LESSON NO. 3: There are no small parts for those with big pecs. The summer was a boon for ambitious young movie stars hankering to become action figures. Will Smith, who starred in the season's biggest hit, Men in Black ($230 million so far), has now headlined the two top-grossing films of the last two years. Nicolas Cage had a hot summer as well, playing buffed-up antiheroes in Paramount's Face/Off ($109 million) and Disney's Con Air ($97 million). Harrison Ford proved that even a middle-aged politician can kick butt in Columbia's Air Force One, now at $143 million. And while Warner's Contact was hardly a traditional action picture (more like a sci-fi Event Movie for eggheads), it showed Jodie Foster could carry a mainstream mega-budget production, while George of the Jungle, grossing $90 million, hinted that Brendan Fraser may have a career beyond the loincloth.
George, by the way, was the only kids' movie this summer to hit pay dirt, hence LESSON NO. 4: Children make up their own minds. Disney's Hercules turned out to be a $90 million weakling (the studio's lowest-grossing animated musical since The Little Mermaid), while Spawn didn't tingle teens as much as New Line had hoped (it has made $50 million). Other kiddie stiffs: Paramount's Nickelodeon spin-off, Good Burger (grossing $21 million); Columbia's monkey tale Buddy ($10 million); Universal's fairy-godfather fable, A Simple Wish ($8 million); and Warner's Jonathan Taylor Thomas vehicle, Wild America ($7 million).
Meanwhile, some grown-up actors learned LESSON NO. 5: Keep your day job. Jackie Chan's fourth U.S. release in two years, Miramax's Operation Condor, was his biggest dud yet, grossing $10 million. And Shaquille O'Neal really dropped the ball with Steel, Warner's $23 million superhero stinker: During its second weekend, the movie had a staggeringly low per-screen average of $155. TV stars had a rough season too: Jennifer Aniston has become the latest Friend to fail on the big screen, with Fox's Picture Perfect grossing a disappointing $27 million so far. Even Robin Williams and Billy Crystal ran into trouble, tanking in Fathers' Day, the summer's only $90 million comedy, which ended up grossing $28 million.
Of course, not all the summer's movies were mega-budget Events. Columbia, for example, saved on The Fifth Element by paying only $25 million of its $90 million budget for domestic distribution rights (European financiers picked up the rest), which means the studio gets to pocket the $65 million U.S. gross. Other movies that proved frugality isn't necessarily a dirty word: New Line's $16 million Austin Powers (which made $53 million) and Paramount's $35 million Breakdown ($50 million). Compare those numbers with Paramount's aptly titled Event Horizon, the mega-budgeted misfire that probably will not make $25 million, and you learn LESSON NO. 6: The Event Era can't last forever.
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