, but the box-office summer is already well under way -- and Hollywood is having a wonderful time.

To be sure, there have been some misfires. But every summer trip has its glitches.

Think of disappointing returns on "Troy" and "Van Helsing" as the box-office equivalent of sunburn and poison ivy. It's a bummer, but hardly enough to ruin a summer.

At that, even if both of those actions pictures have fallen short of high expectations, they have performed respectably well, becoming the third and fourth releases of 2004 to gross more than $100 million at the U.S. box office.

Just last week, box-office analysts were fretting that the year-to-date numbers were flagging behind last year's pace. Up to that point, two 2004 releases -- Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and the Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore comedy "Fifty First Dates" -- had grossed more than $100 million.

Hollywood angst had reached the point where there was public discussion about whether the movie business could fairly take bottom-line credit for the spectacular numbers put up by "The Passion of the Christ" -- which has grossed nearly $370 million at U.S. theaters since its Ash Wednesday release.

It wasn't that long ago that the summer box-office season began on Memorial Day weekend. Studios rolling out big-budget spectacles have learned from experience that they can force the season, opening big-ticket items as early as the first week of May.

According to conventional wisdom, Universal was looking good with its May 7 release of "Van Helsing." Writer-director Stephen Sommers is a proven winner with "The Mummy" and "The Return of the Mummy" to his credit. But the movie took 16 days to go past $100 million and will not, apparently, carry as much of the box-office load as expected.

"Troy" -- a Warner Bros. sword-and-sandals epic starring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom -- opened stronger than "Van Helsing" with $46.9 million, but it then lost half of its audience in its second week.

Hollywood was beginning to wonder what it would take to turn things around.

Then along came "Shrek 2."

DreamWorks' sequel to the 2001 box-office phenomenon "Shrek" essentially strapped the industry's box-office performance onto its broad, green shoulders and kicked the season into what movie executives hope will turn out to be high gear.

"Shrek 2" took in an estimated $125.3 million in its first five days in theaters, $104.3 million of that over the Friday-Sunday period.

The five-day total -- if it holds after final numbers come in -- will easily break the record for the biggest five-day opening, set by "The Passion of the Christ," which took in $125.2 million in its first five days. The Friday-Sunday numbers for "Shrek 2" were the second biggest in U.S. box-office history, behind the $114.8 million brought in by "Spider-Man."

"Shrek 2" obliterated the record set by "Finding Nemo," $70.3 million, for the highest opening-weekend gross for an animated feature. It more than doubled the $42 million opening-weekend numbers for "Shrek" in 2001.

Box-office analysts will keep an eye on "Shrek 2" to see if it can top "Finding Nemo" as the highest-grossing animated feature ever. "Nemo" took in $339.7 million last year, on its way to winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks ticket sales, told the New York Times "Shrek 2" came at a good time for the movie business.

"This is definitely the movie that Hollywood needed right now," he said.

Dergarabedian also said "Shrek 2" cut into the audience for other movies. But exhibitors have traditionally said -- or hoped, anyway -- that the extra traffic at the ticket windows somehow translates into a little extra business for movies in their second and third weeks in release.

Dan Marks, a vice president of box-office tracker Nielsen EDI, told Daily Variety the numbers for "Shrek 2" should help generate more movie business in the weeks ahead.

"I like to think this performance by 'Shrek 2' can get business on a real roll," said Marks. "'Van Helsing' and 'Troy' did solid business and now 'Shrek 2' has done spectacularly, which really puts movie going much higher on everyone's radar."

The future looks bright for "Shrek 2." DreamWorks market research indicated that 80 percent of those who saw it would definitely recommend it, and 70 percent said they would come back and see it again.

The CGI fairy tale will get some competition this week when Fox's disaster epic "The Day After Tomorrow" arrives in theaters, along with the Disney comedy "Raising Helen" and the MGM comedy "Soul Plane."

The rest of the summer schedule features expected heavyweights including "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (Warner Bros); "The Stepford Wives" (Paramount); "Around the World in 80 Days" (Buena Vista); "The Terminal" (DreamWorks); "Spider-Man 2" (Sony); "I, Robot" (Fox); "The Bourne Supremacy" (Universal); "Catwoman" (Warner Bros.); "The Manchurian Candidate" (Paramount) and "The Village" (Buena Vista).

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