He’s July’s go-to guy

What’s in a date? When it comes to opening movies, money. And when Hollywood does the math -- and it always does the math -- July usually is about as rich as it gets.

Chart the grosses by month for all movies going back to 1999 and July is the biggest, with box office that averages about $908 million, according to the tracking firm Nielsen EDI.

And just as baseball had its Mr. October, summer movies have their Mr. July -- Will Smith. His five top-grossing films have opened on or just before prime July weekends.

“I, Robot,” the 20th Century Fox film that opened Friday, continued the streak. The film took in an estimated $52.3 million, the best opening-weekend performance for a Smith film, just a whisker ahead of “Men in Black II,” if Fox’s three-day estimates hold up when actual Sunday figures come in today. That was more than double the Friday-through-Sunday take of Sony’s “Spider-Man 2,” which added an estimated $24.2 million for a three-weekend total of $301.7 million and more than $500 million worldwide. “Independence Day,” Smith’s last movie for Fox and his top-grossing film to date with $306.2 million, was released Wednesday, July 3, 1996, with an opening five-day total of $96.1 million. “Men in Black,” “Men in Black II” and “Bad Boys II” all landed in July with Smith in a starring role and brought in totals of $250.7 million, $190.4 million and $138.6 million, respectively, according to figures posted on box-office tracking website Boxofficemojo.com.

Jeff Blake, vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, said Smith is a summer box-office threat in part because of his “ability to break out among fierce competition.”

Of the 10 wide-release films the actor starred in prior to “I, Robot,” six have grossed more than $100 million, two of them more than twice that. That sort of commercial reliability has put the 35-year-old actor into the $20-million-per-movie club.

When Smith’s films move out of July -- and more often than not, out of the action genre -- the box-office returns drop. For instance, the Christmas 2001 release “Ali” took in a total of $58.2 million, and “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” from November 2000, wound up with $30.9 million. (His “Enemy of the State,” released in November 1998, however, fared respectably with $111.5 million.)

Blake insists that Smith “can open a movie any month of the year.” Certainly Sony, which released the “Men in Black” and “Bad Boys” movies, is banking on it. His next movie for the studio, “The Last First Kiss,” a romantic comedy that also stars Eva Mendes, is slated to open Feb. 11, in time for Valentine’s Day. (Later this year, Smith also provides the voice of the lead character in DreamWorks’ animated “Shark Tale.”)

July’s success as a movie launchpad is fairly easy to figure out; it’s one of the times “the public is most available to go to the movies,” said Revolution Studios partner Tom Sherak.

But although July might be a dream month historically, May actually has delivered the biggest box-office tallies in the last two years. Partly that’s a function of competitive date jockeying. For example, “X-Men,” starring Hugh Jackman, became a $157.3-million hit for Fox when it opened in mid-July 2000. But when it was time to set a 2003 date for the sequel, “X2: X-Men United,” the month was already crowded. “We wanted to be the first big picture of the summer,” said Bruce Snyder, president of distribution for Fox. And it was, with a May 2-4 opening-weekend take of $85.6 million, and $214.9 million overall.

Sony set records that still stand with the early May 2002 debut of “Spider-Man,” but this year that slot went to Universal’s “Van Helsing,” and the studio opted to open “Spider-Man 2” on the Wednesday leading into the Fourth of July weekend. The sequel has since gone on to a record-breaking box-office run, with the best opening day and July 4th weekend, outpacing the first film beginning on its fourth day and, so far, still ahead but slowing down.

This year, June leads the box-office pack with a total of about $995 million, Nielsen EDI calculates. But July is young, with about $684 million including estimates for this last weekend. Friday will see the opening of Universal’s “The Bourne Supremacy” with Matt Damon and “Catwoman” from Warner Bros. with Halle Berry in the title role, followed July 30 by M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village” from Disney and Denzel Washington in “The Manchurian Candidate” from Paramount.

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SmithÕs summer sizzlers

Six of Will SmithÕs 11 major movies (more than 2,000 theaters) have been released in July or timed to take advantage of the Fourth of July weekend.

SmithÕs midsummer films draw well ...

Total domestic gross Tile (Release date) (in millions) ÒIndependence DayÓ (7/3/96) $306.2 ÒMen in BlackÓ (7/2/97) $250.7 ÒMen in Black IIÓ (7/3/02) $190.4 ÒBad Boys IIÓ (7/18/03) $138.6 ÒWild Wild WestÓ (6/30/99) $113.8 ÒI, RobotÓ (7/17/04) $52.3 (opening weekend)

Total domestic gross Title (Release date) (in millions) ÒEnemy of the StateÓ (11/20/98) $111.5 ÒBad BoysÓ (4/7/95) $65.8 ÒAliÓ (12/25/01) $58.2 ÒMade in AmericaÓ (5/28/93) $44.9 ÒThe Legend of Bagger VanceÓ (11/3/00) $30.9

Source: Boxofficemojo.com