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By Dave Karger
Dave Karger
Dave Karger
Dave Karger, a senior writer at EW, also reports on box office and other movie- related matters on NBC's ''Today''

It wasn't the year's biggest opening -- a certain size-obsessed lizard still holds that distinction ($55.7 million). But last week's debut of Steven Spielberg's devastating World War II drama, Saving Private Ryan, certainly hit the hardest. Ryan sent powerful aftershocks through Hollywood, and not just because of its heftier-than-expected $30.6 million gross. Theaters nationwide reported surprisingly intense audience reactions, including walkouts due to the film's graphic combat scenes. The Department of Veterans Affairs even set up a hotline for vets overcome with emotion after seeing the film; spokeswoman Laurie Tranter says they received about 100 calls last weekend.

Of course, none of this was lost on Hollywood's ever-twitchy studio execs. From their standpoint, the biggest consequences of Ryan's weekend were

-- THE BOX OFFICE BLITZKRIEG Even the most optimistic tracking studies had Ryan earning no more than $24 million in its first weekend. ''There was no template to measure it against,'' says Terry Press, marketing head of DreamWorks, Ryan's studio. ''You could say, 'The Fugitive [another late-summer, adult-oriented film] opened to $24 million.' But that's not really the same.'' In addition to its 2-hour, 45-minute length and family-unfriendly R rating, the studio had to factor in the male-skewing subject and the dire warnings from critics about the film's gore. That's why, says Press, internal projections were only around $18 million to $20 million.

So how to account for the astonishing debut? Analysts say Saving's graces were unanimously positive reviews and word of mouth, as well as heavy campaigning by Spielberg, something he normally shuns. The result: The flick seems headed for a final gross in the $125 million range. ''My mood is -- what's the word? -- gratefulness,'' says Press.

-- THE OPENING OF THE OSCAR RACE Many experts laughed in June when The Truman Show led some (including EW) to invoke the O-word. Now, only a month later, those same experts are saying the race could be over. Ryan has been generating the same kind of Academy Award talk that accompanied Spielberg's Schindler's List in '93 (it later won seven Oscars). ''Hollywood has a bias toward war movies,'' says one longtime award strategist. ''If the movie is good, it's one thing. If it's also a war movie, it's icing on the cake.''

No one seems to be particularly worried that the traditional season for serious films is months away. ''It doesn't matter when it's released'' anymore, says another leading Oscar campaigner, who notes that Forrest Gump (six Oscars) was also a summer film. As for potential competitors, aside from Truman, the very early betting line includes Disney's Beloved, a prestige project starring Oprah Winfrey, directed by Jonathan Demme, and based on Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (due in October); DreamWorks' first animated feature, The Prince of Egypt, whose initial footage wowed exhibitors earlier this year (due in December); and perhaps most significantly, Fox's remake of the James Jones World War II novel The Thin Red Line, directed by long-lost auteur Terrence Malick and starring Sean Penn (due in December).


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