..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

May 17, 2003

The Matrix Reloaded Box Office Asterisk Story
Why Is The NY Times Insisting That There Is Any Such Story At All?

by David Poland
______________________

It is amazing to me when a studio does the right thing, especially when they have a monster hit like The Matrix Reloaded on their hands. There have been some bumps on the road to the release of this film, but since the first paid screenings on Wednesday night, Warner Bros. has taken the high road.

The first - and really, only - official report of the Wednesday night and Thursday box office numbers for Reloaded came not from distribution chief Dan Fellman, who speaks to "box office analysts" most weekends, but from AOL/Time-Warner Chief Richard Parsons. Fellman can spin a box ofifce tale with the best of them. But he chose not to this time.

But that wasn't good enough for The New York Times or Box Office Mojo's Brandon Gray.

In a Saturday story, Rick Lyman quotes Gray: "I wish they had opened it at 12:01 a.m. on Thursday," said Brandon Gray, founder of boxofficemojo.com, a Web site that monitors daily ticket sales for films. "That would have made everything much simpler. There would be no claims of cheating, no asterisks or whatever. And they probably would have had the opening record legitimately then."

Is he kidding?

Has Mr. Gray gone so far down the rabbit hole that he now thinks it matters in the least to anyone who does not have an obsessive compulsive disorder (or who wants to be quoted by the New York Times) whether Warner Bros. opened the film at 10pm or 12:01 a.m.?

Has Mr. Gray noticed that nine of the top ten openings of all time took place in the last three years? We are living the movie equivalent of the beating the home run record... going from being an impossible goal to an annual ritual.

There is a story here in an R rated movie that will come close to doubling the best R rated opening in history, Hannibal's $58 million. How is that possible?

No time for that!!! We need to quibble about whether The Matrix Reloaded scored the first, second or third biggest box office day in motion picture history. I mean, we know that Thursday was the biggest non Fri-Sat-Sun day in history by a large margin, even removing the Wednesday night shows. Don't we understand how important being #1 really is?! Box office defines art, doesn't it? It defines us as a nation, right? And #2 is #2, is that what I am hearing?

But again, the biggest laugher here is that no one at Warner Bros. is shoving this record talk down our throats. Lyman quoted Dan Fellman: "It doesn't really make a difference if they want to put an asterisk there," Mr. Fellman said. "Who cares? The bottom line is that we sold $42.5 million worth of tickets."

Exactly!!! If Dan Fellman isn't selling it, why does The New York Times care so much?

The stupidity continues as Lyman quotes rival studio execs who overestimated the possibilities for this film as a way of positioning its inevitable success as less amazing that it is. But the film is outperforming even their expectations.

That didn't keep Lyman from hypothesizing, with Gray's help, that a $135 million four-day would be somehow disaapointing.

"Several box-office analysts and executives at rival studios said that the film would do extremely well this weekend, though perhaps not that well. "It looks more like $135 million to me," Mr. Gray said."

Thanks, Brandon. I still haven't gotten over your estimate for Spider-Man last year. It was only $30 million short. I guess you had to say something quotable.

The simple fact is, no one knows. And only fools claim to really know. Tracking for Reloaded was sensational. But the R rating was supposed to hurt. Reviews were supposed to hurt. A Thursday start was supposed to hurt.

It's all bullshit.

When the numbers are in, they are in. If they are within $1 million of some record, I will be as suspicious as anyone. Remember, Spider-Man was $24 million bigger than the previous record holder. There was no motive for spin. This time... we'll see.

It's called reflection on the facts. The NY Times used to be really good at it. But then again, It's been a tough month for the paper of record. I guess they are just spreading the wealth.