..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

No Joy In Mudville The refrain of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" echoes but it wasn't simply America's pastime that kept movie goers away from theaters. It was also barbeques and a sluggish economy that's rather consistently seen the season flagging behind the 2002 bounty. The arrival of big gun sequels to The Terminator and Legally Blonde and a swashbuckling animated adventure were not enough to bolster attendance, and weekend figures sank 14% from last year's July 4th holiday frame. A year ago it was also sequel season with Men in Black II leading off with a $52 million and $87 million 5-day cume, or roughly 19% stronger than Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. However, T3, unlike MIB II, had incoming competition. So, charitably one could argue that it performed comparably. Warner Bros. is noting that the estimated $44 million plus 3-day gross is second only to The Matrix Reloaded for an R-rated debut. Over at MGM, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde bowed to $21.2 million (the studio has a decidedly more aggressive $22.9 million estimate) with a $38.1 million cume. Its spin is that the film has a 44% better opening that the first outing. Despite considerable spinning, neither film bowed with quite the anticipated firepower tracking suggested. And when one tosses in last weekend's low ball debut of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (and a 63% drop in its second weekend) and the rapid descent of The Hulk, a shudder goes out through the industry that expectations for summer's remaining high profile movies may have to be lowered one or two notches. What should be of utmost concern is that the season to date has yet to generate a truly unexpected success. While several films including Daddy Day Care and The Italian Job have fared better than expected and maintained theaters, neither is performing to a radically more potent degree like, say, the first Legally Blonde. The holiday's third freshman - DreamWork's animated Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas - emerged as another instant casualty with a $6.6 million weekend and a cume just shy of $10 million. It will hardly shiver the timbers of Wednesday's launch of Pirates of the Caribbean. Meanwhile, Disney/Pixar's Finding Nemo continues to push toward a $300 million domestic gross and this weekend passed The Matrix Reloaded as summer's top grosser but will be well shy of the $400 plus generated in 2002 by Spider-Man. In the specialized arena, Focus generated truly dynamic numbers for its Cannes-preemed mystery Swimming Pool. The company was very effective in building a profile amid the hoopla accorded the high-powered competition and rang up roughly $300,000 from a mere 13 theaters. Unlike the mainstream scenario, the summer has been rife with surprise for alternative fare, particularly non-fiction films including Spellbound, Winged Migration and Capturing the Friedmans. Foreign-language hits have included Man on the Train and L'Auberge Espagnole and, in Canada, they've had two homegrown successes with Mambo Italiano and The Invasion of the Barbarians. Add to that group Whale Rider from New Zealand that's been doing a slow roll out, adding about 50 screens for the holiday and grossing $1.2 million. Unlike the still in release Bend It Like Beckham, Newmarket has a hard decision to make as to whether it should push for a radical expansion and risk being clobbered by the mainstream competition. The one sector not being repped on the alternative side is American independents. While many have opened since May, most have quickly sputtered and fizzled and that has to be causing a great deal of concern for producers on the parallel track. - by Leonard Klady