This may turn out to be the summer when celebrities overshadowed their movies.
As the box office continued its slump into an 18th weekend, studio executives were left to ponder whether their films -- even those that performed respectably -- were taking a back seat to the public chatter about their stars.
Warner Brothers' Batman Begins led the US box office, taking in an estimated US$26.8 million in its second weekend in theaters, for a total of US$121.7 million in US ticket sales. Sony's Bewitched, the comedy starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell, came in second with US$20.2 million in its opening weekend, drawing a nearly 60 percent female audience, most of which was 25 and over.
PHOTO: NY TIMES
Mr and Mrs Smith, distributed by 20th Century Fox and now in its third weekend, took in US$16.7 million, while Disney's Herbie: Fully Loaded took in $12.7 million.
That overall box office performance, while solid, still lagged well behind last year, with this year's revenues off by 7 percent, accor-ding to Exhibitor Relations, which compiles statistics on ticket sales.
Hanging over many of these summer movies has been the public focus on the behavior and personal lives of their leading actors. In the case of the G-rated Herbie: Fully Loaded, Disney executives had debated whether the sexy, party-going tabloid image of its star, Lindsay Lohan, might discourage parents from letting their children see the film.
But it appeared that strong word of mouth buoyed the movie from a tepid opening to a solid estimated finish of US$17.8 million for its first five days.
"If there was hesitation, it's been overcome by the numbers," said Chuck Viane, president of distribution for Disney's Buena Vista unit, who noted that attendance jumped an unusual 70 percent from Thursday to Friday. "Based on everything I'm seeing, on exit scores and the growth of movie, it's all positive, so I see no negative influence whatsoever."
At Warner Brothers, executives had been privately miffed that the very public romance between Tom Cruise and the Batman Begins actress Katie Holmes was deflec-ting attention from the movie during its publicity tour.
Publicly, one executive was more circumspect. Asked about the possible effect of celebrity noise on Batman, Jeff Goldstein, Warner's executive vice president of domestic distribution, said: "This movie stands on its own. I don't know that we need to take any cues from any other movies in the marketplace, or be concerned about other films."
In other words, the relationship between media gossip and ticket sales is not entirely clear. In the case of Mr and Mrs Smith, the glowing box office figures suggest that widespread publicity about a romance between the stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie may have helped the movie's success.
But that may not always be the case, some say.
"It's a slippery slope," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations. "Once everything starts becoming about the celebrity and not the movie, it could be problematic, but it's difficult to quantify what impact that has."
A big test has come with the opening this week of Steven Spielberg's science-fiction film War of the Worlds, starring Cruise, who has been the focus of near-constant media attention, mainly regarding his romance with Holmes and his outspoken views about his religion, scientology. The movie is being distributed by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks SKG, and executives at those studios have also expressed concern that attention has been diverted from the movie.
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