Hollywood endures summertime blues
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The lucrative summer moviegoing season in North America ended on a lackluster note on Monday as ticket sales limped to a new record while attendance slumped to a three-year low.
The Labour Day holiday weekend, which marks the traditional end of summer, was led for a third round by "Tropic Thunder." Ben Stiller's Hollywood satire earned an estimated $14.3 million during the four-day period. It marks the lowest tally for a Labor Day holiday chart-topper since 2004, when the martial-arts film "Hero" opened to $11.5 million.
The DreamWorks/Paramount comedy, which Stiller directed and stars in alongside Robert Downey, Jr., has earned about $86.6 million to date. Four new entries were largely ignored, with 20th Century Fox's Vin Diesel sci-fi picture "Babylon A.D." coming in at No. 2 with just $12 million.
The overall picture for summer was not particularly shiny, with a 4 percent rise in the average U.S. ticket price to $7.16 saving the day for the movie industry.
Estimated sales inched up 0.43 percent from last year's record to $4.2 billion, while the number of tickets sold slid 3.5 percent to 586.9 million, according to tracking firm Media By Numbers. The previous low for attendance was in 2005, when 563 million tickets were sold.
BATMAN TO THE RESCUE
All this despite the massive success of "The Dark Knight," which has grossed almost $505 million to date across the United States and Canada. Warner Bros. Pictures' Batman sequel ranks as the second-biggest movie in history behind "Titanic" (before adjusting for inflation).
The 18-week summer span generally accounts for about 40 percent of annual ticket sales, and studios take advantage of school holidays to churn out big-budget sequels and superhero sagas aimed at Hollywood's sweet spot of male youngsters.
While the summer got off to a good start with the Paramount Pictures-distributed pair of "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," which both earned more than $300 million, overall sales have now fallen for six weekends in a row.
The Olympics and recessionary fears, not to mention such distractions as Hurricane Gustav and the political conventions, have hurt business, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers.
"People are becoming a bit more selective," he said. No one would dare miss the big-buzz movies, but they may be inclined to wait for lesser releases to come out on DVD, he added.
Year-to-date data present a bleaker picture. Ticket sales are off almost 1 percent to $6.6 billion, and attendance is down 4.7 percent, said Media By Numbers.
Among the summer duds were Warner Bros.' $120 million family adventure "Speed Racer" and virtually everything released by Fox, including "Space Chimps," "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" and the Eddie Murphy comedy "Meet Dave."
An official at the News Corp unit said its summer was "very disappointing," but added that all studios go through rough patches.
The Labor Day holiday also presages a relatively quiet few months during which the studios dump unpromising product so that they can then shift their focus to prestige pictures they hope will generate awards-season buzz.
They got an early start on the first part of the strategy with "Babylon A.D.," Overture Films' Don Cheadle thriller "Traitor" (No. 5, $10 million), and a pair of comedies: Lionsgate's "Disaster Movie" (No. 7, $6.9 million) and MGM/Weinstein Co's "College" (No. 15, $2.6 million).
Additionally, Focus Features' costly Sundance Film Festival acquisition "Hamlet 2" opened nationally, a weekend after debuting in two theaters. The Steve Coogan comedy earned $2.1 million, taking its total to $3.1 million. The General Electric Co unit reportedly paid $10 million for rights to the film, just shy of the Sundance record of $10.5 million paid in 2006 for "Little Miss Sunshine" by News Corp's Fox Searchlight.
New Orleans celeb faction quiet as Gustav sputters
When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans three years ago, celebrities reacted with a mix of grief, outrage and generosity. All-star telethons raised millions for storm victims, Kanye West and others derided the government's response — even Sean Penn went to the region to personally assist in rescue efforts.
Many celebrities who live in or hail from the area, from John Goodman to Brett Favre, took a deep and personal interest in helping relief efforts. Ellen DeGeneres, a New Orleans native whose elderly aunt, cousins and friends had their Gulf Coast homes destroyed, taped an episode of her show dedicated to the devastation.
With Hurricane Gustav only delivering a glancing blow to the region at Category 2 strength instead of the wallop that was predicated, it was still unclear Monday what the celebrity response would be in its wake. Though Gustav was still battering the area with rain and high winds on Monday night, there was no damage or deaths on the scale of Katrina.
Jerry Lewis' annual Labor Day telethon raised a record $65 million for the Muscular Dystrophy Association — but also made a pitch for those inconvenienced by Hurricane Gustav. This year's 22-hour telethon added a special plea for MDA-registered families forced to leave their homes because of the hurricane.
Efforts to reach stars from the area, such as rapper Lil Wayne, jazz star and actor Harry Connick Jr. and jazz great Wynton Marsalis — were unsuccessful on Monday, when most offices were closed due to the Labor Day holiday.
Representatives for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who lived in New Orleans for about a year after Katrina struck, also did not return messages. The couple and their famously expanding brood stayed in the city while Pitt was filming "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" last and were active in raising funds and other projects to rebuild the city.
West famously chastised President Bush during a national telethon to raise funds after Katrina struck by saying, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." But on his blog today, his postings centered around new music from Lupe Fiasco and a new style of watch rather than Gustav.
Michael J. Fox always a Canadian at heart as he returns home for Walk of Fame
TORONTO - Michael J. Fox may have become a U.S. citizen a few years back, but when it came to the recent Beijing Olympics, the Edmonton-born actor was cheering for the Canucks all the way.
"In my heart, I'm a Canadian, I'll always be a Canadian," he said in a recent telephone interview from Long Island, New York.
"That was really evident the last couple of weeks watching the Olympics. Someone diving off a platform, if they had a Maple Leaf on them, I was all for them."
Fox's Canadian ties will be on full display this weekend when he is officially inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. The honour was initially announced in 2000 but Fox was not on hand for the ceremony.
"I'm most blown away by the company I'm in. It's really cool. Steve Nash, kd lang, Bryan Adams," he said, referring to fellow honorees.
"It's just really exciting to kind of know that even though I don't live in Canada anymore that it's still my home and people still think of me as one of them."
People also still think of him, of course, as young Republican Alex P. Keaton from the '80s TV smash "Family Ties" and as Marty McFly, the time-travelling teen from the "Back to the Future" movies.
Although Fox also appeared on the popular TV comedy "Spin City" and in films including "Doc Hollywood," "The Secret of My Success" and "Casualties of War," he says people most remember him for his iconic teen roles.
"I am amazed when people with teenaged kids come up and tell you that they grew up watching you, you kind of check your watch and go, 'oh yeah, I'm old,"' said Fox, 47.
"(Family Ties) was so 'of its time,' that when people think of it, they don't just think of the show or the actors, they think of the time, they think of where they were, they think of what that period of their lives was. There's a lot of emotion and memory mixed together with it."
"Family Ties" also became the place where Fox met his wife of 20 years, Tracy Pollan, who played Alex's girlfriend Ellen. The characters' theme song was "At This Moment," which became a hit for Billy Vera and the Beaters, a band Fox knew from the L.A. club scene.
The actor was glad the tune found an audience, but says it followed he and Pollan around for years.
"People would always play it, whenever we came into a room or something," he said. "When you'd go to a wedding or something, people would throw it on and we'd kind of go 'Oh, god, here's the song again."
In recent years, Fox has taken on a very different role. He's become a high-profile advocate for stem cell research and a spokesman for Parkinson's disease.
He was diagnosed with the condition in 1991, but did not make his illness public until seven years later. In 2000, he set up the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which has funded $126 million in research.
Despite the tremors that accompany Parkinson's, the actor says he's feeling "great" and has been playing tennis and golf this summer.
In October, he's set to guest star on "Rescue Me," the dark firehouse drama that stars his hockey buddy Denis Leary.
"Denis is a good friend of mine," said Fox. "I love the show, I love Denis and I love his edge and he had a great idea or a character and ran it by me and I thought: 'Cool, that would be a fun thing to do'."
Fox will play the boyfriend of the ex-wife of Leary's character, Tommy Gavin.
For now, however, the actor is focused on the Walk of Fame - and on back-to-school activities.
He and Pollan have four children - Fox proudly mentions that his son is entering college, while his daughter is going into first grade and his twin girls are headed to junior high.
He says they get up to Canada at least once a year and cherish the visits to their father's homeland.
"My kids love Canada," said Fox. "They always talk about the Canadian relatives as the funny relatives, the laughing relatives."
Other stars to be honoured at the Walk of Fame ceremonies this Saturday include comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall, model Daria Werbowy, filmmaker James Cameron and actress Frances Bay.
Carla Bruni scheduled to jam with McCartney, Metallica on BBC show
France's first lady, is expected to jam on British television with Paul McCartney and Metallica.
Former supermodel Carla Bruni, who married French President Nicolas Sarkozy in February, is slated to appear on BBC's Later … With Jools Holland on September 16th.
In July, Bruni released her latest album, Comme si de Rien N'était (As If Nothing Happened), which raised a few eyebrows with its risqué lyrics concerning her paramour, Sarkozy.
As she sings in Ta Tienne (Yours): "You are my lord, you're my darling, you're my orgy … my charming Prince I am yours … I who always sought fire, am burning for you like a pagan woman."
And in My Drug, she croons that her lover is her drug, "more deadly than Afghan heroin, more dangerous than Colombian white [powder]."
A BBC statement says Bruni, 40, will perform "a song or two from her recently released third album."
Sharing the spotlight will be heavy rockers Metallica, making their first appearance on the show in 12 years, who will play new songs from their ninth album, Death Magnetic.
Ex-Beatle McCartney will team up with record producer and bassist Martin Glover under the name The Fireman.
Tradition usually has Holland's guests jamming together after the opening credits.
Gustav slams La. coastline west of New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS - A weakened Hurricane Gustav crashed Monday into the flood-prone but nearly deserted coast of Louisiana, making landfall west of New Orleans as a Category 2 storm. Water was splashing over some floodwalls, but city officials were optimistic the levees protecting the city would hold.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Gustav hit just before 10 a.m. Monday near the community of Cocodrie, the heart of the state's fishing and oil industry. Forecasters once feared the storm would arrive as a devastating Category 4 with much more powerful winds.
The city's levee system has been only partially rebuilt since Hurricane Katrina struck three years ago. Wind-driven water was topping the Industrial Canal floodwall, but it had not breached.
"We are seeing some overtopping waves," said Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers' hurricane protection office. "We are cautiously optimistic and confident that we won't see catastrophic wall failure."
As a nervous nation watched to see if Gustav would deliver another Katrina-style hit on the partially rebuilt city, officials steadfastly insisted three years of planning and infrastructure upgrades had prepared them for whatever was to come.
For all their seeming similarities, Hurricanes Gustav and Katrina were different in one critical respect: Katrina smashed the Gulf Coast with an epic storm surge that topped 27 feet, a far higher wall of water than Gustav hauled ashore.
"We don't expect the loss of life, certainly, that we saw in Katrina," Federal Emergency Management Agency Deputy Director Harvey E. Johnson told The Associated Press. "But we are expecting a lot of homes to be damaged, a lot of infrastructure to be flooded, and damaged severely."
Gusts snapped large branches from the majestic oak trees that form a canopy over St. Charles Avenue. Tens of thousands were without power in New Orleans and other low-lying parishes, but officials said backup generators were keeping city drainage pumps in service. Nearly 2 million had evacuated the coast, and only a few holdouts and those that refused to abandon Bourbon Street remained.
Katrina was a bigger storm when it made landfall in August 2005, and it made a direct hit on the Mississippi coast. Gustav skirted along Louisiana's shoreline at "a more gentle angle," said National Weather Service storm surge specialist Will Shaffer.
Initial reports indicated storm surge from Gust of about 8 feet above normal tides, but forecasts indicated up to 14 feet in surge was possible.