In Europe, Goal Is to Avoid World Cup

Going abroad on vacation next month?

Well, enjoy. But here’s a piece of advice. If you’re at loose ends in the evenings and find you have a taste for checking out the local theaters for a big, fun, mindless Hollywood summer action movie--forget it.

No matter if you’re in Germany or Scotland, Italy or Argentina, South Africa or Jamaica, you almost certainly won’t find one.

Why? The answer wouldn’t occur to most Americans, but billions of people in the rest of the world will know immediately.

It’s the World Cup, the major soccer tournament (or, as they say outside North America, football tournament), which is taking place in France for some three weeks starting June 10. It has been held every four years since 1930, and this summer 32 national soccer teams will compete for its Jules Rimet trophy.

Unlike, say, the World Series, the World Cup lives up to its name; hundreds of countries from across the globe have already been eliminated from the competition in its preliminary stages over the last 18 months. In terms of intensity and national pride, it is fair to say the World Cup outstrips even the Olympics; internationally, it is such a big deal that normal life in many countries stops when its games are televised.

Hence the lack of big, broad-appeal movies while it lasts. Few distributors will risk World Cup fever jeopardizing a film’s grosses.

So blame it on guys like Ronaldo, Shearer, Bergkamp and Battitusta: unknowns to most Americans, but world-renowned soccer superstars who play for Brazil, England, Holland and Argentina, respectively.

“We’d be fools not to take the World Cup into account,” says Ken Green, U.K. marketing director for distributors UIP. “With two British teams--England and Scotland--playing, that’s a lot of games people here will be watching.”

In general, distributors have decided not to open films with strong male appeal during the World Cup; soccer supporters are primarily male adults. But soccer’s lure is wider, encompassing (mainly male) children and a sizable minority of women. Thus almost all big films with broad appeal are having their openings outside the U.S. delayed to avoid clashing with the World Cup.

“We’re opening ‘Lost in Space’ in Britain on July 31,” says Georgina Partridge of Entertainment Film Distributors. “We held it back till after the World Cup. It’s a film for young males, but it’s also a children’s film. And even if the kids aren’t watching the World Cup, then their dads who might take them will be.”

One executive who knows the depth of World Cup passions is Hy Smith, the London-based executive vice president of international marketing for the giant UIP, which distributes outside North America films from Universal, Paramount, DreamWorks and MGM/UA.

“The bottom line is, throughout Europe we’re staying away from opening our broad audience pictures during the World Cup,” says Smith. “We’re dropping in films that would appeal to females, and possibly younger females, in that three-week period.”

With several distributors holding up the openings of films, release patterns immediately after the World Cup are already looking congested. “There’s a lot of jockeying going on,” says Smith. There is an extra complication--few distributors want their films to go head to head with “Godzilla,” which was always set to open in several overseas territories July 17, after the World Cup is over.

The result is that some distributors will pull their films from summer release completely and open them later in the year when competition is less fierce. Smith would not offer any examples on behalf of UIP, but it is understood Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” may not open in Europe until summer’s end.

However, distributors are hopeful movie theaters will not be deserted for three entire weeks. Smith noted that UIP has certain strategies to combat the World Cup. “We’re opening ‘Red Corner’ with Richard Gere early in June in France, Finland, Israel, Italy and the Netherlands, before the World Cup starts--and hoping it establishes itself,” he said. “Gere’s hot with female audiences.

“And in a number of countries, we’re opening ‘Blues Brothers 2000’ in the June period. It’s a known quantity, there’s a cult audience out there and we feel they’ll come out for it on days when there’s no soccer.”

In Germany, he added, the 1980 “Blues Brothers” film with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd is shown each year in an open-air stadium in Berlin and attracts up to 16,000 people. But it varies from territory to territory. For example, in Britain, where the phenomenon is arguably less strong, “Blues Brothers 2000” opened May 22--more than two weeks before the World Cup.

UIP hopes to attract audiences with no interest in the World Cup to the 20th anniversary revival of “Grease,” and to “For Richer, for Poorer,” with Kirstie Alley and Tim Allen, which is expected to draw a predominantly female crowd.

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Polygram is pinning its June hopes on “A Thousand Acres,” starring Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer, being released in the U.K. on June 19. The film opened in the fall in the U.S. (released by Disney), but its international release has been held back to coincide with the World Cup. Both actresses have stated their disapproval at the film’s being termed a “chick flick”--but undeniably it is not the sort of material to which typical soccer fans might gravitate.

The same could be said for Polygram’s June 12 release in Scotland of “Barney’s Big Adventure,” a film aimed exclusively at audiences young enough to empathize with a purple dinosaur rather than 22 men kicking a ball.

In the U.K., UIP’s Green noted that “Grease,” which opens July 3, “is a strong family picture. It’s a known quantity, and there’s been a very successful stage show in London in the last few years. It’s the sort of show to which moms and dads took their kids for a birthday treat.

“We’re also opening ‘The Apostle’ on June 12. I think it has feminine appeal, and it’s for older, more mature audiences. It’s not the sort of film the prime 16-24 males will like.”

Green pointed out that at least one UIP-distributed film, “Deep Impact,” was opening in the U.K. earlier than the company might have liked, specifically to avoid clashing with the World Cup.

“It’s about an asteroid threatening the earth, so it has male appeal,” he added. “A lot of people here who will come to see ‘Deep Impact’ will also be interested in the World Cup. So we’re releasing it May 15, which is only a week after its U.S. opening. It’s a good date for it, but we’d have liked a little more time. Without the World Cup, we could have been more flexible.”

Fox’s London office has lined up a schedule of films with strong female appeal to counter the World Cup. June 12 sees the U.K. release of “Soul Food,” which played strongly to American female audiences. Fox will also open another women-oriented movie, “The Object of My Affection,” starring Jennifer Aniston, on June 19, having initially considered an August release.

And to emphasize its resistance to all things World Cup, Fox plans to re-release “The Full Monty,” the highest-grossing film in U.K. box-office history. The hit Oscar-nominated film about male strippers will open on 75 screens June 26. “The women can come out and see the [“Full Monty”] lads again, while their men stay home and watch the soccer on TV with a can of beer,” said Fox publicist Stephanie Wenborn.

“We’re not particularly worried about the World Cup--not with the counter-programming we’ve lined up.”

In fact the entire British industry is banding together to combat the World Cup’s effect on audiences. Last year was the first National Cinema Day, when tickets at all British movie theaters were half-price. The experiment will be repeated June 7, but with further incentives, in cooperation with a fast-food chain, for people who attend movie theaters during the World Cup.

Entertainment’s Partridge noted that June 12 was a tentative opening date for “Les Miserables,” the film of the Victor Hugo novel starring Liam Neeson and thought to have strong female appeal. The company regards it as an ideal piece of World Cup counter-programming: “We’re trusting it won’t be the kind of film to appeal to football audiences,” said Partridge dryly. “But . . . we may postpone it to give it a bigger push later in the year,” she added.

John Anderson, vice president of European marketing for Columbia TriStar, said the company will have a quieter summer than last year, with fewer films in release. “Replacement Killers” will open June 5 in Europe, just before the World Cup, and then no films will be released for its duration, until the massive release of “Godzilla” on July 17.

“The World Cup is not on TV every night,” Anderson noted. “But when a big match is on that’s important in a particular territory, it does have some effect on box office. You can see it in the figures the very next day. But people may choose to watch the soccer, and see a movie on a different night.”

If all this sounds to you like an extraordinary amount of schedule juggling, you may not have grasped the degree of the World Cup’s allure. American distributors may have been grousing about the fiercely competitive marketplace for this summer’s films. But at least they don’t have soccer to contend with.