Movie Audiences

Agripping documentary about performance-enhancing drugs, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster " has everything going for it: Some of the year's best reviews, a highly topical subject, a film festival pedigree and winsome filmmakers willing to tour the country to drum up interest. There's only one thing missing: moviegoers. Critically acclaimed films about provocative subjects struggle to make money all the time, but rarely have so many lauded documentaries consistently failed to connect at the box office.

The stakes in the industry's most competitive moviegoing season are high for all Hollywood studios, which spend heavily to sell their big-budget popcorn titles around the world. This summer, the risks are particularly steep for Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. studio, which has hundreds of millions of dollars riding on three major releases: “Speed Racer,” the Batman sequel “The Dark Knight” and “Get Smart,” a big-screen adaptation of the 1960s sitcom.

Call it a box-office battle of the sexes. Paramount Pictures' "Cloverfield," a monster movie described as "The Blair Witch Project" meets "Godzilla," and 20th Century Fox's "27 Dresses," a romantic comedy with Katherine Heigl, open today with dead aim on audiences as different as Mars and Venus. Conventional wisdom has the cleverly marketed "Cloverfield," a $25-million budget flick from "Lost" producer J.J. Abrams, plundering box-office records like its on-screen monster wrecking Manhattan.

This weekend's box-office scramble looks like a photo finish between three feel-good comedies targeted at different audiences. "Juno" is indie. "First Sunday" is urban. And "The Bucket List" is AARP. With Hollywood executives expecting each movie to rake in about $15 million, the sprint for No. 1 will be determined by which film appeals furthest beyond its core constituency. Warner Bros.'

Moviegoers were paying more in 2007, but that doesn't mean they were going more often. Box-office revenue in the U.S. and Canada climbed 4% to $9.7 billion, the second straight year of higher receipts after dismal results in 2005. But the rise came entirely from costlier ticket prices. Attendance was flat, according to research firm Media by Numbers. Moviegoers bought 1.

Sharing a movie, hearing the sound of laughter or sobs in a theater as well as seeing and sensing the reactions of others enhance the enjoyment of the movie for everyone, researchers have found. In two studies reported in the December issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, 57 volunteers in one, 40 in the other, watched a video clip.

Given a choice between Iraq and fairyland, it's clear where moviegoers would prefer to spend time. Despite the glut of politically themed movies on offer this season, audiences have embraced frothier fare: "The Golden Compass," set in a parallel universe inhabited by comely witches and talking animals; fluffy musical romance "Enchanted," which brings classic Disneyana to modern-day New York; and the dark animated adventure "Beowulf," rife with decaying monsters and burnished gold dragons.

This is the first of a new weekly feature that will project the weekend box-office performance and analyze marketing campaigns for movies opening and returning in theaters. -- With the only major release hitting theaters this week, the backers of the medical thriller "Awake" hope to catch the competition napping. It's been six months since a wide release had a weekend to itself, when that friendly beast "Shrek the Third" frightened off any challengers.