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Show Utah Statesman Special Features: Is your instrument gathering dust? ...Then bring it and yourself to the first meeting of the 'Snakes on a Plane' is deganged at box office B Y PAUL FARHI The Washington Post "Snakes on a Plane," a film title that became an inescapable pop-culture punch line, appears to have become an entirely missable film. After months of Internet and mainstream-media hype, the movie opened tepidly this past weekend, grossing $15.3 million at North American theaters. That made it the first or second highest-grossing film in theaters (depending on whether you count its take from late-night previews Thursday), but it was well short of prerelease forecasts that had pegged its opening weekend take at twice what it made. The modest returns prompt a question: Just what was all the noise about, anyway? The buzz on "Snakes" began last August and took off with parody films, trailers, songs, T-shirts and graphics for other animals-on-the-loose movies, such as "Sharks on a Roller Coaster" (Tagline: "You must be this tall... to die!"). The media soon joined in, igniting even more Internet hoopla. "Snakes" isn't headed to the DVD bin just yet — New Line Cinema, which released it, says audiences are giving it good marks in exit polls — but it's clearly nowhere near the phenomenon one might have expected from all that buildup. The most obvious lesson here might be that talk doesn't equate with action — whether in moviegoing, advertising or elections, says Brandon Gray, president and publisher of Box Office Mojo, an online box office reporting service. Many people might have been aware of "Snakes" before its opening, he says, but it's not clear that they were very interested in the movie beyond its amusing, self-explanatory title. "I think a lot of people said: 'Oh, I get it. Now I don't need to see it,' " Gray says. New Line now says it knew "Snakes" wasn't going to be a blockbuster. Based on tracking polls of moviegoers from a week ago, the studio internally estimated that "Snakes" would generate about $12 million to $16 million in its opening weekend, far less than outside estimates. "We've always said (publicly) that we never knew how it would do," said Robert Pini, a studio spokesman. "We always were very cautious about it. We loved the fact that fans embraced the film and were enthusiastic about it. But you can never be sure that the people who are Googling your movie are going to go out and see it." "Snakes" (or as fans prefer to shorthand it, "SoaP") is one of several movies in recent years that generated much discussion on the Internet but relatively few customers. Gray said other movies that fit this description include "Clerks II," "Team America: World Police" and "Serenity," none of which did as well as "Snakes" in its opening weekend. Internet hype rarely seems to make much difference by itself, he points out. The most buzzed-about films online tend to be those that already have a built-in fan base, such as the "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" movies. The exception might be "The Blair Witch Project," an eventual blockbuster that had intense interest before its release in 1999, thanks to a Internet marketing campaign by its distributor, Artisan Entertainment. But the key difference here is 1999 — an eternity ago in terms of the Internets development and the public's understanding of it. "People thought everything on the Internet was true then," says Paul Dergarabedian of the box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. "It was easier to build a real mystique about a movie." It also helps if the movie itself has innate appeal. "Snakes" is a somewhat mixed bag on this score. It has one marquee star, Samuel L. Jackson, a modest production budget (about $32 million) and an unknown director (David Ellis). And although its title is intriguing, the name suggests a winking B-level horror-suspense film, a genre with few blockbusters. New Line might have erred in marketing the movie, too, by withholding the film from critics before its release, says Douglas Gomery, a film and massmedia scholar. That not only signals that a bomb is afoot but also killed whatever momentum the movie might have built up, says Gomery, who notes, "They had the ball rolling, and then it came to a dead stop." Critics didn't exactly hail "Snakes" as a new "Citizen Kane," but not all of them hated it, either. Time's Richard Schickel wrote that as Ellis' film "rattles along its thrill-a-minute flight plan, he does manage to induce a certain amnesia about its preposterous premise." "Snakes" will surely turn a profit, once domestic and foreign box office receipts are counted and DVD rentals and sales come pouring in. "We're going to make money," New Line's president of domestic distribution, David Tuckerman, told the Los Angeles Times. "We're just disappointed that it's not as much money as we hoped." USU Symphonic Band Tuesday, Sept. 5 3:00- 4:30 PM Room 104 Chase Fine Arts Center This course counts for depth course credit No Audition Required-it's not too latet www.usu.edu/muBtcyonBemblo9/band Call for more Information 797-3004 Get Back to Square One. •Your Choice for Wedding Invitations 630 West 200 North 753-8875 souare one p r i n T i n G At age 4, toddler star was ready for her close-up ABIGAIL BRESUN BY K E L L Y - A N N E SUAREZ Los Angeles Times HpLLYWOOD - Abigail Breslin always knew it'd come to this. She'd grown up on movie sets, thanks to her older brother, Spencer Breslin, who at 8 starred alongside Bruce Willis in Disney's "The Kid." While her brother mugged for the camera, little Abbie sat quietly, until one day she got the call. M. Night Shyamalan was on the hunt for a New Yorker to play Mel Gibson's daughter in "Signs." When Abbie's mom, Kim, heard the news, she turned to her 4-year-old to see if she'd be interested in auditioning. "Yes," Abbie said, after a moment. "I'm ready." There's no question the freshly minted star has talent. Her performance in this summer's indie of choice, "Little Miss Sunshine," drew glowing reviews. There's talk that the 10-year-old ingenue is poised to take over the throne of Junior Hollywood, long ruled by Dakota Fanning, who, at 12, is getting up there. The film follows an emotionally fractured family as it road-trips to Redondo Beach, Calif, where its tiniest member, 7-year-old Olive, will compete for the crown of Little Miss Sunshine. Along the way, Abbie holds her own among the cast's heavy-hitting players — Alan Arkin, Steve Carell, Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear, among others. "Her performance was so consistent," said Valerie Faris, who directed the film with her husband, Jonathan Dayton. "There's just never a false moment with her. She never missed a beat, and that's just unheard of with child actors." Faris and Dayton immediately sensed that gift in Abbie a few years ago while watching her on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," where she had joined her brother Spencer in promoting "The Santa Clause 2." "She was so full of ' life," Dayton said, adding that, more than lively, she appeared utterly focused on her conversation with Leno; the ability to listen is rare among child actors. Abbie came off, not as a rehearsed, buffed and packaged performer, but "as a little girl having a good time," Faris said. The Breslins have worked hard to shelter their children from the industry's sharp edges, she said, and it shows. Despite the media's fawn-fest and her classic child-actor entourage — parent, stylist and publicist — Abbie seemed refreshingly untouched by Hollywood as she recently noshed on French bread in a cafe. In the stream-of-consciousness patter of youth, Abbie explained how her playground of choice is a forest in New Jersey, where the summer goal of catching two frogs remains high on her to-do list, how she adores salt-and-vinegar potato chips, and how the '80s were a really cool decade. Abbie was born April 1996. "I know. I just missed them," she said, shaking her head and taking a moment to mourn the loss of punk rock, plastic jewelry and side-ponytails. When put in front of a photographer, she didn't bat her lashes or adopt a coy pout. Instead, she called to her mom. "How should I pose?" she asked, before throwing her arms straight into the air and flashing her slightly gap-toothed grin. Abbie's "Sunshine" character, Olive, is pudgy, bespectacled and plain. In real life, Abbie is nothing of the sort. Bright-eyed with doll-like features and a fresh-scrubbed glow, Abbie is one to turn heads. How did she feel about carrying a feature film at such a young age? "It wasn't that scary for me. I thought it was just, like, you know, like, fun. It was just, like, you know, going to work, pretty much," she said, giggling at the absurdity of such a statement coming from a 10-year-old. ' "Yep, just going to work." After Abbie's dalliance with Hollywood, she and her mom will return to the family's modest apartment, deep in New York's East Village. "It's nice to come out here; you want to help promote the project. But when it's all done, it's best to go home. Take out the garbage," Kim Breslin said. "Besides, how do you play a kid if you don't live like one?" 'Sunshine' is part of new force in Hollywood BY JOHN H O R N Los Angeles Times HOLLYWOOD Producer David T. Friendly started to believe "Little Miss Sunshine" might turn into a word-of-mouth hit when his college roommate's parents and a doctor friend both sent him e-mail congratulations. "It's a little unsettling when you get an e-mail from your dermatologist," Friendly says, "asking about your per-screen averages." Unsettling, perhaps. And also the wave of the future. Recommendations from friends and associates always have been a critical ingredient in building box-office momentum, just as negative word of mouth accelerates a middling movie's downfall. Yet the speed at which such assessments are transmitted has never been so fast, nor the effect — as "Little Miss global-warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." Sunshine" is dramatizing — so profound. The life cycle of a wordMovie studios once felt of-mouth movie depends on confident they had at least its ability to ride a wave of critical success into more two weekends to sell as many movie tickets as pos- and more theaters, the sible before toxic buzz would inverse of the typical big undermine their multimil- summer movie that comes lion-dollar marketing cam- out instantly in thousands paigns. Hollywood execu- of theaters and often vantives now say that the pro- ishes in a couple of weeks. liferation of movie-related Unlike special-effects-laden e-mail, Internet blogs and star vehicles, word-of-mouth text messaging has reduced releases often cost a fracthat window to mere hours, tion of the typical sumas the quick decline of last mer movie and have much weekend's heavily promoted smaller marketing budgets. "Snakes on a Plane" proved. They consequently can have "With most movies, you a huge return on investment, as opposed to Tom try to steal as much gross Cruise's "Mission: Impossible as you can until word of mouth catches up with you, III," which was essentially a which can be instant," says break-even movie. John Lesher, the head of "Little Miss Sunshine" Paramount's specialty divi- began playing in seven thesion, which has one of the aters on July 26. The movie years strongest word-ofmoved into wider national mouth performers in the release last weekend and is now playing in 691 theaters, including some in such cities as San Antonio and Omaha. It already has eclipsed a raft of more • MOVIES We're not doctors, but we canfixyour depression. If you are in a fender bender, please call on the best. 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