Do Not Open ‘Til, Er, November : Crush of New, Starry Films Force Studios to Launch Christmas Fare Earlier. The Hope: Best Year’s Total Ever

There are a full 89 shopping days left until Christmas but for the motion picture industry, the holidays officially kick off in a little more than a month. The opening salvos are “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” from TriStar Pictures, starring Robert De Niro, and Universal Pictures’ coming-of-age drama “The War,” pairing Elijah Wood and Kevin Costner. Both films debut Nov. 4.

Wait a second. Isn’t that rushing things a bit?

Not as far as MCA/Universal motion picture group chairman Tom Pollock is concerned. When he went to one of the better department stores last weekend, Christmas decorations were already up. If retailers continue to move the season up earlier and earlier, he contends, there’s no reason why the movie business can’t do it too.

Besides, points out Disney marketing president Robert Levin, the holiday season is a bit of a misnomer. Unlike summer, which witnesses a consistent attendance expansion from Memorial Day through Labor Day, the end of the year holiday window delivers a business rush only in fits and starts: for about five days around Thanksgiving and another week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

It makes sense then, he says, to get as many playing days for such films as his studio’s “The Santa Clause,” starring Tim Allen, and 20th Century Fox’s remake of “Miracle on 34th Street.” Both will be out prior to Thanksgiving because Christmas-themed movies usually peter out after the calendar celebration of the holiday.

However, many of the coming season’s significant early releases won’t be Yuletide titles. “Frankenstein” will make haste to get established with audiences a week before the arrival of another florid monster movie, the much ballyhooed “Interview With the Vampire” starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. The Samuel Goldwyn Company will open David Mamet’s sexual harassment drama “Oleanna” nationally on Nov. 11 to get some attention before another similarly themed film, “Disclosure,” starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore, arrives in December.

The largely animated “The Pagemaster” debuts Nov. 11, a week before New Line’s animated “The Swan Princess.” (“Pagemaster” features super-tyke Macaulay Culkin who also stars in Warner Bros.’ December release “Richie Rich.”)

Other early-in-the-season “big gun” titles include Paramount’s “Star Trek: Generations,” Disney’s re-release of “The Lion King” and Universal’s Arnold Schwarzenegger-Danny DeVito comedy “Junior.”

“There is so much new movie product this season that the so-called Christmas season has grown to accommodate the crush of new films,” says Howard Lichtman, spokesman for the Toronto-based Cineplex Odeon theater chain.

If the front-loading strategy of releasing so many films so early works, says Tom Boris of box-office tracking firm Entertainment Data Inc., those films could raise the overall attendance level through to the end of the year. If it doesn’t, there will be the inevitable back-to-the-drawing-board re-evaluation.

Still, exhibitors are buoyed by this steady flow of releases--about 35 films in all--observing that as many as a dozen have the potential to gross from $50 million to more than $100 million.

The line-up of commercially viable product for the holidays is as strong as it’s ever been, according to Fox’s distribution chief Tom Sherak, whereas last year was largely dominated by the family films “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Aladdin.”

A strong holiday season could ensure the shattering of 1993’s box-office record tally of $5.2 billion. Through the end of this past summer, business was almost 5% ahead of last year. And it’s shaping up to be a better than average fall, say exhibitors and distributors.

With more playing days for the “big gun” holiday titles, industry executives are hoping this year’s increase in ticket sales will continue unabated, making 1994 the best performer ever. Of course, as with every year “you better have the goods, or you should get out of the kitchen,” cautions Sherak about the upcoming holiday slate. And there will undoubtedly be some last-minute defections. New Line Pictures, however, has made a last-minute addition to the season with the Jim Carrey comedy “Dumb and Dumber.”

Originally scheduled for release in 1995, the company took the plunge at the behest of exhibitors. “The trailer was playing gangbusters,” says Chris Pula, head of marketing at New Line, which also released Carrey’s $100-million-plus comedy hit “The Mask.” The company’s distribution chief, Al Shapiro, began receiving phone calls from theater chains asking him to move up the date since there was no broad-based comedy appealing to the young male demographic at Christmas. “Dumb and Dumber” debuts Dec. 16; Jean-Claude Van Damme’s action film “Streetfighter” is its main competition.

For more sophisticated laughs there’s Nora Ephron’s “Lifesavers,” starring Steve Martin, and two romantic comedies: Paramount’s “I.Q.,” teaming Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins, and MGM/UA’s “Speechless,” starring Michael Keaton and Geena Davis. The latter could benefit from comparisons to the real-life political romance between James Carville and Mary Matalin.

More adult-oriented fare usually waits until Christmas Day to open, when its constituency becomes available. But, observes MGM/UA marketing head Gerry Rich, this year Christmas falls on a Sunday, robbing the industry of one holiday weekend (Christmas Eve and most of Christmas Day are normally box-office low points for moviegoing). That makes it all the more crucial to establish a film before the Christmas weekend. Hence, the stacking of releases on Dec. 16 and 23.

What seems to be missing this Christmas is the usual line-up of Oscar-worthy prestige movies. With the exception of Fox’s drama “Nell,” starring Jodie Foster, and Warners’ baseball biography “Cobb,” starring Tommy Lee Jones, there don’t seem to be any major studio releases on the order of last year’s “Schindler’s List,” “Philadelphia,” “Remains of the Day” and “In the Name of the Father.”

It’s just the luck of the draw, say industry nabobs. Such directors as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme and Jim Sheridan, who can be counted on to deliver potential Oscar offerings, didn’t make a film this year. Others like Barry Levinson and Neil Jordan (“The Crying Game”) have tackled more overtly commercial projects, “Disclosure” and “Vampire,” respectively.

There will be several independently-made Oscar hopefuls, including Roman Polanski’s drama “Death and the Maiden,” starring Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver, Robert Altman’s fashion satire “Pret-a-Porter,” with an all-star ensemble cast, the inter-generational saga “The Perez Family,” with Anjelica Huston and Marisa Tomei, and “Mrs. Parker” with Jennifer Jason-Leigh in the title role as writer Dorothy Parker.

Barring last-minute surprises, many of the stronger best picture hopefuls may already have been released, suggest insiders--Disney’s “Quiz Show” and “The Lion King,” Paramount’s “Forrest Gump” and Gramercy’s “Four Weddings and a Funeral.”

Fox is a Times staff writer and Natale is a free-lance writer and frequent contributor to Calendar.