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

Super Sunday … and Other Ironies It wasn't The Perfect Score, only some movies got The Big Bounce and Sony definitely Got Served. Distributors and exhibitors girded themselves for the Patriots vs. Carolina and weighed the Super Bowl's likely impact upon new movies and Oscar contenders. There was a lot to digest and assess. Sony's opening of the youth musical You Got Served led the pack with an estimated $16.2 million, a record gross for a film debuting on Super Bowl weekend. As with the Christmas release of Honey, the film was more potent than anticipated, reaching out beyond the African American niche audience with popular music and contemporary dance. Conversely, The Perfect Score fell below expectations with an estimated $5.2 million to rank sixth overall. Again, though targeted to teens and early 20s, it played up crime genre elements that made it a distant second choice. The results were even more dire for the third national debut - The Big Bounce - that eked out a 12th place finish of $3.4 million. The trio, plus Oscar buzz did little to energize the marketplace. The weekend tally will be just shy of $100 million, a slight 3% decline from last weekend. It's also 16% off 2003's pace when new pictures - The Recruit, Final Destination 2, Biker Boyz - took the top spots with respective grosses $16.3 million, $16 million and $10 million. And, compared to Super Bowl weekend 2003, when Darkness Falls bowed, business was down by 2%. The collision of a later date for the football clash and the earlier unveiling of Academy nominees resulted in a mixed commercial bag. Some individual results were good but there was clearly not the sort of utz to business that's traditionally been evident. Fox's relaunch of Master and Commander sailed to an OK response, posting a $2,000 average and WB's decision to expand Mystic River last weekend looks savvy in retrospect, climbing by 34% to $4.5 million. Lost in America, Monster and Girl with a Pearl Earring all added screens and got box office boosts but multiple nominations for In America, 21 Grams and House of Sand and Fog haven't translated into commercial upturns and appeared to have no discernable impact for The Last Samurai. The verdict has to be that Super Bowl took a sizable bite out of the traditional Oscar bump and calendar considerations are likely for 2005. The weekend also featured upbeat sneak previews for Disney's inspirational ice hockey yarn Miracle that combined macho and hunk appeal. It attracted a 55%-45% male-female crowd and overall capacities of 80% according to a company spokesman. Regional and niche debuts were sparse with the launch of the horror sequel Ginger Snaps: Unleashed in Canada generating a fair $94,000 and TLA's gay-themed Latter Days grossing a solid $56,000 from four exclusives. A Few Notes on Global Market Share To paraphrase Churchill, never has so much been owed to so few. Whether you're in Jamaica or Jakarta, in most corners of the world the movie going options are dominated by American titles. Worldwide, Disney (Buena Vista, Miramax) and Time-Warner companies (Warner Bros., New Line) accounted for close to 45% of global box office. In fact American companies hogged 88% of the big pie. The flip side was that the only non-U.S. company to generate better than a 1% market share was Japan's Toho and its revenues are virtually all at home. The same holds for Korea's CJ Entertainment and Cinema Services and to only a slightly less degree France's Studio Canal. American movies may not be winning hearts and minds but they certainly dominate how people spend dollars, drachmas, euros, yen and pesetas. - by Leonard Klady