After Record Opening, Wizard Falls Off at the Box Office

By TOM KING



Earlier this year, a top AOL Time Warner executive predicted "Harry Potter" could be a bigger franchise than "Star Wars."

Well, even Harry might not have that much magic in him. While the movie has already pulled in $194 million at the box office, a closer look at the numbers suggests some of the higher hopes for the film are now out of reach. Not only is it already clear that "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" won't top box-office champ "Titanic," but the movie is also unlikely to knock off any of a number of other megahits, including "Star Wars," "E.T." and even "Jurassic Park." Indeed, some insiders at Warner Bros. say there's a slight chance "Harry" could get knocked out of the No. 1 slot this weekend by the Fox film "Behind Enemy Lines," which opens Friday.

The Big Slowdown

The first signs of trouble came this week, as "Harry" stopped breaking records. It now looks as if the film won't hit the $200 million mark until sometime this weekend, at least 15 days after opening. By contrast, "Star Wars: Episode One" reached that milestone in 13 days. Midweek ticket sales also were unexpectedly soft. While family films normally post a big drop as kids return to school, the numbers posted by "Harry" -- $2.5 million on Monday night, for example -- aren't that far above those charted by lesser hits like last year's "The Grinch."

Dan Fellman, distribution chief at Warners, says the studio is "ecstatic" with the box-office results, and adds that Warners' own data suggest the "Harry" audience isn't going away. On opening weekend, Warners' exit polling showed 70% of all kids and 50% of adults said they wanted to see it again. He wouldn't predict where "Harry Potter" might finally fall in the lineup of the highest-grossing movies of all time.

Although "Harry Potter" posted a much bigger opening than "Titanic," and all of the other highest-grossing movies of all time, it did so because of a number of factors that speak to some fundamental shifts in the movie business. One is that studios are opening movies on many more screens these days than they did just a year or two ago; in turn those movies often do as much as a third of their total business in the first weekend. Another reason, of course, is that average ticket prices are higher today.

Shattered Records

This year, headlines screaming of shattered box-office records are all around; while seven of the top 10 biggest openings of all time have been charted just this year, none of them so far have managed to hang on long enough to make the list of the top 10 all-time hits. For example, "Rush Hour 2," which in August charted the seventh-biggest opening in history, sputtered out at No. 25.

To show how much the business has changed, one only has to look at 1990's "Home Alone," which had the same director as "Harry Potter," Chris Columbus. It opened in 1,202 theaters -- about a third as many as "Harry" -- and took in only $17 million on its debut. But it caught on, plugged along steadily and eventually grossed $285 million. By contrast, says Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations Co., "movies these days are like firecrackers. You light 'em, they go real fast."


Another factor that works against big movies like "Harry Potter" is that studios are making more "event" pictures than ever before. That means films have to make their money faster because there's often another huge movie coming right around the corner. In the case of "Harry Potter," Warners is bracing for a juggernaut of a competitor by the name of "The Lord of the Rings" just a few weeks from now. In ad***ion, studios emphasize "opening day" hype, routinely running ads that countdown the days until a film's debut. The public has taken the bait, and many people show up the very first weekend.

This, many industry observers believe, was a real factor in creating the enormous front-loaded gross of "Harry Potter." Kids in particular seemed resolved not to be the only one in school the following Monday who hadn't seen it; as a result, advance-ticket sales outfits set records. Theaters, also anticipating a rush on weekend No. 1, put tickets on sale more than two weeks in advance. "We've never put tickets on sale more than one week in advance," says Brian Callaghan, a spokesman for General Cinema, which began selling "Harry" tickets Nov. 1.

Now that nearly every Potter fanatic has seen the film, the immediate issue is "Behind Enemy Lines," an action movie about the rescue of a U.S. pilot from Bosnia. Audience research indicates the movie, which stars Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson, will have a big opening and come within striking distance of "Harry." Even if "Harry" is able to fend off "Lines," it surely will fall next Friday to "Ocean's Eleven," the heist picture that stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. That isn't terrible news for Warners; they made that movie, too.

Bring the Kids?

Big Openings Don't Mean Much
Of the top 10 biggest movie openings, seven were charted this year. But none of this year's films have cracked the top 10 in terms of all-time grosses.

Movie (Release Date) Rank in All-Time Grosses
Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone (2001) 41*
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) 24
Planet of the Apes (2001) 54
The Mummy Returns (2001) 35
Rush Hour 2 (2001) 25*
Star Wars: Episode One -- The Phantom Menace (1999) 3
Monsters, Inc. (2001) 40*
Pearl Harbor (2001) 38*
Hannibal (2001) 70
Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) 30

* still in release

Source: Exhibitor Relations Co.

Some people might think that "Not Another Teen Movie" is a funny title for a movie. Others might think it's funny -- or maybe even irresponsible -- that a movie geared to teens has an R rating.

Surely, many movies popular with teens (the "American Pie" and "Scary Movie" films, for example) have been rated R. But none have had the word "teen" in their title, a marketing come-on that could easily confuse parents who might assume "Not Another Teen Movie" is rated PG or PG-13.

The film's release, set for Dec. 14, comes a little more than a year after the studios, under fire for marketing violent R-rated films to kids, went to Washington and pledged to adopt voluntary marketing guidelines. "Not Another Teen Movie," Sony Pictures's raunchy spoof of successful teen films, may well be exempt from the guidelines, because it contains no violence. But it's got plenty of other stuff: It won its R rating because of "strong crude ***ual content & humor, language and some drug content," according to the Motion Picture Association.

Sony marketing executives say, without an ounce of sarcasm, that the word "Not" in the title -- it's bigger than any of the other words on billboards, they point out -- is a signal that it isn't just a teen movie. A representative for the studio, adds that the R rating "leaves it to parents to decide if it's appropriate for those under 17."

Entertaining Questions

Q. Most movie posters for romantic movies have a picture of the male and female leads, but the poster for "Vanilla Sky," the new movie with Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz, features Tom Cruise alone. What's that about?

A. Penelope Cruz doesn't sell tickets -- Tom Cruise does. When you've got arguably the biggest movie star in the world headlining your cast, it's a smart marketing move to put him alone, front and center. But it is indeed a bit of a departure: The poster for "Serendipity," the recent romantic comedy with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale, for example, is more tra***ional; it features a shot of the two leads in an embrace. Insiders at Paramount Pictures, which will release "Vanilla Sky" Dec. 14, say the movie, while indeed a romantic drama, is principally the story of one man's journey -- and that man is played by Mr. Cruise.

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