DAD faces a crammed holiday season box office

09-Aug-2002 • Die Another Day

Variety are reporting on the amazingly tight release calendar during November and December 2002:

Unless you are releasing a mega-budget tentpole, this November and December is shaping up as the holiday season from hell.

Big films, including a record 10 sequels and remakes, bulge the release schedule nearly every weekend between Nov. 1 and Dec. 27, punctuated by a 13-picture year-end traffic jam of films with Oscar pretensions.

The four biggest sequels stand astride the road to Christmas like cinematic colossi - the second "Harry Potter (Nov. 15), the 20th James Bond (Nov. 22), the 10th "Star Trek" (Dec. 13) and the second "Lord of the Rings" (Dec. 20). Other follow-ups include "Santa Clause 2," "Analyze That," "Friday After Next" and "Shanghai Knights." Updates of "Solaris" and "I Spy" are due in November.

"There`s really nowhere you can put a film with nobody around," said MGM domestic distribution president Erik Lomis, who at least has the Bond picture "Die Another Day" to puff up his studio`s prospects.

"You used to be able to find a good weekend. Today, you find the best weekend available."

So Bond and even the sequels to "Potter" and "Rings," two of history`s five highest-grossing films, have opening-week competition, as other studios counterprogram to snag some corner of the moviegoing public.

Thus, the latest Bond installment "Die Another Day" is calendared against urban sequel "Friday After Next"; "Potter" must disconnect actioners "Phone Booth" and "Half Past Dead"; and "Rings" has to tune out kid toon "The Wild Thornberries" while summarily firing "Two Weeks Notice," a romantic comedy with Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant.