Company Town : Box Office Numbers Draw the Crowd

Walt Disney Co. chief Michael Eisner was amazed when his non-English-speaking housekeeper congratulated him on the fact that “Pocahontas” had grossed $30 million over the weekend. She had heard it over the airwaves Sunday.

Her awareness of how much the newly released animated feature had made over the weekend is indicative of America’s preoccupation with box office. Moviegoers seem to be increasingly basing their choices of what to see not on what the critics and their friends say, but on what they read in the newspaper or hear on radio or TV about how a film ranks at the box office.

“If it’s No. 1, I should see it,” seems to be the common thinking among moviegoers today, Hollywood insiders say.

Joe Roth, chairman of Disney Studios motion picture group, says, “It’s completely in our culture, whereas five years ago it was not.”

Roth says the phenomenon is media-created. “This is what has happened as we’ve gotten more and more media-saturated and there are more and more [news] outlets,” he says, noting that the weekend’s top movies are reported twice a week by the Hollywood trade papers and, beginning Sundays, by major newspapers and local TV and radio stations.

Consequently, Roth says, “it puts a ridiculous amount of pressure [on studios] to be No. 1, getting there first, having the biggest picture.”

What’s even more worrisome, he adds, is that talent--from actors to directors to producers--”are calling, wanting to know [how well their pictures did over the weekend]. It’s crazy, a self-perpetuating situation.”

Last weekend, fierce rivals Disney and Warner Bros., who duke it out annually to beat each other in year-end market share, went nuts over whose new summer release was the top weekend movie.

As early as Sunday morning, there were radio reports announcing that Disney’s “Pocahontas” was the No. 1 film of the weekend, followed by similar reports on the evening news. These early reports were based on estimates by the film’s distributor, not actual grosses. Based on its Friday and Saturday business, Disney had estimated “Pocahontas” would take in $30.5 million for the weekend.

Also on Sunday, Warner Bros. estimated its movie “Batman Forever” would gross $28.2 million for the weekend, runner-up to “Pocahontas.”

But early Monday morning, Warner began suggesting that it had underestimated “Batman” and that Disney had overestimated “Pocahontas,” and that the Caped Crusader had beaten out the Indian maiden.

When the final figures came in later that day, “Pocahontas” had edged out “Batman,” if only by a hair. The final score: “Pocahontas,” $29.5 million; “Batman,” $29.2 million.

Does it really matter?

Warner downplayed its importance. “It doesn’t really matter,” said a Warner official when the real numbers rolled in. But if that’s the case, there was a hell of a lot of wasted energy expended on something that has no significance.

Or does it?

“It’s absolutely important to be No. 1,” says Mitch Goldman, president of marketing and distribution for New Line Cinema.

“The winner gets the spoils. And the spoils are you’re listed as the No. 1 picture in the country, and that’s picked up by all of the media, and that creates more business thereafter.”

Moviegoers today, says Goldman, “look at the box office charts to decide what movie to go to.” And, he suggests, “it’s hurting the chances of some really good movies that don’t get widely distributed.”

The “fight to be first,” he adds, “is not just about ego, it’s about business--real dollars.”

Roth, however, concedes that ego does in fact play a role.

“Perception within the industry about being No. 1 is more important than bottom-line dollars,” he says.

Box office analyst Art Murphy of the Hollywood Reporter trade paper believes that being the top film (or even one of the top five) can help “nudge” someone to see a particular movie, but “it will not convert someone who’s not disposed to do so anyway.”

However, being No. 1 at the box office “may get people to go sooner,” since most people interpret that as “ ‘my neighbors liked it too’--so it’s comforting,” he says.

But getting more moviegoers in theater seats right away can be double-edged, Murphy notes. “Big, big [box office] numbers can make people think, ‘Let’s go now,’ but that really doesn’t create twice as many potential customers. If a film is bad, you have that many more people saying that to their friends.”

Murphy agrees with Roth and others in saying the public’s fixation on box office is media-driven to the point where “it can literally force a distributor to release a film on more screens and spend more money to guarantee it will be No. 1.”

He says box office really took center stage 20 years ago this month when Steven Spielberg’s 1975 shark thriller, “Jaws,” became the first “classy” major studio film to have a high-profile nationwide release. It opened, backed by a major TV campaign, in 750 theaters--unheard of at the time, Murphy recalls.

“Large amounts of money began to be generated on the weekends,” Murphy says, which spurred the Hollywood trades to begin running stories about movies’ nationwide box office performances rather than giving a city-by-city account as they had been doing.

Murphy recalls that in June, 1981, Daily Variety, where he then worked, started running full-page box office tables rather than shorter stories about gross figures.

He says by the late ‘80s, the popular press jumped on the bandwagon. Wall Street also apparently takes box office numbers seriously. When “Batman Forever” scored big in its opening weekend, Time Warner’s stock jumped.

When “Pocahontas” opened with what the Street thought were disappointing results compared to Disney’s last animated movie, “The Lion King,” Disney shares fell.

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Dudes but no dudettes: After last week’s column on Herb Allen Jr.’s coming investment conference in Sun Valley, The Times received several calls from female readers commenting on the disturbing fact that not one female executive from Hollywood was on the published guest list for the power get-together. It may be an oversight by Allen & Co., but it’s also a sad commentary on an industry which is still very clearly a boys’ club.