Hollywood Hoping Less Means More : Movies: Disney’s ‘Aladdin’ and Coppola’s ‘Dracula’ head a smaller wave of holiday releases. Studio executives believe fewer films will lead to bigger profits.

Hollywood’s final act of 1992 begins on Wednesday with the arrival of Walt Disney’s new animated Arabian Nights musical, “Aladdin,” in Los Angeles and New York. On Friday comes the nationwide release of director Francis Ford Coppola’s production of “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

The eight weekends between now and Jan. 3, encompassing Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day, offer the potential for the year’s second-biggest box-office season. Only the period between Memorial Day and July 4 is larger.

This season, however, the major studios will see whether fewer major films in nationwide release may be better at a time when consumer dollars are already spread thin. As the economic recession continues, there appears to be a reluctance to flood the market with too many titles. Not that the studios have a surplus of movies waiting in the wings, since most have scaled back production in an effort to control costs.

For the consumer, memories of Christmases past usually recall a tidal wave of some of the biggest and most lustrous films of the year, many with prime Academy Awards potential. But the number of films has also been somewhat overwhelming.

“Usually you can say that if you give audiences enough good product, they will show up,” said Tom Sherak, 20th Century Fox executive vice president. “But too often that hasn’t been the story. When movies arrive in theaters on top of each other, they tend to act like Pac Man and eat each other up.”

With a slower pace of releasing movies this season, the studios hope the effect will be a little like opening a bottle of good wine and giving it time to breathe. It’s exactly the kind of pattern that is needed, according to Sherak, whose studio will distribute two nationwide releases this season, “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” and the Robin Williams comedy “Toys.” Originally, Fox had scheduled two other holiday movies--”Hoffa” and “Used People”--to open early in December, but concluded it would be better to open them in a limited release Christmas Day and across the country in January.

Industry-wide, the lineup of movies from now until Christmas Day amounts to one or two new major films opening per week for the rest of the year--11 nationwide releases in all compared to 13 last year in a more concentrated period of time.

Several films will have opening days all to themselves--meaning studio publicity departments will encounter less competition for review space and feature stories, and the films will have a better opportunity to establish an identity with moviegoers. “Malcolm X” is the sole film to open Nov. 18. “Home Alone 2” is the lone film on Dec. 20. The Eddie Murphy comedy “The Distinguished Gentleman” has Dec. 4 all to itself.

The prime weekend of Dec. 18, which heralds the beginning of Christmas school vacations, is about the most crowded that it gets: Robin Williams in “Toys,” Steve Martin in “Leap of Faith” and Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis in “Forever Young.”

“This can be a telling season for the industry,” Sherak said. “We have good films and the market won’t be as crowded. In the past, we’ve always had the excuse that a film fails because it might face too much competition and get lost in the crowd.

“This year, that’s not so. If the audience doesn’t come, then we have to wonder if we’re in an industry that cannot expand its audience . . . (and) we’ll have to figure out a new way to just keep the status quo.”

But Sherak and other industry executives are guardedly optimistic that the audiences will come. And they share the sense that, after stronger-than-normal box-office grosses for September and October, ticket sales for the year’s last two months will expand.

The fall has been boosted by such popular films as “Under Siege,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Sneakers” and, to a lesser extent, by “The Mighty Ducks” and “A River Runs Through It.” Grosses in October alone were running 15% ahead of the same month last year, according to the trade newspaper Daily Variety.

But even as business hums along at a relatively strong pace, the 1992 year-to-date figures are about even with this point in 1991. And for 1992 to surpass 1991 total grosses, ticket sales for the last eight weeks will have to surpass last year’s holiday season--which will be no small feat. Several major hits emerged from last year’s more crowded field: “The Addams Family,” “Star Trek VI,” “Hook” and “Beauty and the Beast.”

Greg Rutkowski, vice president of West Coast operations for AMC Theatres, suggested that business will be boosted by two broadly appealing family movies: “Aladdin” and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.” And the hope is that their popularity will spill over to other movies.

“Aladdin” is the heir-apparent to the Disney company’s hugely successful animated features. And the comedy “Home Alone 2,” starring Macaulay Culkin, is the sequel to 1990’s “Home Alone,” which sold $285 million in tickets and became the third-highest grossing film ever.

Potential competition between “Aladdin” and “Home Alone 2” for the family film market was dismissed by the distributors of both films. Richard Cook, Disney’s Buena Vista distribution president, pointed to the example of when “Batman” and “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” opened the same day in 1989, and both films took off. “The market expands. What tends to happen is that when you see one great movie, it whets your appetite to see another.” The season’s third family film will be Disney’s “A Muppet Christmas Carol,” which opens Dec. 11.

No Glut of Holiday Films

Unlike Christmases past, this year’s holiday movie season won’t have weeks with a glut of big pictures. Only two or three films will be premiered per release date. Studios and distributors say this will allow films to prove themselves and be good for business.

Film Premiere Release Pattern Aladdin Wednesday L.A., N.Y. (nationwide Nov. 25) Bram Stoker’s Dracula Friday Nationwide Malcolm X Nov. 18 Nationwide Home Alone 2: Lost in N.Y. Nov. 20 Nationwide The Bodyguard Nov. 25 Nationwide Distinguished Gentleman Dec. 4 Nationwide A Muppet Christmas Carol Dec. 11 Nationwide A Few Good Men Dec. 11 Nationwide Leap of Faith Dec. 18 Nationwide Toys Dec. 18 Nationwide Forever Young Dec. 18 Nationwide Trespass Dec. 23 Nationwide Scent of a Woman Dec. 23 A few cities (nationwide Jan. 8) Chaplin Dec. 25 A few cities (nationwide Jan. 8) Hoffa Dec. 25 A few cities Used People Dec. 25 A few cities (nationwide Jan. 8) Lorenzo’s Oil Dec. 30 L.A., N.Y., Toronto (expands Jan. 15)

SOURCE: Exhibitor Relations Co.