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

It's Very Good To Be The King There were two very strong responses to weekend movie going from those who track the business. The most obvious goes something like this: "Wow! Just look at the business The Return of the King is doing. Isn't it sumptin'." The appropriate response is "Yes." The final installment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy arrived in theaters Wednesday, grossed about $51 million in its first two days and added an estimated $73.5 million weekend for a five-day cume of approximately $125 million. The film set too many records to enumerate internationally and domestically and accounted for approximately 54% of all tickets sold in North America this past weekend. The Return of the King opened 18% better than last year's The Two Towers and New Line's $300 million gamble on the three movies will undoubtedly reap rewards more than 10 fold its risk. The entirety of the achievement both artistically and financially is unparalleled and no amount of adjectival initiative quite does justice to that simple fact. Which brings us to response number two that follows after a slight gasped pause. Imagine a spectator looking across the charred remains of a battlefield; the aftermath of a near apocalyptic encounter that one might have seen in the Rings movies. Slowly he turns away and says with gravitas, "Oh, my god, there's nothing else out there." While the assessment is a tad hyperbolic, the grim truth is that virtually all other films in the marketplace - new and continuing, limited or expanding - are performing at less than optimum levels. The few exceptions cited to the current landscape include Bad Santa and Elf and a ruminative silence. There was indeed a collective gasp when Saturday numbers trickled in on Mona Lisa Smile and its gross declined slightly from opening day figures. The period drama headlined by Julia Roberts was, according to its co-producer, the film with the highest scoring preview response in Sony's history. It's estimated $11.3 million weekend ranks it second by less than $1 million to the studio's other adult movie, Something's Gotta Give. In retrospect, the glib assessment on Mona Lisa Smile is that it had a one-quadrant audience and that older female crowd was largely consumed with higher priority items related to the holiday season. The spin is that the movie will find its audience after December 25. That might indeed happen but obscures several more pertinent questions beginning with Sony's decision to release the film at a time when adult films traditionally do not play well. One can make the case that the movie was alternative programming for all those who wanted to kick the Hobbit. However, that placed the film in direct competition with Something's Gotta Give and hobbled both film's present and likely future business. Next weekend, the Julia Roberts film confronts Cold Mountain and the results could be chilling for either or both movies. Overall business of close to $140 million not unexpectedly ballooned by 58% from the prior weekend but despite the Tolkien of respect was 4% softer than in 2002. Last year, The Two Towers bowed with $62 million, followed by a $14.3 million debut of Two Weeks Notice and the fourth place $9.5 million opening of Gangs of New York. The year's current $8.8 billion tally trails 2002 by about 1% in gross and 4% in actual admissions. Debuting limited releases performed respectably but without true dynamism. The admittedly tough to sell Calendar Girls opened in 24 theaters and rang up about $140,000. The film definitely gets a boost from word-of-mouth response but at this very competitive time of year the trick is getting butts in seats. And despite critical hosannas, DreamWorks' The House of Sand and Fog had a soft $39,000 debut from two engagements. The considerably less grim Big Fish playing on six screens in its second weekend had a 25% higher theater average. Comparatively speaking Sony Classics' profile of former Secretary of State Robert McNamara in The Fog of War was more buoyant with a $38,000 gross from three encounters. Continuing fare as noted was sluggish with such varied appeal movies as The Last Samurai, Haunted Mansion and Stuck on You experiencing significant erosion and the onslaught of four Christmas day wide releases unlikely to provide those movies with a reversal of box office fortune. - by Leonard Klady