A Scary Time at Box Office : Movies: Executives bracing for multimillion-dollar losses are trying to figure out why the grisly ‘Seven’ is the only bright spot in a string of recent disappointments.

Things must be grim indeed when one of the grisliest pictures of the year is the only bright spot at the box office.

“Seven,” New Line Cinema’s bleak but stylish thriller, has dominated the box office for four weeks running while the rest of the industry scratches its collective head about what makes for a winning formula.

“This is a business where no one knows anything,” “Seven” producer Arnold Kopelson said. “We can only guess.”

Last weekend three big-budget major studio releases--Paramount’s “Jade,” Fox’s “Strange Days” and Disney’s “The Scarlet Letter”--all bombed resoundingly upon opening. With a cumulative budget of more than $100 million, the three combined grossed only about $12 million.

“Things have been bad, but not this bad,” says Jeff Blake, distribution head at Columbia/TriStar, which released the disappointing “Devil in a Blue Dress” and the more popular “To Die For.”

As Hollywood looks to the possibility of another troublesome weekend with the first two games of the World Series providing competition for new releases such as “Get Shorty,” studio executives are assessing what went wrong last weekend and why “Seven” continues packing them in the theaters, confounding even the studio that released it.

“No one in the industry expected the performance of this picture,” said Mitch Goldman, New Line’s president of marketing and distribution.

Unless there is a sharp turnaround this weekend, none of the three films released last weekend is expected to even recoup its marketing costs, leaving a $100-million-plus wash in red ink: “The Scarlet Letter” and “Strange Days” cost about $45 million each, “Jade” came in at about $30 million.

There’s a great deal of consternation and hindsight at work in the industry at the moment, but there are no easy answers. Universal’s senior distribution executive Nikki Rocco says there were perhaps one too many R-rated films among the season’s offerings, while Paramount President Barry London says too few of the films were able to distinguish themselves from one another.

“Jade” seemed like a replay of other Joe Eszterhas movies such as “Basic Instinct” but with no box-office stars like Michael Douglas. Also, its arrival on the heels of Eszterhas’ critically excoriated “Showgirls” may have sealed its fate. “Strange Days” suffered from what most of Fox’s competitors claimed was a confusing marketing campaign. The marquee value of Demi Moore in “Scarlet” didn’t necessarily mean audiences were ready to accept her in a period piece, according to several industry executives.

“Everything is too much of the same,” Fox senior executive Tom Sherak says. “Where are the comedies and the family films?”

Disney’s family comedy “The Big Green” may ultimately out-gross all three of the past weekend’s releases simply because it’s the only family film now playing. A sense of deja vu afflicted Sylvester Stallone fans, who didn’t come out for “Assassins,” the $20-million-a-film action meister’s second flop in a row (following this summer’s “Judge Dredd”).

For many observers, the O.J. Simpson verdict and its aftermath played out much stranger than fiction. And film executives are of disparate opinions as to its effect on box-office receipts. London says it was difficult to build advertising momentum around the nonstop Simpson barrage on television.

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But New Line’s Goldman says his company’s sleeper hit “Seven” may have succeeded because it was as complex as the controversial verdict.

“ ‘Seven’ is surprisingly consistent from small town to big city,” Goldman said. “People are connecting with this movie in the sense that the bad guy won. . . . So, the typical pat Hollywood ending is not to their liking anymore because they know it’s ridiculous. This has all the entertainment value of a Hollywood movie and yet it stays true-to-life.”

Others at New Line point to the originality of the script as the key ingredient behind “Seven’s” success, but downplay the sociological factors.

“If you have a good script and a brilliant director and great actors, audiences will come see the movie,” said “Seven” co-executive producer Lynn Harris.

“Yes, it has an unconventional Hollywood ending but I think infinitely more important to the marketability of the film is the original idea,” said Chris Pula, New Line Cinema’s president of marketing. “The consumer wants product that’s not derivative. I think people are just looking for entertainment. I tend to think it doesn’t go deeper than that. If it happens to have some reflection on society in general, that might in fact just be a coincidence.”

Some moviegoers emerging from the movie Wednesday night at AMC 14 in Burbank were left unsettled by the movie, but felt that was part of its appeal.

“I think it was good, but disturbing,” said Allan Hoater, 31, of Burbank. “The unintelligent would be drawn to the rubber-necking aspect of the crimes, the curiosity. The more thoughtful and introspective person will be interested in unraveling the mystery.”

Others said much of the appeal centered around the star power of the actors involved and also the dearth of much else worth seeing at the movies.

“There’s not a lot out right now,” said Phil Smith, 30, of Garden Grove. “I thought it was well-produced, very stylistic, but I think everybody’s curious to see gory movies and Brad Pitt. I know that was one of the selling factors for my wife.”

It is not easy for anyone to explain the extraordinary success of the gruesome thriller, made for $31 million. New Line expected it to make about $40 million or so, but thus far it has grossed more than $57 million and will likely reach $70 million this weekend. Studio executives project “Seven” will ultimately reach close to $100 million, despite mixed reviews and less than glowing exit polls.

“[People at the polls said] they were terrified and disturbed,” Kopelson said. “Yet I heard people say, ‘It really rocked me,’ and ‘It was terrible, but you’ve got to see it.’ ”

Claudia Puig is a Times staff writer; Richard Natale is a free-lance writer and frequent contributor to Calendar.