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   'Spy Kids' sneak in for box office win

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Rhune
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'Spy Kids' sneak in for box office win
« on: Jul 27^th, 2003, 11:36pm »

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'Spy Kids' sneak in for box office win
3D film bests two high-profile releases
Sunday, July 27, 2003 Posted: 5:13 PM EDT (2113 GMT)

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- "Spy Kids 3D: Game Over" beat "Lara Croft Tomb Raiders: The Cradle of Life" in a weekend box office derby that pitted the two sequels against each other and the potentially Oscar-bound "Seabiscuit."

According to studio estimates released Sunday, "Spy Kids," the final case of the sleuthing Cortez family, raked in $32.5 million in North American ticket sales in the three days beginning July 25.

The three-film franchise has generated $230.8 million since 2001 for Dimension Films, a division of Miramax Films. In the latest saga, the two Cortez kids travel inside a 3-D video game to capture a world-destroying villain played by Sylvester Stallone.

Miramax co-chairman Bob Weinstein credited the new sequel's strong finish in a summer movie season that has been rough on sequels to goodwill earned by the first two films.

"When you get the franchise right and (audiences) have such an enjoyable experience, you build a brand name," Weinstein told Reuters. "The 3-D was something fresh. Parents hadn't seen that in a long time and wanted to turn their kids on to it."

Walt Disney Co.'s. "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," a swashbuckling adventure starring Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, hung onto the No. 2 slot with $22.4 million. Last weekend's winner, "Bad Boys II," Martin Lawrence's action-packed buddy comedy, fell to third with $22 million in its second weekend in release by Sony Pictures.

Paramount Pictures' "Lara Croft Tomb Raider" opened in fourth place with $21.7 million, well below the $47 million debut of the 2001 film that introduced moviegoers to the voluptuous British archeologist made popular in video games.

Wayne Lewellen, Paramount's president of distribution, said stiff box office competition and weaker sales of the new Lara Croft video game may have eroded the film's core fan base.

"We didn't anticipate that the competition level would be quite where it's at." Lewellen said. "This is the first time ever that we've had five movies gross over $20 million on a three-day weekend."

Fifth-place finisher, "Seabiscuit," took in $21.5 million in the most limited release of the weekend's top 10 films, fewer than 2,000 theaters.

The film's distributors at Universal Pictures hope to sustain demand for the true story of a 1930s-era misfit racehorse and the men who made him a champion in theaters through fall to heighten its chances of winning Oscar gold.

A Universal spokesman said exit polling showed "Seabiscuit" was on track to enjoy strong word of mouth recommendation.

Over the weekend, moviegoers shelled out $145.6 million on the top-grossing 12 films, a nearly 10 percent increase over last year's box office totals, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. of Encino, California.

Sony Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp. and Miramax is a unit of Walt Disney Co. Universal Pictures is a unit of Vivendi Universal SA.

Paramount Pictures is a unit of Viacom Inc.

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Rhune
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Re: 'Spy Kids' sneak in for box office win
« Reply #1 on: Jul 27^th, 2003, 11:38pm »

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'Spy Kids' revives 3-D flicks
Sunday, July 27, 2003 Posted: 5:25 PM EDT (2125 GMT)

SPICEWOOD, Texas (AP) -- Time to put on your cardboard glasses with the red-and-blue cellophane and dodge images leaping off the theater screen.

Three-dimensional movies are comin' at ya again, with the latest "Spy Kids" flick the first wide-release fictional film in two decades to debut in 3-D.

On the heels of "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over," James Cameron plans to shoot his next fictional film using the digital-video 3-D system he developed for his recent Titanic documentary "Ghosts of the Abyss."

Dismissed as an eye-straining, headache-inducing fad during its brief incarnation in the early 1950s and short-lived revival in the 1980s, 3-D film has gained new respect in the last decade.

Huge-screen IMAX theaters have greatly elevated the quality of the images and scored hits with such 3-D movies as "Space Station" and "T-Rex." Attractions such as Universal's new "Shrek" adventure have made 3-D a staple at theme parks.

As long as special glasses are required to watch it, 3-D may never become common in mainstream movies. But if successful, the new "Spy Kids" movie and Cameron's upcoming project might encourage more filmmakers to think about shooting in three dimensions.

"Myself being a big kid, I know kids would just be thrilled to go to a theater and be able to see a narrative film in 3-D," Robert Rodriguez, writer-director of the "Spy Kids" franchise, said in an interview at his home outside Austin, Texas, where he shot "Spy Kids 3-D."

"I've been to the theme-park rides where they show stuff in 3-D, and those are only like 10 minutes long, but everyone's screaming and having a blast."

Cameron's "Ghosts of the Abyss," chronicling his return voyage to the shipwreck after he created the blockbuster "Titanic," used 3-D images to create a vivid portrait of the decaying vessel.

Unlike bulky 3-D film cameras, Cameron's digital-video setup was small enough to bring aboard the mini-subs he used to dive to the Titanic.

The film also incorporated 3-D recreations of the tragedy using actors whose ghostly images Cameron superimposed, like figures in an artist's diorama, over his 3-D footage of the wreck.

"Ironically, we didn't have the budget to build a set of the ship, so we just used the ship itself," Cameron said.

'Things are hopping out at you'

Nancy Hazelette, 5, looks to see if her 3-D glasses have any effect on the candy she purchased.
"Spy Kids" creator Rodriguez had been planning to develop his own 3-D system for the new sequel when he happened to see early footage of "Ghosts of the Abyss." Rodriguez leased Cameron's digital-video setup and designed a monitoring system so he could keep tabs on the 3-D footage as he shot.

The movie sends the franchise's child stars, Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara, inside an elaborate video game created by a villain called the Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone) in a plot to enslave the world's youth.

The spy kids and their allies inside the game race on giant unicycles, battle with light-sticks on floating platforms, surf a sea of lava and dodge huge toads on Pogo-sticks. Most of the movie is in 3-D, with characters and objects popping off the screen.

"It just pulls the audience into the movie," said Vega, who had never seen a 3-D film until the "Spy Kids 3" premiere this month. "Things are hopping out at you and flying all over the place."

Miramax Films, whose Dimension banner releases the "Spy Kids" movies, is putting the 3-D sequel into 3,500 theaters, banking that audience fondness for the first two movies will overcome any stigma viewers may have from the earlier days of 3-D.

"I think people loved 3-D as a gimmick, but Robert has taken it to the next level. He told me he wasn't going to use it as a gimmick, but make it integral to the story," said Miramax co-founder Bob Weinstein. "He's using it as George Lucas would use the latest technology in special effects in a 'Star Wars' movie. The movie's still got to work as a movie."

Kids love it
They were like, 'Thanks, I have a free toy.'
-- Miramax co-founder Bob Weinstein on kids' reactions to 3-D movies

Handing cellophane glasses to young viewers who may never have seen a 3-D movie before is an added attraction, Weinstein said. At the "Spy Kids 3-D" premiere, children in the audience kept the glasses on even during parts of the movie that were not in 3-D, he said.

"They were like, 'Thanks,"' Weinstein said, "'I have a free toy."'

In 1952, "Bwana Devil" kicked off 3-D mania, but the craze came and went quickly as Hollywood grasped at gimmicks to lure people back into theaters after television began eroding the movie audience.

Three-dimensional images are shot using side-by-side cameras, one capturing pictures for the left eye, the other for the right. Films are shown using either two projectors or through a single projector with the two images overlaid and slightly offset. The 3-D glasses trick the brain into registering them as a single image.

In the 1950s, viewers complained of headaches and eyestrain from watching 3-D movies. And while some quality films came out in 3-D versions, including "House of Wax," "Kiss Me Kate" and Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder," many were mediocre movies that used 3-D as a prop.

Ultimately, studios settled on CinemaScope and other widescreen formats to differentiate movies from TV. The 3-D format faded, returning briefly in the early 1980s as studios milked franchises with 3-D sequels for "Jaws," "The Amityville Horror" and "Friday the 13th."

New technology and better projection have largely eliminated complaints of eyestrain and headaches.

But today's audiences are more discriminating and will not rush out to see a movie just for 3-D images. The extra dimension has to enrich the on-screen narrative.

"In the early 1990s, one of the concerns I had was would the public just view it as a novelty?" said Brad Wechsler, co-chairman of IMAX, whose upcoming 3-D projects include films on NASCAR racing, hurricanes and one on moon exploration narrated by Tom Hanks.

"But when you make 3-D immersive and involving, as opposed to gimmicky, this is something the public, at least with the IMAX world, really wants to see."

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