The reason? The same old reason that comes up every time the motion-picture biz hits one of these revenue ditches: bad movies. Tank Girl, with Lori Petty in the title role, was a loud and grungy niche picture aimed at the MTV crowd and fans of the British comic book on which it was based. Obviously, there weren't enough fans. It cost $35 million to make, and, in three weeks of release, has earned only one-tenth of that in ticket sales. Bye Bye, Love, starring Matthew Modine, Randy Quaid and Paul Reiser, was a sitcom stretched to feature-length - complete with its own built-in McDonald's commercial. And Born to Be Wild was a movie about a boy and his gorilla. Need we say more?
There have been a few bright spots: Circle of Friends, an Irish coming-of- age tale with Yankee Chris O'Donnell lending a little marquee cachet, has topped $10 million and is slowly expanding to more screens. And Rob Roy, which debuted last weekend on just 133 screens, pulled in $2 million - and the highest per-screen average ($15,213) of any film currently in release. If the Liam Neeson-Jessica Lange highland fling can sustain those kinds of numbers as it moves into more multiplexes, distributor United Artists could redeem some of those heavy losses incurred by its Tank Girl.
And in just a few weeks, the big guns of summer will be fired. Crimson Tide (the submarine suspenser with Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington and an uncredited Quentin Tarantino rewrite); Die Hard: With a Vengeance (Bruce Willis saves New York); Casper (Christina Ricci and some reportedly spectacular spectral effects); and Braveheart (Mel Gibson goes on a kilt-trip) are all set for May releases.
