Challenges Could Knock ‘Ali’ Out of Box-Office Contention

Columbia Pictures’ upcoming release “Ali,” directed by Michael Mann and starring Will Smith as the legendary boxer, is contending with some heavyweight challenges as it enters the competitive holiday box-office ring.

Though the high-profile movie, debuting Christmas Day, was made by one of Hollywood’s most respected directors and is headlined by one of its biggest stars, it’s also considered one of the biggest financial gambles for a “biopic”--industry jargon for a film biography.

The production cost of more than $115 million is twice what Muhammad Ali earned in prize money during his boxing career.

Mann and Smith also have a lot on the line, both creatively and financially. As they had promised last year when the studio threatened to pull the plug on the project, the two ponied up close to $10 million out of their usual fees to pay for all budget overages on the film--an extremely rare gesture by Hollywood standards.

Sony Corp.’s Columbia, which sold off the film’s foreign rights for $60 million to help cover part of its financial risk, is still on the hook for nearly $100 million after theatrical marketing and Oscar campaign expenses are counted.

Columbia Chairwoman Amy Pascal thinks the film will be profitable, based on Smith’s drawing power and the worldwide popularity of Ali, who at 59 still has one of the most recognized faces on the planet.

“I wouldn’t have gone into this if I didn’t think it had commercial potential,” Pascal said, acknowledging that the studio has a lot of money at risk and could use a big hit after an unspectacular, albeit profitable, year with no blockbusters.

Biopics are risky at best, most getting knocked out cold at the box office after falling short of audience perceptions and expectations about the famous people they portray. “Nixon,” “Chaplin,” “Malcolm X” and “Hoffa” were costly flops. Oscar-winners such as “Gandhi” and “Amadeus” are among the exceptions.

“Ali” faces other potential obstacles. It’s 21/2 hours long and rated R, which prohibits packs of young boys--who might otherwise flock to see Smith at their local multiplex--from seeing the film without a grown-up tagging along.

Executives also are concerned about how interested young women will be in a male-centric film whose backdrop is boxing.

Another possible turnoff to some moviegoers--particularly in smaller markets outside the big cities--is the controversial nature of Ali’s story. Given the renewed patriotism in America after the Sept.11 terrorist attacks, Ali’s refusal to fight in the Vietnam War and his conversion to Islam may cause some to flinch, though studio officials said these issues were not raised by test audiences.

Pascal and Mann said they hope audiences will embrace “Ali” as a patriotic film about tolerance and diversity in America.

“I’m really proud of this movie in every way,” said Pascal, for whom “Ali” has been a passion project since she joined the studio in 1996.

“I think it’s about something that is at the core of what matters in the world--which is standing up for what you believe in, no matter how unpopular it is,” Pascal said.

Ali, who said he has seen the film twice and plans to see it again, also is confident that the movie will beat the competition.

“I predict this movie will be big. Bigger than ‘The Godfather,’ bigger than the “Ten Commandments,’” Ali said in a phone interview with all the charm and playful boastfulness that is his trademark.

Ali, whose speech is severely impaired by Parkinson’s disease, said he was pleased with Smith’s portrayal--”It was just like me!”--and the way Mann captured his life and times, even though it showed his blemishes and struggles as well as his strengths and courage.

Ali, naturally, is biased; movie critics have been divided in their opinions.

As for its box-office prospects, tracking studies indicate there is high awareness (93%) and strong “definite interest” in seeing the film (56%) overall, particularly among males ages 17 to 24--the film’s target audience.

“The tracking indicates it looks strong,” said Jeff Blake, the studio’s head of worldwide marketing and distribution.

Nonetheless, the studio’s marketing team faces some daunting challenges as it tries to grab the attention and dollars of consumers who have dozens of movie choices this holiday season, including “The Lord of the Rings.”

Attracting women is potentially a problem.

According to the tracking, definite interest among young females ages 17 to 24 was 56%, compared with 70% among males in that age group.

Geoffrey Ammer, Columbia’s marketing president, said the company is selling “Ali” as “a movie for everybody” and is positioning it in its campaign as an entertainment film rather than a history lesson or a straight-ahead biopic that spans a subject’s entire life.

Mann chose to focus on the most provocative and tumultuous decade in Ali’s life, bookending the movie with his 1964 defeat of Sonny Liston for the heavyweight crown and his 1974 “Rumble In the Jungle” victory comeback fight with George Foreman in Zaire after being stripped of the title for refusing the military draft in 1967.

Mann insisted his movie is “not a biopic,” many of which he believes tend to be a “boring ... external view of somebody’s life.” “Ali,” Mann said, is an intimate close-up of a riveting figure who was “searing and funny and moving.”

This isn’t the first time Mann has tackled controversial real-life characters and events. His last movie, “The Insider,” about tobacco industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, also was based on a true story.

Though Mann received a best-director Oscar nomination, the picture, which cost $70 million, was a big money loser, grossing less than $30 million domestically.

Biopics are “not known as a genre that typically generates huge box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co. “There’s always exceptions and ‘Ali’ could be one of them,” he said, pointing to such hits as “Erin Brockovich” and “Patch Adams,” though those films were about virtual unknowns.

Biopics often struggle to live up to moviegoers’ expectations and the emotional responses they have to real-life characters they feel they know from seeing them on TV. Ali has been the subject of many books, movies and documentaries, including the 1996 Oscar-winning “When We Were Kings.” Ali has starred as himself in several productions, including the ill-fated “The Greatest,” in 1977.

In its advertising copy line, “Forget what you think you know,” the studio is in effect urging moviegoers to leave their impressions behind. The copy line used for “The Greatest” 24 years ago was “The story you only think you knew,” a similarity Ammer said is purely coincidental.

“Everybody thinks they have a personal relationship with Ali,” Pascal said. “That was the hardest part of making this movie.”

Pascal said getting “Ali” made at all was “a miracle.”

“It’s about an Afro American hero who has been popular and unpopular throughout his life.”

The movie, which producer Jon Peters first brought to Columbia a decade ago, almost didn’t get made.

A year ago, Pascal and her boss, Sony Pictures Chairman John Calley, decided to pull the plug on the project over budget disputes with Mann. Studio executives lost confidence that Mann, a stickler for detail, would bring the movie in for the agreed-upon cost of $107 million. After days of squabbling, Mann, Smith and Peters agreed to cut the script and make adjustments in their deals in order to get the movie made.

Smith commands $20 million a film against a hefty percentage of profits; Mann gets $6 million.

Even before production began, sources said the director revised the budget estimate to $109 million and change. By the time the film wrapped, the cost had risen to close to $118 million. The main contributor was Mann’s insistence on shooting in Africa, where Ali knocked out Foreman. The five-week shoot in Africa added $12 million to $16 million to the cost.

It was important to Mann to make an unflinching film, even if that meant getting an R rating (for language and brief violence).

“How would the public react if we turned it into some watered- down movie?” said Mann, who was guaranteed final cut and got the studio’s approval to deliver an R movie.

The rating could be critical for “Ali” because it shuts out some of Smith’s important following among teens, who are fans of his rap music, his past hit TV series, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and blockbuster films such as “Men In Black.”

Marketing veteran Cheryl Boone Isaacs does not think Ali’s controversial racial, religious and political beliefs held during the period depicted in the film will hurt the film’s appeal.

“All of that is part of the fabric of who he is,” she said.

Pascal said she too believes that the movie’s underlying message, that America is a country where tolerance and diversity exist--will work for, not against, the film.

“In the end, it’s the most patriotic of movies,” Pascal said.

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Tough Sell

Film biographies, or biopics, of famous, historical figures often flop at the box office and are a tough sell to audiences who have their own perceptions and emotions about the subjects these movies portray. Among the most costly star-driven biopics to get KOd at the domestic box office over the last decade:

Movie Star Year (millions)

Malcolm X Denzel Washington 1992 $48

The Doors Val Kilmer 1991 34

Man on the Moon Jim Carrey 1999 34

Wyatt Earp Kevin Costner 1994 25

Hoffa Jack Nicholson 1992 23

The People vs. Larry Flynt Woody Harrelson 1996 20

Nixon Anthony Hopkins 1995 13

Chaplin Robert Downey Jr. 1992 9

Source: Exhibitor Relations