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This is a subject that's interested me for the past couple of weeks to the point where I'm trying to write it when I'm feeling ill. The question on my mind is,"What is Fox up to?".
20th Century Fox, a studio that's had frequent successes lately("There's Something About Mary" and "Dr. Dolittle", among others) has really, in my opinion, almostthrown two of its current releases into the marketplace. Fox has done some experimenting in recent times as well, which I like to see with films that aren't exactlymainstream, like "Bulworth" and "The Thin Red Line". "Office Space", although not a very large film(budget of around 10m), it does involve quite a large talent andsomeone who's very important to Fox TV: animator Mike Judge, who's had success at MTV with "Beavis and Butthead" and now "King Of The Hill" for Fox.
The other recent Fox project, "Simply Irresistable", looked like a sure-fire hit. If not a hit, then a film that would at least break even. It starred Sarah MichelleGellar, who draws quite a large teen audience from her series on TV, "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", as well as her role in "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Theadvertisements were frequent enough on television and the film looked rather cute. Suddenly, though, the picture was lifted from its Valentine's Day weekend andplunked down the weekend before. The unfortunate part is that the film was moved at the last minute so at least locally, the critics didn't get a chance to see it.Nationally, it seemed to have a problem getting screens, taking only a little over 1,300, which, in this day and age of giant releases, seems almost independent innature. Fox tried this move with "Ever After" last Summer, moving it from the begining of August to the end of July rather quickly. The move worked: Ever Aftergot the screens that it needed and the reviews as well. Although it opened lightly, it ran through the early fall and ended with a gross of around 70m.
Was "Simply Irresistable" a bad picture? Not at all. Although it wasn't a favorite of mine in recent times, it was light and cheerful. Although it was not flawless,there were seemingly nothing terribly wrong with it, enough for Fox to let the picture dry out. "Simply Irresistable" opened on Feb. 5th and barely registered inthe box office, wrapping up the weekend with in the neighborhood of 2.3 million dollars. The picture seemed to be leaving theaters on the Feb. 12th weekendand simply has vanished from area theaters currently. Although it wouldn't have been a hit against "Message In A Bottle" and New Line's "Blast From The Past" onValentine's Day weekend, it would have pulled in larger grosses during the valentine's day weekend than it did on the previous week. If all else failed, the film could have at least been delayed rather than sneaking it into theaters.
As "Simply" leaves theaters, "Office Space" arrived this weekend. Again, Fox was seemingly not able to secure even 2,000 screens for the release, and although thepicture gained good reviews, it ended up with a 4.3 million dollar open, which I consider fairly dissapointing. It suprises me that the Judge film wasn't recieved better from audiences. As "King Of The Hill" isn't doing well in the ratings after its move to Tuesday, has the "Mike Judge" name in the credits lost impact? I'd liketo think not- although I don't watch "King Of The Hill" myself, Judge put together a very funny first live-action film. Does it always look good? No, in factthe cinematography was quite strange. But does it hit the mark? Is it funny? Is it accurate about workplace life? My answer to all three was definitely a "yes."
Was it the advertising? Maybe. The picture did at least have Jennifer Aniston's name in the credits, which should have worked since "Friends" is gaining strengthas it goes from season to season. Fox even put together an interesting advertisement where they hired an individual to sit on a billboard from 9 to 5 each day and answer people's office-related questions. Although the Judge film is fairly small(10 million budget), it likely will barely recover that number as the likely effect of this weekend will be "Office Space" dissapearing from theaters(it didn't even get 2,000 screens either this week).
Maybe I'm completely wrong, maybe I'm just not feeling well and am rambling, but I'm curious why these two films, which are decent(if not at least good), didn't getthe resources given to them to be commerically successful, or at least commerically passable. I may be completely wrong, but I'm definitely curious as to the answers. Although these aren't major releases and don't represent a large loss for Fox, I'm sure the cast and crew involved have suffered a major loss that their pictures were not receieved well(...and were maybe not treated as well as they could have been?). I'll admit that I'm part of the crowd who is always interested in which film made the most money. But when you see two films like these fail to reach an audience, I can't help but wonder why.
