'Be Cool' Set to Ice 'Pacifier' at Box Office
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The weekend box office will be a horse race between John Travolta in "Be Cool" and Vin Diesel in "The Pacifier."
With Travolta reliving his Chili Palmer character made famous in the 1995 hit "Get Shorty," the veteran film star seems to have the edge over Diesel's turn as a disgraced Navy SEAL assigned to protect a family. Also opening nationally Friday is "The Jacket," a horror film starring Adrien Brody and Keira Knightley.
With a huge publicity campaign highlighting the film's stars, including Uma Thurman, Danny DeVito, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Cedric the Entertainer, "Be Cool" should mark MGM's first No. 1 hit of the year. From director F. Gary Gray, the PG-13 film is skewing heavily toward men.
MGM also would like to be responsible for Travolta's biggest opener. The versatile actor has not been able to top the opening gross of his 1997 film "Face/Off," which reaped $23.4 million for Paramount. "Be Cool" should far exceed that mark, with studio insiders placing the opener in the high-$20 million range, enough to top existing champ "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," which opened with $22 million last weekend.
Disney will bow "The Pacifier," its second film from director Adam Shankman (2003's "Bringing Down the House").
"Pacifier" revisits the formula of Sony's "Man of the House," which got off to an inauspicious start last weekend with a three-day take of $9 million. In Diesel's rendition of tough-guy-thrown-into-unfamiliar-role, the actor best known for his extreme roles in "The Chronicles of Riddick" and "XXX" plays Shane Wolfe, a SEAL assigned to protect five children from enemies of their recently deceased father. The formula seemed to work for Sony's "Are We There Yet?" -- the Ice Cube starrer that has earned $76 million -- but less well for Tommy Lee Jones in "Man of the House." Insiders place the Diesel vehicle in the low-$20 million range, skewing heavily toward women and the family audience.
Warner Independent Pictures is betting heavily on "The Jacket," an R-rated thriller from Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney's production company Section 8. "The Jacket" premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival, and insiders put its opening gross in the $4 million-$5 million range. From British director John Maybury, "The Jacket" centers on Brody as an institutionalized Gulf War veteran who becomes convinced that he's traveling through time in search of his fated lover.
In limited release, Palm Pictures will unveil its documentary "Gunner Palace" in eight theaters in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington. Fresh from controversy over its ratings appeal, the PG-13 "Palace" might open to some significant numbers considering the extra publicity.
Miramax Films will bow two movies, "The Best of Youth" and "Dear Frankie," in an attempt to clean its slate as it engages in divorce proceedings with parent Disney. The six-hour Italian drama "Youth" opened Wednesday in New York in one theater. The Scottish drama "Dear Frankie" will bow in New York and Los Angeles on five screens.
Spielberg Eyeing Fresh Double-Date with Oscar
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The next Oscar season could carry a distinct whiff of deja vu. Just as he did in 1993, director Steven Spielberg will have two films that could well be in the running.
This week the whirling dervish of a director is expected to complete principal photography, shooting in Southern California locations, on "War of the Worlds," his adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel about a Martian invasion, that stars Tom Cruise.
The movie, a Paramount Pictures/DreamWorks co-production, will be released by Paramount on June 29 with every expectation that it will dominate the summer's Fourth of July weekend.
By then, Spielberg will be filming in Europe, working on a project about the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics, where Arab terrorists massacred 11 Israeli athletes. Although the film does not yet have a title, it has a release date -- Universal Pictures, which is co-producing with DreamWorks, has scheduled its bow for Dec. 23.
Back in 1993, Spielberg accomplished the same one-two punch -- releasing both a big summer entertainment and a serious end-of-the-year drama -- when "Jurassic Park" opened June 11 and "Schindler's List" arrived Dec. 15.
Between them, the two movies ensured the director an Academy Awards juggernaut. "Jurassic," whose computer-animated dinosaurs broke new visual effects ground at the time, was nominated in three categories -- visual effects and the two sound categories -- and won all three. "Schindler's List" was nominated in 12 categories and took home seven awards, including best picture and best director.
If Spielberg manages to release two movies, as promised this year, and if they meet with similar acclaim, he will have overcome even larger challenges than he met in 1993.
For history isn't repeating itself exactly. "Jurassic" began shooting early in the fall 1992, completing principal photography that December, which allowed for about six months of postproduction. "War of the Worlds" is facing less than four months of post. Acknowledges Spielberg's spokesman Marvin Levy, "This is probably the tightest film (schedulewise), in terms of really big effects, that Steven has ever done."
On the other hand, the overlap between "War" and the Munich project does not appear as onerous as that of "Jurassic" and "Schindler." In that case, Spielberg shot "Schindler" by day, and looked at edits, special effects and score on "Jurassic" by night. This time around, the director should be finished working on "War" before he begins shooting the Munich project in early summer. Notes Levy, "Steven will have finished one movie and so will be able to go into the other."
Of course, it also remains to be seen if the Munich project ultimately impresses the Academy as much as "Schindler" did. Few details on the picture, to which Eric Bana ("The Hulk") is attached, have been released. But with "Angels in America" playwright Tony Kushner doing a rewrite on the project, it promises to have the requisite moral seriousness.
And if there is one other omen that bodes well for the possibility of another Spielberg double-header it is that the Academy already has demonstrated its interest in movies about the 1972 Munich Olympics.
In 2001, Arthur Cohn and Kevin Macdonald's documentary account of those events, "One Day in September," was the surprise winner of the best documentary Oscar. And that at least sets up the possibility that next year, Spielberg could once again be fielding multiple Oscar nominations for two very different movies.
10 Years On, Alanis Unplugs 'Little Pill'
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - As she neared the 10th anniversary of her landmark album "Jagged Little Pill," Alanis Morissette began pondering how to commemorate the occasion.
She ultimately decided to do it all again. Together with the album's producer/co-writer, Glen Ballard, she is in the middle of recording an acoustic version of the career-defining set.
"It just sounded much more appealing than creating my own awards show," Morissette, 30, said with a laugh. "There's no better way to honor things than through music."
The as-yet-untitled album will come out on June 13 -- exactly 10 years to the day after the original release. It will initially be sold only at Starbucks' 4,500 North American outlets for a six-week exclusive period, after which it will hit traditional retail outlets on July 26.
The collection, which will feature the songs in their original order, will include previously unreleased video footage from that era plus different artwork.
In the decade since its release, "Jagged Little Pill" has sold 30 million copies across the globe, according to her label, Warner Music Group's Maverick Records. In the United States, it has sold 14.4 million units, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The album is the best-selling debut by a female artist and the 14th best-selling album ever in the United States, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. It also yielded four Grammys, including album of the year.
The album featured a number of hits, many of which are still in recurrent rotation on adult top 40 stations, including "You Oughta Know," "Hand in My Pocket," "You Learn," "Head Over Feet" and "Ironic."
But perhaps the biggest "irony" is that Morissette barely remembers the 18 months surrounding the project's peak period. "When the album came out, I feel like I immediately went into survival mode to keep the 'overwhelm' that comes from being famous at bay," she said. "Ten years later, I have the luxury of time and distance to formally honor it."
In fact, that era is so dazzling for Morissette, reality was unrecognizable. "The one vivid memory is of being in the van touring around America and I remember almost willing myself to get back to sleep, to get back to reality. Waking life was a little too overwhelming."
Morissette estimates that she's acoustically worked up 75% of the songs from "Jagged Little Pill" over the years in concert, but she still looks forward to what she can bring to them now.
"My voice has changed over the last 10 years in a way that I'm just loving," she said. "I have access to notes that I never had access to. Even if we were to do the songs arranged the same way as the original, the way I approach them emotionally is different and I bring 10 years of life experience to them."
Ballard stresses that the songs will definitely be recognizable, "they'll just express their DNA slightly differently." He added, "We're limiting our palate to more acoustic instruments, but there's a great wealth of instruments to try. I have a hurdy gurdy in there. It's fun to explore. My goal is, we make an album that's interesting so that even if someone had never heard the original, they'd still dig it."
Morissette will also tour acoustically behind the album, playing theaters in June and July. "We'll play the album from start to finish," she said, "although we'll probably play around some with the order. We'll also throw in some other songs from the last 10 years." But Morissette adds she is in no way saying goodbye to these songs: "I'll be playing them until I'm dead."
The acoustic project will be followed by a greatest-hits set with at least one new song due by Christmas.
Morissette, who inked a new deal with Maverick in 2001, says she's ready to start a new project. "I have four journals-full at this point and I usually start a new album after two journals-full," she said. "So I'm very pregnant with songs."