A Little Here, a Lot There . . .

Variety was the spice of summer 1998. Any given week during the Memorial Day to Labor Day season, which will contribute as much as 40% of the film industry’s expected $6.5 billion in theatrical revenues for the year, offered an unusually varied menu that finally seemed to break free of the grip of catering only to the appetites of young males.

“It was a good solid summer,” says Disney Chairman Joe Roth, whose studio had the season’s most expensive and top-grossing film, “Armageddon.”

“There were fewer lows and fewer films which dominated as breakaway hits.”

Though there were no $200-million-plus-grossing films this summer (compared to two last year, “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” and “Men in Black”), a record number of films (nine) topped the $100-million level. The previous record was eight.

“And when you have that many movies doing well, it’s very healthy for the industry,” said Terry Press, senior executive at DreamWorks, the young film production company that made its presence felt this summer with “Deep Impact,” “Saving Private Ryan” (both co-produced with Paramount) and “Small Soldiers” (co-financed with Universal).

Significantly, no summer film hemorrhaged red ink as badly as did last year’s “Speed II” or “Batman & Robin.” The $65-million “The Avengers” (it will gross only $25 million) is as close to disaster as the summer got. However, a few quality movies didn’t achieve their full potential (“Bulworth,” “Out of Sight” and “The Negotiator”), underscoring how carefully films must be positioned and marketed during such a competitive period, especially if they lack a proven box-office star or a high-concept premise.

In terms of dollars, the Memorial Day to Labor Day movie sprint will end up probably 10% ahead of last year’s record $2.2 billion at about $2.5 billion, thanks in part to Labor Day arriving one week later, affording 16 weeks of prime playing time, according to Paul Dergarabedian of the industry tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. Even without the additional week, this summer is 9% ahead of last year, he says.

The other good news is that with inflation factored in, there was still a bump in attendance this summer, due in part to the diversity of films, which tapped young and old, male and female alike. Through the past weekend there were close to 500 million movie tickets sold this summer compared to about 460 million last year (an 8% rise), even with ticket prices marginally higher than 1997’s $4.59 average.

Which is not to say that profits were anywhere near what they should be. Expensive production budgets, runaway marketing costs (the campaign finance reform problem of the film industry) and attenuated playing time due to the studios cramming too many films into the season made the spoils of summer as evanescent as ever. Studios count on summer with strong midweek audience availability (at its height as many as nine films grossed $1 million a day during the week) to shore up the patchier segments of the year.

Big Marketing Budgets, Long Films Are Trends

But except for what one studio executive referred to as the “shockingly profitable ‘There’s Something About Mary,’ ” nine-figure grosses were sometimes not enough to justify their production and marketing budgets. Particularly worrisome is the cost of marketing, with studios spending upward of $20 million just on the opening week launch of a high-profile film. “Mary” is probably the only top-grossing film that will completely recoup in its U.S. theatrical run alone.

The other big carp of the summer is that the running time of major motion pictures is out of control. The 90-minute comedy has all but vanished as has the two-hour drama. Even the summer’s top films (“Armageddon” and “Saving Private Ryan”) confused quantity with quality, perhaps figuring that audiences would feel they were getting their $8 worth if they sat in theaters long enough to have a sore rump.

This disturbing trend shows no sign of abating. Several of the impending holiday season’s major releases from “Meet Joe Black” to the long-awaited “Thin Red Line” are said to clock in at 2 1/2 hours or more.

Much ink was devoted to the practice of summer movie overhype with audiences being the final arbiter. Their assessment: Thumbs down on “Godzilla,” thumbs up on “Armageddon.” By announcing themselves as the must-see films of the season as much as a year in advance, both films unwittingly invited comparisons to events of summer’s past like “Independence Day” and “Jurassic Park,” blockbuster films that became pop culture benchmarks. In attempting to foreordain that kind of popularity, “Godzilla” was found wanting and “Armageddon” had to overcome the May 7 sneak attack early in the season from the similarly themed surprise hit “Deep Impact.”

Even Paramount Pictures, which partnered on “Deep Impact” with DreamWorks, wasn’t expecting a $140-million final gross (and as much as $200 million overseas).

“But what we knew what nobody else knew,” says Rob Friedman, Paramount senior executive, “is that it wasn’t just a male action movie. It also had resonance with females because it brought heart and soul to the action genre. It’s a dimension most people weren’t expecting and that explains its legs.”

A typical Films Prove to Be Popular Fare

Action did not overwhelmingly dominate the season as in years past, though the top-grossing “Armageddon” boasted two traditional summer features: adventure and special effects. But the real standouts were movies that diverged from the usually narrow summer palate like Peter Weir’s subversive comedy “The Truman Show” starring Jim Carrey or “The X-Files” movie, which proved popular by being as egg-headed (and sometimes obtuse) as the popular Fox TV series.

The true event of the summer was its other explosive moneymaker, Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” which had its share of action, but hardly of the escapist nature. It was as serious and emotionally disturbing a drama as has been released during summer this decade. And it resonated beyond the movie theaters, reopening a chapter in 20th century history for an older generation and introducing World War II to those too young even to remember Vietnam. As with “Titanic” and Spielberg’s earlier “Schindler’s List,” it provided perspective from the vantage point of the century’s end on events that shaped our times and continue to resonate in our lives.

Spielberg and DreamWorks took the low-key approach to selling the film (which is not to imply that they didn’t spend money marketing the film or touting the film’s lead Tom Hanks, probably the biggest star in the world). The normally press-reticent director went on the talk-show trail to prepare audiences for “Ryan’s” violent content. Though Spielberg’s appearances didn’t seem that much different from the regular parade of celebrities on talk shows hawking their wares, because of the serious nature of “Saving Private Ryan” they personalized the movie in a way that no amount of advertising dollars could.

The summer star lineup included the usual suspects: Eddie Murphy, Hanks, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson and Carrey. But just as often, the star of the film was the film itself, like “Deep Impact,” “There’s Something About Mary” and even the Cinderella fable “Ever After.” Actors whose star status solidified during the summer included Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Drew Barrymore and Ben Stiller. Their agents will undoubtedly be reminding studio executives of this before they sign on to future projects.

Of all the studios, Fox had the most consistent range of hits because it interspersed wide audience appeal movies with films catering to specific demographics. No studio was more attuned to the need for films directed at women, which released “Hope Floats,” “Ever After” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” each of which scored a direct hit with the intended demographic.

“All three were niche movies,” says Tom Rothman, a Fox senior production executive, “made with a demographic in mind with negative costs that were less than half the MPAA average.” And because of controlled costs, all three will ultimately return their investments.

But perhaps the biggest lesson of the summer was that most of the major studios were starting to learn how to get out of one another’s way. Though there were still too many movies in too short a span of time (more than 40), at least they didn’t all look like the same movie or retreads from years past. Companies like Fox, Disney and even Sony were careful to release movies that were uniquely theirs (“The X-Files,” “Mulan”) or boldly different from anything the competition had on tap (“There’s Something About Mary,” “Saving Private Ryan” and even “The Mask of Zorro”).

“What it taught us for the future,” Disney’s Roth says, “is not to eliminate any film from summer because of subject matter.”

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Summer Winners

The biggest hits of this summer haven’t necessarily been what Hollywood had expected, according to Exhibitor Relations Co.:

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Title Box office (millions) Armageddon $186 Saving Private Ryan $147 Deep Impact $140 Dr. Dolittle $137 Godzilla $135 Lethal Weapon 4 $124 The Truman Show $123 Mulan $116 Something About Mary $108 The Mask of Zorro $83

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