Week after week this summer, Hollywood's blockbuster movies have opened to the kind of eye-popping numbers that get breathlessly splashed across TV and newspaper reports.
Often exceeding $40 million, the numbers come packaged with the kind of arcane statistical records Hollywood compiles, such as: best Wednesday ever ("Jurassic Park III"), highest-grossing non-sequel ever ("Pearl Harbor"), best August opening ever ("Rush Hour 2") and second-best three-day total ever ("Planet of the Apes").
Then the movies seemingly disappear as the box office numbers abruptly plunge by half and audiences turn to next weekend's big film as easily as they flick the TV remote control.
It's called "front loading," a growing industry trend in which unprecedented proportions of a film's box office take are generated the first weekend, followed by a virtual free fall a week later. With Hollywood's summer movie season nearly over, 2001 has emerged as a watershed year for this trend, thanks to saturating marketing campaigns and a glut of huge theater complexes where fresh showings of a new blockbuster often come just half an hour apart.
For the first time, Hollywood's summer films, on average, lost half of their opening business within a single week, a previously unheard-of level. A decade ago, films saw their sales slide only about 35% by the second week.
"This seems to be a major phenomenon. It's like audiences are migrating each week from one blockbuster to another," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the Exhibitor Relations box office tracking firm, which compiled the sales figures.
Last weekend, the box office gross for "Planet of the Apes" fell 60% after the film's staggering $68.5-million debut just one week before. Earlier this summer "Jurassic Park III" dropped 56% after it reaped $50.8 million its first weekend. And "The Mummy Returns" saw its take cut in half one weekend after it sold $68.1 million in tickets in its debut.
The instant box office phenomenon doesn't mean Hollywood's overall take is suffering, especially because grosses have been boosted by higher ticket prices. Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. distribution chief, predicts that the $2.7-billion summer record set in 1999 will soon fall.
The big difference this year: "People have got to see the movie the first weekend they can. After that, the frenzy is over," Fellman said.
