Box-Office Theory Sinks With 'Titanic'

It is the opening day of "Mulan" in a theater in Santa Monica. Mulan, the Chinese girl, has dressed as a man to take her father's place in the Imperial Army. After first failing basic training, she has come back and outperformed the men. As the sequence comes to its climax, a kid's voice in the row behind me says, "Coooool."

Which, of course, will ultimately help you understand why Hollywood was so irritated when "Deep Impact" grossed $41.2 million its first weekend a month before.

Some of the reasons for the irritation were obvious, but at least one was not, and it suggests the degree to which Hollywood, and those who write about it, are in deep denial about what may be one of the most significant changes taking place in the industry in 20 years.

First, the obvious reasons. Sony was irritated because if "Deep Impact" turned out to be the hit its opening suggested, it could affect Sony's summer biggie, "Godzilla," which opened a week and a half after "Impact." Disney was irritated because if "Impact" was a hit then it might cut into Disney's Touchstone comet-hits-the-Earth picture, "Armageddon." Plus, the industry as a whole had pretty much decided, based on the tracking polls done before "Deep Impact's" release, that the opening weekend's gross would be about $30 million, and it is always irritating when their "scientific" surveys go wrong.

To understand the less obvious reason, it is necessary to discuss--if you can stand to spend another five minutes reading about it--"Titanic." Leonard Klady, doing a summing-up of the winter box-office season in Weekly Variety (April 13-19), lists the reasons the industry had thought that it might not be a blockbuster: "Though anticipated as a top holiday grosser, its running time, period setting and lack of big stars had prognosticators citing a $200-million ceiling prior to opening."

What was he failing to mention? If you had your windows open that day last December when James Cameron said he had made a "$200-million chick flick," you could have heard Hollywood cringing. "Chick flicks" are not supposed to be blockbusters, and Hollywood was afraid Cameron was dooming his own film.