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LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/front/20010617/t000050402.html
Sunday, June 17, 2001
Hit Status Elusive Target for 'Pearl Harbor'
Film: Disney's hopes for its own 'Titanic' have been sunk.
By CLAUDIA ELLER, RICHARD NATALE, Special to The Times
Before the Memorial Day weekend debut of "Pearl Harbor," an exuberant
Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner sent an internal e-mail to "fellow
cast members"--117,000 company employees worldwide.
"There are no sure things in the entertainment industry, but this
comes close," Eisner wrote. "It better, because I've already predicted
this in the annual report letter I wrote in December. And, I've been on
CNBC and CNN in the last two weeks proclaiming it a smash. I've been
telling anybody who would listen that this will be our biggest live-action
film ever."
Eisner went so far as to predict on CNBC that the World War II romance
epic would be the "biggest movie of the summer."
The Disney chief was wrong on both counts.
"Pearl Harbor," which has been sinking fast at the box office since
its May 25 opening, will not be the summer's highest-grossing movie. Its
domestic ticket sales of $153 million through Friday already have been
surpassed by DreamWorks' animated hit "Shrek" ($188 million) and
Universal's "The Mummy Returns" ($191 million). And other potential hits
loom this summer, including Steven Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial
Intelligence."
Nor will the movie rank as Disney's most successful live-action film.
That distinction is held by the 1999 supernatural thriller "The Sixth
Sense," which earned $660 million worldwide.
"Pearl Harbor" is by no means a box-office bomb, even though it is now
widely viewed within the industry as a disappointment. The bottom line,
Disney officials say, is that the film, which cost $140 million to produce
and nearly that much to market worldwide, will turn a profit.
Some industry experts suggest that is not a foregone conclusion, and
at least one Wall Street analyst predicted that the film will make only a
"modest profit."
The huge expectations surrounding "Pearl Harbor" demonstrate just how
treacherous and tricky the business of promoting movies can be. Studio
executives are acutely aware that there is no magic formula for delivering
hits that connect with a mass audience.
Indeed, Eisner got it right when he suggested there is no such thing
as a sure bet in Hollywood. As has been proved time and again,
blockbusters are determined by the moviegoing public, not marketing
departments.
After cranking up the hype machine for "Pearl Harbor," Disney
officials now are in full spin mode, trying to persuade the industry they
are "thrilled" with the results.
"Disney no doubt contributed to the overblown hype of the film, as
did analysts and the news media," said Paul Dergarabedian, whose Exhibitor
Relations Co. tracks box office. "It puts the studio in the awkward
position of having to defend a film that's going to do a couple hundred
million dollars. Most would kill to have [such] a film."
Disney clearly was counting on "Pearl Harbor" as a huge moneymaker.