Missing link

It is oftentimes amusing to see non-entertainment news people attempt to comment on the goings-on of Hollywood. There is a rather decent divide between Tinseltown and Capitol Hill, with Gotham seemingly being the only link between the two. It was one thing when the seven major studios tapped LBJ's right-hand man, Jack Valenti, to run the MPAA – a bridge of sorts was built. But it has long since been burned.

And so I am quite tickled to see Matt Drudge speculating that King Kong is going to break Titanic's box office records. A few screening reports and “buzz” are not nearly enough to make an assertion like this.

I spent roughly five years on the entertainment beat before moving over into the political realm full-time. And if there was one thing I learned between countless press screenings, a subscription to Variety and my membership in a film critics' society, it was that box office numbers are only predictable to a certain end. Especially between Memorial Day and Christmas.

Marketing can buy you a number one box office opening most weeks out of the year – enough TV time, fast food tie-ins and well-placed newspaper ads will create a phony word of mouth campaign for a film's opening frame. But after that, it is the critics and viewers who take over. It doesn't matter how epic King Kong may be, how many spots the film's studio may buy on prime time shows or even how big the ape on your French Fries may be – if your neighbor tells you the film was three hours of malarkey he wants back, odds are you won't be dropping $7.50 on a ticket.

More specifically, though, Titanic was a unique event – the perfect box office storm in a way. Released in 1997, the film enjoyed one of the final pre-Internet frames. This was an era when the box office was still able to drive primary entertainment choices. It was a time when, just months later, There's Something About Mary managed to catapult itself from low standings on the gross charts to top box office status – an accomplishment that few films have ever been able to pull off. Today, there is even more competition, even fewer people lining up at the local theater and enough illegal downloaders and Netflix membership holders that much of cinema's primary audience is insisting on the privacy of their own home as opposed to the ringing cell phones and crying babies of movie theaters.

Maybe Mr. Drudge is right. Maybe King Kong will surprise us all. But if it does it will be just that, a surprise. Especially since you have to wonder how many people will be laying down cash for a movie so frequently re-made that they all know the darn ape is going to die at the end.

Then again, I suppose we all knew that the ship was going to sink.