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Box Office: 'Bad' behavior good for buzz

Jun 27, 2005, 10:28 AM | by Gary Susman

Categories: Film

141922__herbie_lThe weekend's box office was a test of the idea that (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde) the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. The second-week victory for Batman Begins, the $20 million-plus opening for Bewitched despite less-than-magical reviews, the $18 million out of the starting gate for Herbie: Fully Loaded (which stars tabloid fixture Lindsay Lohan, left), and the $125 million earned in three weekends by Mr. & Mrs. Smith -- all of these indicate that there's no downside at the box office to negative gossip about the stars. So says an analysis by the New York Times. I'd say the Times is overstating the case; did anyone really think of Batman Begins as a Katie Holmes movie? Still, it seems moviegoers have no trouble separating gossip about the stars from hype about the movie. We'll know for certain after War of the Worlds opens this week, but I predict that the boycott anticipated by some PopWatch readers who are nauseated by Cruise's public pronouncements won't materialize.

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Aida Tue, Jun 28, 2005 at 12:06 PM EST

there was defenite chemistry between mrs and mr smith!

Mediagrrl Mon, Jun 27, 2005 at 01:43 PM EST

In Hollywood terms, gossip about the stars is only good if it helps to hype the movie (how many moviegoers flocked to Mr. & Mrs. Smith to see if there was evidence of Brangelina heat on screen?).

The opposite is true of the gossip about increasingly unhinged Tom Cruise. Warner execs reportedly wanted to take out a hit on Cruise when he trumped their Batman Returns premiere buzz with that 4-hour TomKat PDA-fest, but ultimately Cruise is Paramount's long-term problem, not theirs.

Paramount is the studio that signed off on Cruise's $30-million-plus off the top of War of the Worlds grosses and allowed him to set up a Scientology tent on set. Someone at Paramount should have stopped him then. Now it's up to moviegoers, nauseated from two months of non-stop unfettered Cruise prosthelyzing, to register their disapproval to Paramount by boycotting his films.

Paramount execs must realize that most of the audience at War of the Worlds this week will be there because it's a Spielberg film and IN SPITE of their marquee star.

Pity that Paramount signed off on MI-3 last month. Crusie is probably untouchable until it tanks next summer. Poor JJ. If Spielberg couldn't stop a Scientology tent, what hope does JJ have on the MI-3 set.

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