Over the past weeks, much attention has been focused on the duel between Twentieth Century Fox and Walt Disney Co. as the former prepared to release its initial foray into feature animation, “Anastasia.” In response, Disney rereleased “The Little Mermaid” in a clear attempt to stifle some of the new film’s box office. As Nov. 21 loomed ever closer, insiders wondered who the big winner would be.
Well, the big winner was a kids movie all right, but it was the video game-inspired “Mortal Kombat Annihilation.”
Not only wasn’t the movie screened for critics, it didn’t get anything like the marketing push enjoyed by both animated features. On the other hand, it didn’t seem to need it. Somehow, every preteen boy in the United States seemed to know about the picture, as if somehow the opening date had come to them in their sleep. Certainly the 11-year-old male resident in our house had been counting down the days to release for some weeks now.
One of the hand-wringing worries of Hollywood is that people seemed to have lost the movie-going habit. That is, every group except young males. Based on the success of “Kombat” though, it seems to be less a habit, or learned behavior, than some sort of group instinct. Maybe Fox and Disney should save their money and just invest in the “Mortal Kombat” franchise.
PEACE PRIZE CONCERT
Emmylou Harris, Mariah Carey, Sinead O’Connor and Boyz II Men are among the pop music stars who will perform at a concert in Oslo on Dec. 11 in honor of 1997 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams and her organization, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The award will be presented in Oslo one day earlier.
Others who have agreed to perform at the concert, to be broadcast live, include Harry Connick Jr. and Jewel. The peace prize is the only one of the six Nobel Prizes to be awarded in Oslo; the others are given on the same day in Stockholm.
BOND INFLATION
Even James Bond may not be crafty enough to outfox the British economy. Sequences filmed in London for the latest 007 movie — “Tomorrow Never Dies,” due for release Dec. 19 — were too expensive, said the film’s producer, Michael Wilson. He cited the strong pound and the country’s “unfavorable” taxes, adding that MGM might urge that the next Bond thriller be shot elsewhere.
“If there are other countries which are cheaper, it will be hard to remain here,” Wilson told The Sunday Times of London. Shooting for the next picture is to begin in December 1999.
MOVIES SELL BOOKS
The power of a big new movie often makes for a glorious paperback bestseller. Even a Hollywood clunker will do. Sometimes movies create a second life for a book that had quickly expired.
Now even the promise of a movie can boost sales considerably. “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” became the No. 1 hardcover nonfiction best seller for the first time in its 176 weeks on the New York Times list, in anticipation of the movie, which opened two weeks ago. Usually by the time a movie is made the book has long disappeared from hardcover, so in this case it’s cut-your-wrist time at Vintage, which has the book’s paperback rights but can’t publish and get in on the goodies until the book is finally exhausted in hardcover.
The real “can you believe it?” in book publishing is, as always, John Grisham. The movie “John Grisham’s `The Rainmaker’ ” also is now in theaters. In its first paperback life last year the book sold more than 5 million copies; for the movie, Dell has printed an additional 1 million copies with movie-poster art on the cover.
Besides the exposure a movie gives a book title, there’s all that Hollywood money that goes into publicity and marketing. Gina Centrello, president and publisher of Pocket Books, said, “Studios have zillion-dollar promotion campaigns and spend a whole lot of money that certainly we couldn’t in book publishing.”
So powerful are the movies, in fact, that for every good movie that sells a good book, there’s a flop movie that sells a good book. Thus, the disappointing “Starship Troopers” movie could still propel the old Robert A. Heinlein novel onto the paperback best-seller list, which will in turn introduce it to a whole new generation of readers and will make Heinlein’s backlist even stronger and more valuable.
