Hey, it's the 4th of July weekend coming up, one of the largest box office weekends of the year. With the 4th falling on a Sunday, and two of this weeks three releases coming out on Wednesday, we've got the makings of a huge B.O. weekend ahead of us. As I understand it, this weekend's multiplier will be as follows: Wed. + Thurs. + (Fri. - Mon.)*2.5. This will apply to both WWLST and SOUTH. SUSAM will be just (Fri. - Mon.)*2.5. Let's take a look at previous July 4th openers:

So, you can see that there's definitely plenty of money to be made on this weekend. Even with two releases in 1996, both movies did very well. I'm going to address each movie individually. But first let's have a joint.

Summer of Sam (SUSAM)

A Spike Lee (SLEE) joint that is(obligatory beatnik pot joke). Spike kinda fits into a category all his own. Summer of Sam is a story about an Italian-American section of the Bronx and that neighborhood's reaction to the Son of Sam serial killings of 1977. It stars Mira Sorvino (MSORV) and John Leguizamo (JLEGU). Spike has received critical acclaim for over 10 years but has yet to produce a movie with any kind of box office success. Let's take a look at his four largest grosses:

Not too impressive eh? Malcolm X and He Got Game were helped by the star power of Denzel Washington. Mira Sorvino cannot provide this luxury. Bio pics like 'X' also receive a boost from their subject matter. None of these things bode well for SUSAM which is currently priced at $29.31. What SUSAM does have going for it is a true summer season release date, and a four day holiday weekend. SUSAM needs a four day B.O. of 11.73 million to cover its current price. That's only 2.9 mil per day. That's pretty close to He Got Game's 2.54 mil per day, non-holiday, opening weekends average. I think this decision hinges on screen counts. If Spike can get 1800+ screens SUSAM might get a 40 adjust. 1200-1500 screens and worst case you're probably looking at a push. I can't see this one doing less than 10 mil (25.0 adjust). So at its current price I think it's a pretty safe long. Assuming 1500+ screens, I predict 14 mil (35 adjust). You're not going to get rich but I don't see ya getting killed either.(pun intended)

South Park (SOUTH) - Bigger, Longer and Uncut

Trey Parker(TPARK) and Matt Stone take their censorship stretching cartoon to the Big screen. Ya got to love these guys. They wanted to call the movie 'South Park - All Hell Breaks Loose', but the studio wouldn't let them use the word Hell in the title, so they slip a penis joke buy the studio execs. Instead. Now I'm not a big South Park fan, I've only seen it a couple of times. I think it's funny, but for me watching kids cuss for a half hour every week gets old pretty fast. But I've got to tell ya I'm definitely going to see this movie. The trailers look funny, but this movie almost got an NC-17 rating, for a frickin' cartoon. I've got to see what the creator's of Chef's salty chocolate balls(this on TV mind you) are going to get away with in an 'R' rated format. All that aside, this is a very tough movie to predict. There are very few cult comedy cable TV shows turned into movies. Obviously 'Beavis and Butthead Do America' is the best comparison, but let's also look at X-Files and Rugrats as well. As far as Parker/Stone movies, I don't think that Orgazmo(1997), Cannibal!- The Musical(1996) or BASEketball(1998) offer anything for comparison. So let's look at the other three:

The X-Files and The Rugrats are not real good comparison's so I don't really know what their number's mean to this investigation. But I think that 'Beavis and Butthead' gives a near perfect indication of SOUTH's potential. B&B was a PG-13 while SOUTH is an R, but I think that SOUTH appeals to a more adult audience anyway. B&B averaged 6.7 mil over its opening weekend. Let's be a little pessimistic and assume SOUTH can do 5 mil a day over its opening weekend. That's 30 mil - 60 adjust. Cartman says Buy.

Wild Wild West (WLWST)

Robert Conrad's classic TV show hits the big screen. I loved this TV show, and from the trailers, this movie is going to be nothing like the show I watched. But, Will Smith plus July 4th weekend equals B.O. gold, just see M.I.B. and ID4 above. They both adjusted over 160, and I don't see anything here to change this trend. In fact West not only gets the Wed. + Thurs. boost enjoyed by M.I.B. and ID4, it also gets a holiday Monday, that neither M.I.B. nor ID4 got. This movie is just going to be big, period, end of story, I don't even want to talk about the quality of the film, 'cause it ain't gonna matter. Just see ID4 above, here's a movie that's success points to all that's wrong with America, Nationalistic, redneck, plot don't matter yahoos with shitty special effects. And that pile of crap adjusted to 223.11. End of Rant. Here's what I think WLWST will do. Wed. - Thurs. (30 mil), Fri. - Mon. (48 mil) = 78 mil opening - 150 adjust. These numbers based on 15mil each of the first two days and 12 mil the next four. BDADY did 14.5 its first day. Put it in the bank. 150 is a big time minimum.

With BDADY's ~120 adjust we have still yet to have a summer weekend where my expectations were not exceeded. Just somtin' else to think about. I'll be talkin' atcha.