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'Bad' Turnout
Despite much hype promising big action, 'Bad Company' opened to a disappointing and  upsetting, $10.5 million at the box office this weekend.   by Mark Whipkey
What went wrong for Bad Company? The answer. The competition is too much.  This summer's movie season is turning into a blood bath.  Each week until the beginning of August there will be a major movie release coming out. Some weeks even more than one to fight for the top spot. This week is one of those weeks, with "The Bourne Identity", "Scooby Doo", and "Windtalkers".  Who will survive? That is the question. 
Movie goers were shocked this week to find out that Chris Rock might have
been the only other person in the movie theater, while they watched "Bad Company"
This is a huge letdown for Jerry Bruckheimer Films, which hasn't had a movie open under $15 million since 1994's "The Ref".  Even Chris Rock's last movie Down to Earth opened to $17 million.  Maybe the movie was just too much of a repeat of the past decade's CIA/spy flicks. Could it also be that anything that Joel Schumacher directs, these days, tends to flop.  Rememeber this is the man who is responsible for the destruction of our dark, mysterious Batman. It was, although, exciting to see Chris Rock in his first action movie.  Still this could have been the problem, an action movie without our usual action stars.  Although it did work for Bruce Willis in Die Hard. 

So "The Sum of All Fears" holds off the competition for a second week.  Maybe this is a pattern for the summer blockbusters.  If they can be on top for two weeks they will do just fine.  And so it is for "Sum", with another $18.7 million this weekend bringing it to a total of $61.7 for the weekend.  It looks to become the third movie this summer to gross over $100 million.  In second this week was the other newcomer, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, which opened much better than "Bad Company" with $16.3 million for the weekend.  In third was the "Clones" with repeat business this week with $13.8 million, totaling $259.9 million.  One accomplishment that Bad Company did this week was beat Spider-Man by coming in fourth place with its measly $10.5 million.  And rounding out the top five, with a possible fairwell out of the top ten next week with three new openers, is Spider-Man bringing in another $10 million with a spectacular $370.1 million to date. 

What's in store for next week?  An all out brawl.  I expect The Bourne Identity to triumph ahead of the pack next week.  With Scooby Doo, John Woo's Windtalkers, and "Identity" all coming out next week, the competition is fierce.  Not to mention some old releases that won't quit like The Sum of All Fears, the "Clones" and Spider-Man.  The box office should be jammed packed this week with too much to choose from, possibly resulting in small gains for everyone.  Still it will be a showdown till the very end on Sunday of next week as the summer movie excitement builds.  Ben against Matt.  Matt against "Scooby".  "Scooby" against Jar Jar Binks?
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