H
Hildegarda
Guest
This article is seemingly about the money-making aspects of show-business, but it's pretty clear what mind of movie this "W" is going to be. A shameless piece of apologia for a dangerous psychopath in power:
Oliver Stone's `W.' May End Political Films' Box-Office Drought
\\\http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a2SbeKasd4_4&refer=us
Josh Brolin at first refused to play George W. Bush in ``W.'' He didn't like Bush and was leery of director Oliver Stone's reputation for controversy.
Then the 40-year-old actor read the script and decided the film could work. Brolin, a Democrat, said he was drawn to the role of a man desperate to win respect from his father. ``I put a lot of my political feelings aside to do this,'' he said in an interview.
``W.'' distributor Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. is betting the movie can break a box-office drought for political films. None of the five released in the weeks ahead of the Nov. 4 election has brought in more than half of the $55.3 million in sales generated by Walt Disney Co.'s ``Beverly Hills Chihuahua,'' the current box-office champ, since Oct. 3.
``A lot of eyes are on `W.,''' said Gitesh Pandya, editor of New York-based Box Office Guru LLC. ``There's certainly a lot of interest in it from the right and the left.'' The film ``has a shot at finding box-office success,'' he said.
The movie, which opens tomorrow, may take in about $34 million in its first four weeks in U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Los Angeles-based Cantor Fitzgerald LP's HSX Research, which tracks film performance.
Controversial films help Lions Gate attract top talent, said Tom Ortenberg, distribution chief for the Santa Monica, California-based studio. ``Prestige pictures can be big moneymakers.''
`Will Surprise'
Ortenberg cited 2005's ``Crash,'' winner of the best- picture Academy Award, Michael Moore's ``Fahrenheit 9/11'' and ``Monster's Ball,'' for which Halle Berry won the best-actress Oscar, as among the company's most profitable films.
Bill Maher's ``Religulous,'' released by Lions Gate on Oct. 1, cost $2.5 million and has taken in $7.3 million in limited release, according to Box Office Mojo LLC in Burbank, California.
``The film is certainly going to be a lightning rod for attention, but we think it's going to play very broadly,'' Ortenberg said of ``W.'' ``We think it will surprise a lot of people.''
Lions Gate, down 33 percent this year, fell 33 cents to $6.32 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The company has posted sales growth of 50 percent or more in three of the past four quarters.
The last political film to score big was Moore's 2004 documentary ``Fahrenheit 9/11.'' Made for about $6 million and released by Lions Gate 15 months after the start of the Iraq war, it took in $222 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
`Limited Audience'
``Traitor,'' released in August by Overture Films, and starring Don Cheadle as an American Muslim attempting to foil a terrorist plot, grossed $23.2 million, slightly more than production costs estimated by Box Office Mojo.
Vivendi Entertainment's ``An American Carol,'' about a Moore-like film director campaigning to eliminate the Fourth of July holiday, was released on Oct. 3 at a cost of about $20 million and has taken in $6.2 million, while Time Warner Inc.'s ``Body of Lies,'' starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a U.S. intelligence officer in the Middle East, has generated $15.7 million since Oct. 10. The movie cost $70 million, Box Office Mojo estimates.
``The genre of political films definitely has a limited audience,'' said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers in Encino, California. ``It's not like a sci-fi movie or a comic-book movie. It's like a history lesson.''
Character Study
In ``W.,'' Brolin said he and Stone sought to present an even-handed character study of Bush and the motivations for his political rise.
``It's a sad account of a guy who probably shouldn't have been elected president of the United States, and probably would be happier if he had not,'' Brolin said.
The president's job approval rating of 23 percent is 1 point above the 70-year low set by Harry Truman in early 1952, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll published Oct. 13.
Asked for a comment on the movie, White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said, ``Oliver Stone is an accurate historian like Gilligan was an accurate navigator.''
Brolin said he didn't discuss the project with Barbra Streisand, the Democratic Party activist and outspoken Bush critic who is married to the actor's father, James, until after ``W.'' was finished filming. James Brolin, 68, played Ronald Reagan in a 2003 TV movie.
Haunted President
``W.'' starts with Bush's days as a hard-partying college student and ends with him struggling to understand the complexities of a war he cannot end.
The film shows him, as president, haunted by his father's decision to stay out of Iraq during the 1990 Gulf War and influenced by Vice President Dick Cheney's goal to establish a U.S. base in the Mideast for oil production. The movie also covers the younger Bush's conversion to Christianity.
Big studios didn't want to fund or distribute a film about a sitting president coming out before the election, ``W.'' producer Bill Block said in an interview.
Block said he limited Lions Gate's risk by arranging funding for both production and marketing. He borrowed about $20 million against foreign distribution rights and added equity and tax breaks to reach the $30 million production budget.
Sydney-based Omnilab Media financed the $30 million in distribution costs. Lions Gate will collect a fee from box- office sales for distributing the movie.
