Family Films Ready for Heat of Battle

Forget “Antz” vs. “A Bug’s Life.” The upcoming family film war this holiday season will be a lot more than a battle between animated insects. There are an unusual number of contenders for the kid-rich movie audience this year--and not everyone will come out standing.

“November is chock-full [of family films] this year. And there’s always one movie that becomes a family film that no one anticipated,” says one senior studio executive who characterizes the glut as “a collision.”

The studios with major family films for Thanksgiving (Disney, Universal and Paramount) all feel confident that they’ll do well through that holiday weekend. But after that, as Universal’s head Casey Silver puts it, “it’s pretty much survival of the fittest.”

Disney has usually had at least the Thanksgiving holiday pretty much to itself in recent years with such films as “Flubber,” “101 Dalmatians” and “Toy Story.” But the relative success of such recent competitors as Warner Bros.’ “Space Jam” and 20th Century Fox’s “Anastasia” against Disney fare has emboldened other studios to enter into the battle for the family crowd.

Just in November there will be no fewer than five new films aimed at kids and their parents starting with Warner Bros.’ reissue today of “The Wizard of Oz,” which opens in 1,900 theaters, unusually wide for re-release.

Disney rolls out “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” with Jonathan Taylor Thomas on Nov. 13. The computer-animated “Bug’s Life” from Disney and Pixar hits theaters on Nov. 25, the same day as Universal’s “Babe” sequel, “Babe: Pig in the City.” Paramount’s big screen version of the popular Nickelodeon cartoon “Rugrats” debuts Nov. 20.

“Rugrats” and the ‘Babe’ sequel are expected to cut into the Disney trade and “Wizard of Oz” is also expected to siphon off some Thanksgiving business. In addition, there are wild cards like Adam Sandler’s “The Waterboy” (from Disney), which opens today and figures to do big business with the pre-adolescent crowd through the holiday.

Paul Dergarabedian, who heads Exhibitor Relations Inc., the industry tracking organization, thinks Warners’ “Home Fries” with Drew Barrymore and Universal’s Brad Pitt vehicle “Meet Joe Black” will make heavy incursions with the teen and young adult audience. (“Meet Joe Black” opens Nov. 13; “Home Fries” opens Nov. 25.)

Like Memorial Day, the Thanksgiving weekend is one of the most heavily attended movie periods of the year. But with five films aimed at the same audience, how much can business expand to accommodate all these movies? And beyond that, can any of them keep going past Thanksgiving into the Christmas season when another raft of family films is launched, including WB’s “Jack Frost,” DreamWorks’ “Prince of Egypt” and Disney’s “Mighty Joe Young”?

“The films all look pretty strong,” Dergarabedian says. “That could be a boon for the studios and for parents. Still, somebody’s going to get hurt. I don’t know how all these films can have huge openings and hold [up].

“It would be tough--and a rarity. But then this year’s box-office business has been sort of an anomaly.”

How much of an anomaly? Well, the first week of October this year racked up $100 million in ticket sales, well over the average for that week of $78 million, in what is usually a down period. Paramount senior executive Rob Friedman sees the bull market continuing for the holiday season though he admits “it helps to get there first.” (The “Rugrats” positioning on Nov. 20 caused Disney to pull back five days, allowing the Nickelodeon-produced film a clear opening weekend.)

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There will undoubtedly be some cannibalization of business, predicts Disney head Joe Roth. “We may have a less sexy opening number, but we’ve thought all along that ‘Bug’s Life’ was a $100-million picture and we still do.”

However, the amazing resilience of “Antz” (about $68 million in box office to date) still looms over the Disney animated film. Since “Rugrats” is expected to skew younger that could actually help “Bug’s” and “Babe” over Thanksgiving when families are available to attend movies together.

But, counters Albie Hecht, Nickelodeon’s president of film and television programming, because of its heavy brand name identification, “Rugrats” could expand beyond the young kid crowd. And it certainly has the hippest soundtrack, produced by Interscope and featuring such sophisticated rockers as Beck, Busta Rhymes, Patti Smith and Jakob Dylan.

“Babe: Pig in the City” holds the distinction of being the only PG-rated family film (as opposed to the G rating for the others) “for some ‘peril’ and brief language,” according to Silver. But he’s not too concerned: Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.” was marked with a similar proviso by the ratings board, Silver says, and went on to become one of the biggest-grossing movies of all time.

The PG should only help bring in older patrons who are sometimes turned off by G ratings. “It’s a fair rating,” Silver says, “and it suggests that it’s a different movie [than its G-rated predecessor].”

Promotion-wise it will be hard to ignore any of the three films, though Universal doesn’t have big guns like McDonald’s (“Bug’s Life”) and Burger King (“Rugrats”). As Silver explains, a tie-in with a company that sells meat products runs contrary to the heart of a movie about a talking pig.

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Then there is still the question of whether “Antz” will have any deleterious effect on “Bug’s Life” if only on the level of families opting for one of the other Thanksgiving choices after so recently seeing an animated movie about insects. But Roth is undeterred. Instead of avoiding “Antz,” Disney says the “Bug’s Life” trailer has been playing at the head of the DreamWorks animated film, which only makes sense, Roth says, because it appeals to the same target audience.

As with “Antz,” which drew equally from the family and adult audience, Silver sees “Babe” attracting a similarly wide demographic. “Pig in the City” is a sequel to one of the highest-grossing non-Disney films of recent years (almost $250 million worldwide) and it even garnered a best picture Academy Award nomination.

Silver is confident that all three major family titles will do well over Thanksgiving; after that, all bets are off.

Disney’s Roth puts it this way: “If you make it through early December then you probably already have $75 million to $100 million.” The rest, he says, is gravy.

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Handicapping the Thanksgiving Films

1. “Rugrats”--Opens Nov. 20

Pluses: Huge opening since it has the family market all to itself on the pre- Thanksgiving weekend (Nov. 20-22). Intense promotional efforts including on the Nickelodeon channel’s highly rated cable series.

Limitations: Mainly matinee (kids) driven but may have run its course by early December.

Silver Lining: Production cost $25 million.

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2. “Babe: Pig in the City”--Opens Nov. 25

Pluses: Opens the day before Thanksgiving and is expected to attract kids and adults alike. With George Miller (“Babe,” “Road Warrior”) directing, could have cachet with critics. The PG rating might actually help with grown-ups.

Limitations: Expensive to make (estimated $85 million). And “Babe” only made a fraction of its money in the U.S.

Silver Lining: If the film grosses the norm of 60% of the original worldwide, that’s still more than $150 million. And the original “Babe” was huge on video.

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3. “A Bug’s Life”--Opens in general release Nov. 25

Pluses: The Disney promotional machine and the Pixar pedigree (“Toy Story”) should result in a strong opening.

Limitations: Might be second or third choice because the family recently saw “Antz.”

Silver Lining: The Disney name is hard to beat.