Advertisement

The Bottom Line on Hollywood’s Big Summer : Family Movies Make a Comeback

Share
Times Staff Writer

Studio executives across Hollywood are shaking their heads over this summer’s box-office results: For all their sophisticated market research and conservative reliance on familiar formulas, they still can’t predict the tastes of American moviegoers.

Who could have guessed three months ago that a Disney movie whose plot is neatly summed up in its title, “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” would do better at the box office than a sequel to “Ghostbusters,” the ninth biggest movie in recent Hollywood history? Or that an adult fairy tale about baseball, “Field of Dreams,” would linger from spring into summer and outgross the 17th James Bond movie, “Licence to Kill”?

This was supposed to be a summer in which big-budget sequels and action movies dominated the market. And certainly some of the action films saw a lot of action:

Advertisement

*”Batman,” the summer’s biggest movie, enjoyed the seventh biggest ticket sales in recent movie history. Its $233.6 million so far puts it behind “E.T.,” “Star Wars,” “Return of the Jedi,” “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Beverly Hills Cop.” (Total ticket sales on those movies, however, includes re-releases, so “Batman” could still move up on the list.)

Substantially aided by rising ticket prices, the $45-million comic-book epic, starring Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton, has outgrossed “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Ghostbusters” and “Back to the Future,” according to figures compiled by Baseline and Entertainment Data Inc.

*”Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was no match for the original in this series about the cliffhanger adventures of a rogue archeologist (played by Harrison Ford). But how greedy does Paramount and the George Lucas-Steven Spielberg team want to be? “Raiders 3” sold $186.4 million worth of tickets, enough to rank it behind only “Batman.”

*”Lethal Weapon 2,” which reunited director Richard Donner and stars Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, was perhaps the most crowd-pleasing action film of the summer and has done a handsome $125-million worth of business so far. The first “Lethal Weapon” grossed $65.2 million.

Since Spielberg and Lucas came on the scene in the late ‘70s with the blockbusters “Jaws” and “Star Wars,” studios have been filling their summer schedules with action and adventure pictures hoping to encourage the kind of repeat business that make megahits. But the success of less ambitious--and less expensive--films aimed at adults and young children this summer suggest a broader trend.

“The family movie has a place in the summer box-office race,” said Robert L. Stein, co-founder of Leading Artists talent agency.

Advertisement

Disney’s success at this summer’s box office has been the talk of the town. At the beginning of the season, it appeared that the studio--which dominated the market last year with “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” among others--would be sitting out this dance.

But there was more magic left on Dopey Drive than anyone imagined. With “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” ($115.4 million), “Dead Poets Society” ($84.5 million) and “Turner and Hooch” ($51.8 million) all outperforming expectations, the studio so far looks like it will finish second behind only Warner Bros., with Paramount a close third, according to Entertainment Data Inc.

Disney had high hopes for “Dead Poets Society”--directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams as an iconoclastic teacher in a strait-laced boys’ prep school--even if the industry didn’t. Before the film’s release, industry pundits questioned the bleak title (Disney considered, then dropped, the idea of changing it) and doubted that audiences would want to see Williams in a serious role. The pundits were wrong on both counts.

Audiences also proved they were willing to forgive and forget “K-9,” a spring release from Universal about a cop and a dog, and see “Turner and Hooch,” Disney’s treatment of the same theme, which stars popular Tom Hanks and a droopy-jawed Dogue de Bordeaux. The film might have made more money--it would certainly have made more friends--if it didn’t kill the dog, but it still took a family-size bite out of the summer box office.

Disney’s biggest surprise was “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” which stars Rick Moranis. The movie collected solid reviews and benefited from being the only all-ages family film in the market for several weeks. But it also benefited from the studio’s gimmick of opening it with a fresh 7-minute Roger Rabbit cartoon. “Honey” brought in $14.2 million during its opening weekend and never looked back.

“We would have been happy if it had opened to $4.5 million to $5 million,” said David Hoberman, president of Walt Disney and Touchstone Pictures, two of Disney’s three production arms. Studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg conceded at the time: “We are as shocked as anyone.”

Advertisement

Conventional wisdom didn’t do well in predicting the success of previously popular series, either. After this summer, predicted Leading Artists’ Stein, “everyone is going to be taking a look at the sequel business. We may have seen the end of certain franchises.”

One of those is the James Bond series, which for decades has been a staple of UA’s summer lineups. “Licence to Kill,” with Timothy Dalton as the fourth 007 in the Bond series’ history, never quite caught on with audiences and grossed $32.2 million.

Jerry Juroe, who handles worldwide marketing for the Bond films, noted that reviews and exit poll data results were among the best ever for a Bond movie, but it was difficult to pry audiences away from competing films already in the market. “Lethal Weapon 2,” which opened at the same time, particularly hurt “Licence to Kill,” he said. “When you’re up against a crazy (American) cop . . . it’s hard competition for a British Secret Service agent.”

Will there be another Bond? The film’s producers will make that decision after the movie has opened worldwide (it’s already outpacing the previous Bond by 20% to 30% in some foreign markets, according to Juroe). If Bond does surface again, Dalton will be the star, Juroe said.

Another franchise that will be undergoing some reconsideration is Paramount’s “Star Trek.” “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” opened big with the help of die-hard fans, but seemed to get lost among the competition as the summer wore on.

Barry London, co-president of Paramount Pictures, said the future of the “Star Trek” series is “in the discussion stage.” He added, “It’s always a question when you make a series of movies: Does it get difficult to exceed itself?”

Advertisement

Columbia’s “Ghostbusters II,” the sequel to the highest-grossing comedy of all time, was the preseason pick by many people to outgross all rivals this summer. But one week after its record-breaking opening, Warner Bros. unleashed “Batman” and business for “Ghostbusters II” quickly dropped off. Its $109 million in ticket sales is less than half the domestic total of the original.

Columbia executives would not comment on the performance of any of its summer movies, but some industry sources said the PG-rated “Ghostbusters II” got double-teamed by “Batman,” which siphoned away teen-age customers, and “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” which lured away the family trade.

“The Karate Kid, Part III,” Columbia’s other summer sequel, also opened strong and weakened fast. “The Karate Kid” is almost played out now with just $37.4 million in grosses.

Brian DePalma’s “Casualties of War,” a late-summer entry from Columbia, thrilled some critics and infuriated many Vietnam veterans, but audiences hardly noticed. The film is unlikely to gross as much as it cost ($22 million) to make.

“When Harry Met Sally . . .” is the happiest surprise on Columbia’s summer schedule--the romantic comedy has grossed $60 million and is still among the top five films in the market. But Columbia is having to share the wealth with director Rob Reiner’s Castle Rock Entertainment, which financed the movie. (Columbia owns 40% of Castle Rock.)

With “Batman” and “Lethal Weapon 2,” Warner dominated the summer market, grabbing nearly a quarter of all ticket sales, according to Entertainment Data. Warner executives concede they had a lot riding on this summer.

Advertisement

“We hadn’t been first in market share for almost three years,” noted D. Barry Reardon, president of Warner distribution.

A year ago, Warner executives were nervous about this summer. It was going to be a very big summer with a tremendous number of movies with ingoing interest,” said Robert Friedman, advertising and publicity president. Worse, the studio’s research showed that people didn’t particularly want to see a Batman movie.

To many industry experts, the success of “Batman” was as much a marketing feat as anything. Warner managed to create a sense of mystery and excitement around the film--producing a trailer that didn’t even mention the film’s title or cast, plastering key cities with the confusing-looking Batman logo, and often refusing to provide photographs of the cast to newspapers and magazines.

While “Batman” and other actions films were playing to full houses, 20th Century Fox spent most of the summer counting down to its release of “The Abyss,” an underwater science-fiction adventure that the studio hoped would give it the sort of market share it had last summer with “Die Hard” and “Big.”

But “The Abyss’ ” late entry didn’t create the traffic Fox had hoped for. Despite being in the top three since its release, it has grossed a disappointing $33 million.

Many in the industry say “The Abyss,” plagued by delays in its complex production, was hurt by its August opening and lack of big-name actors.

Advertisement

“Would we have liked it do more? Sure,” said Fox marketing chief Tom Sherak. Sherak noted that with the help of foreign sales and other residuals, the studio should be able to make money on the film, which cost, sources say, between $43 million and $46 million to produce.

Fox’s other summer film, the black comedy “Weekend at Bernie’s,” also got lost among the summer crowd, leaving the studio in seventh place with a 4% market share.

Like Disney, Universal looked like it would be a bit player in this summer’s sweepstakes when plans to release a sequel to the Michael J. Fox blockbuster “Back to the Future” were delayed. But the studio will end up in fifth place, with about 11% of the market, according to Entertainment Data.

Universal was helped by the surprise success of “Field of Dreams,” starring Kevin Costner. “The idea was that we would be the adult choice,” Universal chief Thomas Pollock said of “Field of Dreams,” which has so far grossed nearly $60 million.

Universal’s “Parenthood,” now at $53.7 million, and “Uncle Buck,” at $23.6 million just two weeks after it opened, also helped the studio.

As big as the summer of ’89 turned out to be, there were still a few big losers. Orion’s “Great Balls of Fire,” in which Dennis Quaid portrayed hillbilly rocker Jerry Lee Lewis, got as much pre-release publicity as any film in the summer lineup but has done less than $14 million worth of business. Tri-Star’s “Lock Up,” a Sylvester Stallone prison drama, has grossed only $17 million. And Paramount’s “Let It Ride,” a Richard Dreyfuss comedy that the studio pre-panned by declining to hold advance screenings for critics, will be lucky to gross $5 million.

Advertisement

Proving that publicity does not always translate at the box office, the long trail of controversy surrounding the John Belushi biography “Wired” ended with a whimper. The movie grossed less than $700,000 in nearly 700 theaters and will disappear from many screens before its second weekend.

Box office figures in this story came from Daily Variety, Exhibitor Relations Inc. and Entertainment Data Inc. Staff writer Jack Mathews contributed to this story.

HOW THE TOP 5 STUDIOS FARED

Studio Market Gross Share (millions) 1. Warner Bros. 23.7% $381.3 2. Buena Vista (Disney/Touchstone) 18.2% $291.7 3. Paramount 17.5% $280.7 4. Columbia 13.8% $222.4 5. Universal 11.1% $177.8

Source: Entertainment Data Inc.; May 19-Aug.27, 1989

Advertisement