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By Steve Mason
November 22, 2006
This Thanksgiving weekend is a box office crapshoot.
The booming holiday business will be boosted by those dancin' penguins and by the new blonde Bond, which I am projecting to finish in the top three. The new Denzel Washington-Tony Scott thriller is also sure to come out of the box with a big number. After that, not a lot is certain.
There is a lot of product, including a badly-reviewed holiday picture (Deck the Halls), a monumental but admirable bomb (The Fountain), an ensemble historical cavalcade of stars from the Weinsteins (Bobby) and vanity project from an actor who, for me, has worn out his welcome (Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny).
This column is stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey with analysis, numbers, opinion, insider speculation and guesswork, and hopefully, at the end of the weekend, my projections will approximate the actual studio-reported figures.
Here goes...
Denzel Washington is among Hollywood's most durable stars. He's not the most exciting actor around. His movies all feel derivative at this point. What was the storyline of Man on Fire? Who remembers what Out of Time was about? John Q had something to do with a hospital, right? Not that it matters. We're comfortable with him as a leading man.
He's also delivered some phenomenal performances. He was riveting in Ed Zwick's Civil War epic Glory. He deserved to win Best Actor for Malcolm X and again for The Hurricane, and finally scored the big prize for the evil cop in Training Day. Washington also gave an underrated performance opposite Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. Hanks had the showstopper role, but Denzel was perfect as the honestly flawed attorney whose eyes we see the story through.
Director Tony Scott has teamed with Washington twice before, on Crimson Tide and Man On Fire, and he's turned to "Mr. Reliable" again hoping to regroup after the dismal performance of last year's Domino. In fact, it's been a couple of decades since his biggest success, Top Gun, so it's fair to say that he could use a hit.
Scott's new film Deja Vu (Buena Vista), also starring Val Kilmer and Jim Caviezel, has something to do with that feeling that you've seen something before. It's a feeling I get all too often when I go to the movies. But, word is that this movie has a very clever premise and is exceedingly well-executed. I'm told that industry tracking has been very strong for weeks, and for an action film, the numbers with women are especially good.
Casino Royale and Deja Vu will finish two and three, but I'm calling for Denzel by a nose over Daniel Craig. Both films should score $29-$32 million for the five-day and $21-$24 million for the three-day.
Deja Vu By The Numbers
Top 10 Tony Scott-Directed Films – Domestic Box Office
1. Top Gun - $176,786,000
2. Beverly Hills Cop II - $153,665,000
3. Enemy of the State - $111,549,000
4. Crimson Tide - $91,387,000
5. Days of Thunder - $82,670,000
6. Man On Fire - $77,911,000
7. Spy Game - $62,362,000
8. The Last Boy Scout - $59,509,000
9. The Fan - $18,626,000
10. Revenge - $15,645,000
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