Fall box office preview (HWT)
By Steve Mason
In movie industry parlance, there are 4 audience quadrants: Males Under 25, Males 25 Plus, Females Under 25 and Females 25 Plus. A blockbuster tends to have appeal in all 4 quadrants, which this summer was the case with "The Dark Knight," "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" among others. If Hollywood is going to capitalize on its record-breaking summer of 2008, it will need to score huge with one quadrant in particular this fall, and it is not necessarily Hollywood’s “bread and butter” demo.
Young women will make or break the 4th quarter of this year for the movie business. There are 3 major Disney films that will rely heavily on turning out Females Under 25, and, of course, Summit unleashes the bookstore and internet sensation "Twilight" for Thanksgiving. The migration of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" to next summer has created an opportunity in the release schedule, and several of these girl-geared pictures are rushing in to fill that gap.
There is no media company better at synergy than Disney. They popularized Miley Cyrus on the Disney Channel, then turned her into a box office sensation with the 3D spectacle "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour," which delivered $31.1 million on its opening weekend and $65.2 million during the course of its domestic run. Disney’s cross-platform promotion will be on full display with its female-fueled fall slate.
It all starts with "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" (Disney), opening wide on October 3. With Piper Perabo as a caretaker for a mouthy dog in Beverly Hills, I am very high on this movie, and, in my estimation, it has a chance to be one of the big hits of the fall. It will play as a family film, and also, with voices provided by Salma Hayek, Andy Garcia, Cheech Marin, Edward James Olmos, George Lopez and Paul Rodriguez, it will do brisk business with Latinos. But ultimately, when you make a movie about the kind of dog that fits in a purse, you need Females Under 25 to show up in big numbers.
Disney follows with "High School Musical 3: Senior Year," already a phenomenon on the Disney Channel, and now a slam-dunk on the big screen starting October 24. Tweens, especially tween girls, are buzzing wildly about this one, and keep in mind, the middle schoolers, who watched the original "High School Musical" on cable in 2006, are now in high school. The hype will only heighten as the release date approaches. The teens who read Perez Hilton are certain to get plenty of Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens news in advance of the release of "HSM3."
November 21 will bring "Twilight" to America’s multiplexes, based on Stephenie Meyer’s young adult vampire novels. As Comic-Con attendees found out this summer, teenage girls will be falling over each other to see this film adaptation first. Think of it as Anne Rice for young females, and Kristen Stewart as protagonist Isabella Swan and Robert Pattison as tragic vampire hero Edward Cullen.
The question is, can this movie expand its reach beyond its hardcore teenage female fans to include the girls who have not read the books? That will be the job of the marketing folks at upstart distributor Summit, releasing their first big movie.
"Bolt" (Disney) also debuts November 21, and although this is technically a family film, it is powered by Disney star Miley Cyrus, who provides one of the lead voices. This is a Digital 3D animated film that also features the voice of John Travolta, an actor that many teenage girls know only as the guy in drag who played Tracy Turnblad’s mom in "Hairspray." Miley will be flogging this project everywhere from the Disney Channel to "TRL" on MTV to "Ellen," so Females Under 25 are being counted on to show up in droves.
There are 2 other fall titles that are counting on younger women. Sony’s "Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist" is set for October 3 with Michael Cera, in his first big role since "Juno," and Kat Dennings in a PG13-rated movie that looks to be in the tradition of John Hughes. Although teen guys will buy tickets as well, a high school relationship movie is probably looking for Females Under 25 to drive ticket sales.
Finally, Freestyle Releasing is handling "The Haunting of Molly Hartley" to bow on Halloween. The film revolves around a 17-year-old girl trying to get a fresh start at a new high school, struggling to fit in while she deals with disturbing visions from the dark secrets of her past. Again, the PG13 rating and a female protagonist indicate that young women will need to drive the box office.
