Salon.com > Gregg Kilday

Anal-ize this

Thu, 03 Aug 2000 19:00:00 +0000

Thirty years ago, when Raquel Welch slapped on a strap-on in "Myra Breckenridge" and gave Randy Herren the ride of his life, the Motion Picture Ratings Board reciprocated with a stern X rating.

This summer, when a giant hamster (the result of a genetics experiment run amok) buggers college dean Larry Miller (who's first horrified, then smitten) in "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps," the ratings board awarded the movie a family-friendly PG-13.

The PG-13 rating may carry the "Parents Strongly Cautioned: Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13" caveat, but that hasn't been enough to deter the Eddie Murphy film from a $42.5 million opening weekend, making "Klumps" the fourth biggest comedy debut of all time (trailing "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," "Toy Story 2" and "Men in Black").

Back in black

Thu, 27 Jul 2000 19:00:00 +0000

Put a black man in a dress and watch the grosses go through the roof.

That's what Universal Pictures is banking on this weekend as Eddie Murphy's "Nutty Professor II: The Klumps" opens nationwide. Impersonating six characters, Murphy doesn't just slip into a frock -- he straps on bras, girdles and droopy nylons. And that, the studio hopes, will ensure a $25 million to $30 million weekend gross and a shot at the $129 million domestic haul of Murphy's original "Nutty Professor."

White guys like John Travolta ("Battlefield Earth") and Robert De Niro ("The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle") may be sinking this summer, but black talent is thriving.

The “X-Men” crusheth

Thu, 20 Jul 2000 19:00:00 +0000

Score one for the mutants -- the mutants that cruise the Net, that is.

When director Bryan Singer's big-screen take on Marvel Comics' genetically enriched superheroes hit 3,025 megaplexes last weekend, an anxious 20th Century Fox was praying for a hit to save its ass. Things didn't look so good. The summer had started out strong, with "Big Momma's House" scooping up $110 million to date. After that, business had quickly gone south.

Fox's animated fantasy "Titan A.E." crashed and burned; Jim Carrey's schizoid "Me, Myself and Irene" ($80 million to date) is falling well short of the Farrelly Brothers' "There's Something About Mary" ($178 million). And in the middle of everything, Rupert Murdoch summarily axed Fox chairman Bill Mechanic, a man widely considered to be one of the few straight-shooters and genuine risk-takers in the business (quite a compliment in this town).

“Harry Potter” hit licks flicks

Thu, 13 Jul 2000 19:00:00 +0000

Basic Hollywood rule of thumb: By the third sequel, franchises run out of steam. Witness "Jaws: The Revenge," "Alien Resurrection" and "Batman & Robin."

This past weekend, Hollywood could only look on with Muggle-minded envy as J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" -- the third sequel to "Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone" -- made its smashing debut. Lines stretched out doors at its midnight unveiling; fans dressed like their favorite characters; endless media jawing fed the hype. In short, the book arrived with all the accoutrements of a summer box-office blockbuster -- except that this summer, no Hollywood blockbuster has managed such a wizardly opening.

Nude boys on Broadway

Mon, 10 Jul 2000 19:00:00 +0000

"The Full Monty" is coming to Broadway. The surprise 1997 hit about a sextet of unemployed English steelworkers who trade their clothes for cash, will reemerge on Oct. 26 as a full-blown musical comedy.

Judging by the enthusiastic applause that greeted the out-of-town preview, which closed Sunday at San Diego's Old Globe Playhouse, "Monty" appears on track to conquer Manhattan. The New York Times' Bruce Weber, after making the trek to the other coast, declared it "a crowd-pleaser." And Broadway.com columnist Ken Mandelbaum predicts, "'Monty' will be arriving in New York with the look of a hit, and could just be unstoppable, no matter what anyone writes about it in October."

The perfect star

Thu, 29 Jun 2000 19:00:00 +0000

WANTED: HOLLYWOOD LEADING MAN. LATE '30S/EARLY '40S. MAINSTREAM GOOD LOOKS. ABLE TO GO FROM ROMANTIC COMEDY TO MACHO ACTION. GENIAL OFF-SCREEN PRESENCE PREFERRED. FAMILIAR LAST NAME A PLUS. PREVIOUS ABOVE-THE-TITLE ACTING EXPERIENCE NOT NECESSARY. SALARY: HIGHLY NEGOTIABLE.

If George Clooney didn't exist, Hollywood would have invented him. Come to think of it, Hollywood more or less did.

Faced with a serious shortage of leading men, the movie industry drafted Clooney -- previous credit: People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive circa 1997 -- to fill the bill. This weekend, his star appeal gets its biggest test yet as Warner Brothers' $140 million "The Perfect Storm" makes its way into port with Clooney at the helm.

A bad wind is already blowing.

Director Wolfgang Petersen's computer graphics-augmented take on Sebastian Junger's bestselling account isn't facing an easy cruise. Petersen's film -- call it "Das Fishing Boot" -- will be racing headlong into Mel Gibson's latest opus, "The Patriot," a Revolutionary War flag-waver that opened yesterday.

Parlez-vous Universal?

Thu, 22 Jun 2000 19:00:00 +0000

Universal Pictures, the venerable home of such enduring Americana as Frankenstein, Rock Hudson, Jaws and E.T., has fallen to the French. Will movies ever be the same?

Tuesday was a day for post-coital ceremonies -- press conference in Paris; a quick hop on the Concorde; a second dog-and-pony show in Manhattan followed by ingratiating phone calls to increasingly dubious financial analysts. After weeks of rumors, Jean-Marie Messier, chairman of Vivendi S.A., the French water utility turned telecommunication giant, officially embraced Edgar Bronfman Jr., president and CEO of the Seagram Company. Together, the pair will parent a complicated $34 billion international baby called Vivendi Universal.

Meanwhile, back in Hollywood, the folks at Universal Pictures, which is owned by Seagram, were doing their best to practice a casual Gallic shrug. After all, movie studios are accustomed to playing the fancy chit in high-stakes global poker.

In 1991, the Japanese electronics giant Matsushita -- driven by a need to acquire a movie library to push its VCRs -- bought what was then called MCA Universal from its aging founder Lew Wasserman for $6.9 billion.

Is Disney union-busting?

Thu, 15 Jun 2000 19:00:00 +0000

Last month, an anonymous e-mail began ricocheting through Hollywood's tight-knit animation community. The message -- "The Invisible Studio signs an Invisible Deal with the Invisible Union" -- accused the Walt Disney Co. of striking an unholy alliance with IATSE, the national labor union that represents artists, craftspeople and technicians throughout the entertainment industry.

The e-mail charged, among other allegations, that the two parties had agreed to a deal that would essentially allow the studio to cut salaries and freeze out the cartoonists' own local, eliminating the animators' collective muscle.

These threats didn't exactly hearten the animation industry. Though 'toons appear to be flooding the multiplex, the past few years in Hollywood have brought steady layoffs for animators; others were forced from full-time employment and found themselves competing on a job-by-job basis. Suddenly, animators who'd once enjoyed six-figure incomes were facing an uncertain future.

Moore’s the pity

Thu, 08 Jun 2000 19:15:00 +0000

On screen, she dripped steely determination; off screen, she posed nude -- and pregnant -- on the cover of Vanity Fair. She was the Brat Pack's Joan Crawford.

In 1990, "Ghost" became among the first megahits of the decade. The drippy love story grossed $218 million domestically and earned an astounding $508 million worldwide -- not bad for a "General Hospital" dropout. Later, she consolidated her clout with high-concept hits like the man-barters-wife-for-a-million-bucks melodrama "Indecent Proposal," which earned $107 million in 1993, and the bosomy-bosswoman-harrasses-hapless-clerk drama "Disclosure," which hit $93 million in 1994.

By 1996, if there was any doubt about Demi's power, she hogtied Hollywood by securing $12.5 million for "Striptease." Never mind that the movie proved so inept that Castle Rock couldn't decide whether to sell it as a drama or add a laugh track.

The toons that won’t be “King”

Fri, 02 Jun 2000 19:00:00 +0000

"Never predict the next 'Lion King,'" Michael Eisner warned financial analysts via a conference call last month.

That afternoon, Eisner was feeling a bit bullish. The Walt Disney Company had just announced better-than-expected second-quarter profits -- after all, Disney owns ABC's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" -- and the studio's upcoming animated film "Dinosaur" looked to be big. Since then, "Dinosaur" has gone on to earn more than $80 million domestically, and it may ultimately bring home $200 million.

But let's get one thing straight, it's no "Lion King."

"The Lion King" has been haunting Hollywood ever since it first appeared in 1994. Seemingly irresistible, though I never got its cuddly charm, it roared to a whopping domestic gross of $313 million and a worldwide take of $772 million, easily becoming the most successful cartoon of all time and spinning off an animated TV series, direct-to-video sequels and a Broadway stage show that's been packing 'em in since 1997.

The long hot summer

Fri, 26 May 2000 19:00:00 +0000

They call it June gloom and it's already arrived in Los Angeles. Every morning, low-hanging clouds blanket the city, effectively delaying the onset of summer for another month.

That hasn't stopped Hollywood from getting started.

The summer movie-going season officially began three weeks ago with the joylessly brutal "Gladiator" ($109 million to date); then Dinosaur came along and took home $38.9 million on its opening weekend (it's now earned $46.3 million). This weekend, "Mission: Impossible 2" and Jackie Chan's "Shanghai Noon" fight it out, and another orgy of (mostly) unsatisfying summer movies arrives, bringing June gloom, kicking and shrieking, to the multiplex.