‘West’ Heads North

After viewing “Wild Wild West,” Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert called it “all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen.”

The New York Post opined, “Not even the smart, sexy and immensely likable [Will] Smith can save this awful . . . picture from the oblivion it surely deserves.”

And the Orlando Sentinel compared it to one of Hollywood’s all-time fiascoes: “What ‘Heaven’s Gate’ was to serious westerns, ‘Wild Wild West’ is to zany ones.’ ”

But when the early box-office numbers began trickling in Thursday for the big-budget Warner Bros. sci-fi western “Wild Wild West,” studio executives could sigh in relief that the grosses, while not historic, were acceptable and that Smith’s loyal fan base was turning out, at least for now.

The film starring Smith and Kevin Kline brought in about $7 million in its first day--the ninth-best Wednesday opening in history. The film debuted on 3,309 screens, bringing its per-screen average to $2,129.

To be sure, the film’s debut was dwarfed by two other Will Smith movies: “Independence Day,” which took in $17.4 million on its first Wednesday in 1996 (a Tuesday night preview brought in an additional $4.8 million), and “Men in Black,” which grossed $14.1 million.

Last year, “Armageddon,” a film that was trashed by critics--though not as roundly as “Wild Wild West”--took in $9.7 million on its first day.

Still, the box-office figures for “Wild Wild West” were good enough for Warner Bros. distribution chief Dan Fellman to crow: “We’re off and running.”

Fellman said that based on Wednesday’s figures and demographics, the total for the first six days could end up in the neighborhood of $50 million.

“Will Smith is a major movie star with an enormous following,” Fellman said.

Based on the opening-day figures, some insiders believe “Wild Wild West” could gross about $35 million over the Friday-through-Monday Fourth of July holiday weekend. The film was budgeted at $105 million, but some reports put the figure at upward of $150 million.

Meanwhile, Paramount Pictures is buoyed by the business being done by the animated film “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” which the studio co-produced with Warner Bros. “South Park” had a surprisingly strong opening, grossing about $4.85 million on 2,128 screens for a per-screen average of $2,279 for the $20-million film.

A newspaper in New York found that children under 17 were getting into the R-rated “South Park,” slipping past the newly instituted photo ID selection process. But Rob Friedman, vice chairman of the Paramount Motion Picture Group, countered: “We’ve been hearing a lot of stories about how diligent theaters are being because this is an animated film with a hard R.” Indeed, there were reports of ushers in local theaters coming into theaters after “South Park” started and kicking out kids who weren’t with adults.

Commenting on both “Wild Wild West” and “South Park,” Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracking firm Exhibitors Relations Co., said:

“These are both solid numbers for a couple of Wednesday openers in a competitive marketplace, but it’s not like a ‘Men in Black,’ ” which, he noted, grossed $86.8 million in its first six days.

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Freelance writer Richard Natale contributed to this story.