SYDNEY (Variety) - Mark ``The Perfect Storm'' as the 11th hit this year to reach the $100 million milestone overseas, while ''Hollow Man'' and ``Coyote Ugly'' had impressive foreign premieres and ``Gone in Sixty Seconds'' roared into France last weekend.

``Perfect Storm'' whipped up $8 million from 34 countries, highlighted by boffo bows in Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Indonesia.

Standout territory totals for Wolfgang Petersen's epic include Japan's $25.4 million and South Korea's $5.3 million. It has also racked up $3.9 million after 10 days in Spain, and $3.5 million after a similar span in Taiwan.

Paul Verhoeven's ``Hollow Man'' commanded pole position in Taiwan, conjuring up $626,000 in three days, the Netherlands with $425,000 and Singapore with $406,000.

In Australia, ``Hollow Man'' spirited away $861,000 in four days, ranked second behind fellow debutante ``Road Trip,'' which fetched $1.04 million. The gross-out comedy's Oz haul is $1.4 million, including the previous weekend's sneaks.

Teen romance ``Coyote Ugly'' seduced $204,000 in Israel, doubling the weekend debut of ``Road Trip'' and a shade ahead of the recent bow of ``Gone in Sixty Seconds,'' according to Disney.

In France, ``Sixty Seconds'' stole $3.7 million in five days, the second-highest opening there this summer behind ``Mission: Impossible 2,'' and just 18% below ``Armageddon's'' entry. The Nicolas Cage vehicle set a Disney record in Portugal, taking $290,000, the industry's fifth-best premiere. Its foreign total rocketed to $77.3 million on the back of a $10.3 million weekend.

``X-Men'' garnered $9.1 million last weekend, propelling the foreign haul to $58.3 million, after bagging $834,000 in Argentina (Fox's fourth-highest bow) and $366,000 in Venezuela -- an all-time industry record.

Braving very steamy weather, ``The Patriot'' captured a splendid $1.6 million in Italy, including previews. ``Final Destination'' ($43.2 million foreign haul) landed with a sturdy $750,000. ``Patriot's'' foreign take is $71.9 million.

Entering Spain, its first major market, ``Disney's the Kid'' earned a respectable $750,000, placing second behind ``Perfect Storm.''

``Shanghai Noon'' stepped into the U.K. with a fair $1 million, below the debut for star Jackie Chan's ``Rush Hour.'' ``Noon's'' foreign take is $26.4 million.

Having grossed a swell $876,000 through its third lap in Singapore, ``What Lies Beneath'' ventured into Hong Kong with a dandy $509,000 -- Fox's second-highest opening there this year behind ``X-Men.''

``Scary Movie'' posted a terrific $531,000 in three days in Taiwan and has hauled in $1 million through its second round in Hong Kong, $888,000 after its third in Denmark and $1.4 million in its fourth in the Netherlands.

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - Relatives of the doomed sea captain depicted in the hit movie ``The Perfect Storm'' sued Warner Bros. Pictures, alleging the studio used their names and likenesses without permission and falsely vilified the captain as reckless and maniacal, their lawyer said on Tuesday.

The civil lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Orlando on Thursday, asked for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and an injunction against further distribution of the film and related merchandise.

It also sought unspecified royalties from the movie, which has generated more than $173 million in gross revenues.

The lawsuit was filed by Capt. Billy Tyne's ex-wife, Jodi Tyne, and daughters Billie-Jo Francis and Erica Tyne, who live in central Florida.

Officials at Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX - news) said on Tuesday the movie was based on a well-known historical event, and they did not believe the law required them to obtain permission from Tyne or his ex-wife or children to portray him in it.

``We most certainly disagree with the plaintiffs' claim that the film in any way disparaged Mr. Tyne or tarnished his memory,'' a Warner Bros. spokeswoman said.

The studio said it would ``vigorously defend'' its First Amendment right to freedom of expression.

The movie, starring George Clooney as Tyne, told the story of the sword-fishing boat Andrea Gail, which vanished in a north Atlantic storm in the autumn of 1991. The captain and five crewmen were presumed to have died.

The movie was partly based on the best-selling book of the same title by Sebastian Junger, who did not write the screenplay and was not sued.

Plaintiffs' lawyer Ned McLeod said the movie was a ''calculated fictionalization'' that went ``way beyond anything appearing in Junger's book'' and used made-up scenarios to boost audience and profits.

The lawsuit charged the movie commercially exploited the relatives' names and likenesses without consent. It caused them humiliation and emotional harm by falsely portraying Tyne as ''aloof, reckless, excessively risk-taking, self-absorbed, emasculated, despondent, obsessed and maniacal'' and by suggesting he piloted the boat incompetently, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit, assigned to U.S. District Judge Anne Conway, said the moviemakers got permission to use the names of other real people portrayed in the movie, or changed the names to fictional ones.

The movie was filmed in 1999 at Universal Studios Florida in Orlando and Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, and opened in U.S. theaters in July.

The lawsuit also named as defendants two Los Angeles-area movie production and development companies, Baltimore/Spring Creek Pictures and Radiant Productions. 

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Considering it's poised to become the second-biggest summer in movie history, the May-August span has been no picnic.

Though a week remains in the official summer period, about 95 percent of the season's grosses are in, and they tell a fairly anxious tale. Compared with the record-setting 1999, this summer has been a downer -- artistically as well as commercially.

``Following any other year, this would be a fabulous summer,'' said Chuck Viane, distribution chief at Disney.

But, he added, ``you just didn't have that carry-through film this year. There seems to be a bit of gloom in the air.''

From May 5 through Labor Day, overall grosses should total about $3 billion, off about 5 percent from last year's $3.2 billion mark. It's the first year-to-year summer decline since 1991.

Year-to-date box office receipts, which had been up 10% from January through May, will end the summer roughly flat compared with January-August 1999.

Defining summer calendar-wise is an increasingly thorny proposition. It used to start on Memorial Day weekend, but in recent years, early-May smashes such as ``Twister,'' ``The Mummy'' and ``Deep Impact'' have extended the season.

In percentage terms, it doesn't matter how you define summer 2000, as the May 5-25 period was flat compared with the same span in 1999.

Optimists -- and they're in the minority -- point out that summer 2000 is still the second-best on record. The period yielded 12 pictures that have crossed (or soon will) the $100 million barrier, the same impressive total as in 1999.

They also argue that the likes of 1999, with mega-titles such as the ``Star Wars'' prequel, the ``Austin Powers'' sequel and ''The Sixth Sense'' may never be seen again.

``It's a great summer,'' enthused Fox's Tom Sherak. ``All of these movies 'opened,' and even the ones without legs will go on to respectable grosses.''

Yet even those trying to turn a frown upside down have to admit that 2000 came up a bit short, given the steep ticket-price hikes, additional U.S. movie screens and hefty budgets and marketing behind summer titles.

With a domestic gross of $213 million, Paramount's first-place ``Mission: Impossible 2'' would have ranked third last summer. Seven pictures from 1999 cleared $150 million, compared with just five this season. Last year, three passed $200 million, compared with only ``Mission 2'' in 2000.

The most damning trait of the summer, as most critics have carped, is its utter lack of distinguishing characteristics. The phalanx of sequels, gross-outs and actioners occupied a narrow genre range and seemed numbingly calculated to capture every possible demographic.

Not convinced? Then quick, name this summer's ``Yyyeah, baby!'' or ``life is like a box of chocolates'' catchphrase, its White House explosion, its radio-blitzing soundtrack single.

Challenge 10 people in the movie biz to do so, and you'll get 10 different responses. So instead of trying to fit the square 2000 into a round hole, maybe it's better to step back, take one last sip of lemonade and spot a few broader themes that shaped summer:

- Few pictures departed from expectations.

Unlike last year with ``The Sixth Sense'' and ``The Blair Witch Project'' upside surprises were scarce. The most notable included ``Gladiator,'' ``Big Momma's House,'' ``Chicken Run,'' ''Scary Movie,'' ``X-Men'' and ``What Lies Beneath'' -- and several of those were big-budget items, meaning they don't exactly qualify as sleepers.

Fewer pictures turned out to be significant disappointments -- chiefly ``Battlefield Earth,'' ``Titan A.E.,'' ``The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle'' and ``Shanghai Noon'' (though the last-named did well enough to merit a sequel in development).

``Films that died just died. That's what they always do,'' Sherak said. ``There's no new pattern there.''

- July was the only power month.

The month set a record, propelled by a historic July Fourth showdown between Sony's ``The Patriot'' and Warner Bros.' ``The Perfect Storm''

Though ``Storm'' prevailed, ``Patriot'' fared OK worldwide. More important, the box office was reinvigorated by the competition, posting year-to-year gains for three straight weekends in July. ``Scary Movie'' and ``X-Men'' arguably benefited from spillover from the five-day July 4 binge, which spurred the movie-going habit.

A lackluster June and August, however, kept the biz tethered to reality. June pictures such as ``Shaft,'' ``Gone in Sixty Seconds'' and ``Me, Myself & Irene'' opened strongly but didn't join the ranks of the all-time summer greats.

Ditto in August, with pictures such as ``Hollow Man,'' ``The Original Kings of Comedy'' and ``Space Cowboys'' posting good numbers but laboring in the shadow of last year's late-summer winners ``Sixth Sense,'' ``Runaway Bride'' and ``The Blair Witch Project.''

- Disney and Fox once again will finish neck-and-neck in the market-share race.

Just as they did last year, the two will battle down to the last day.

While Disney had success with ``Dinosaur,'' ``Disney's the Kid'' and ``Gone,'' the summer was much more fulfilling for Fox.

As production president Bill Mechanic was being ejected from the studio for not delivering enough hits, he predicted big things for ``X-Men.'' And the comic book feature delivered, scoring $54.5 million in its debut, second only to Memorial Day behemoth ``Mission: Impossible 2.'' The exploits of ``X'' and ``Big Momma's House'' helped Fox weather the ``Titan'' flop and a subpar Jim Carrey outing in ``Irene.''

DreamWorks had the best summer of any company in terms of winning percentage, with ``Gladiator,'' ``Road Trip,'' ``Small Time Crooks,'' ``Chicken Run'' and ``What Lies Beneath'' all winding up as unqualified hits.

``We've been pleased with everything,'' said Jim Tharp, DreamWorks' distribution chief.

- Exhibitor woes are increasingly unsettling.

With major circuits Carmike and Edwards each filing for bankruptcy protection during the summer, worries have intensified about the troubled theater business.

``In the long run, this is good for our business, with some underperforming theaters being weeded out,'' Disney's Viane reasoned. ``But in the short term, it's definitely painful for everybody.''

Sherak conceded the circuit troubles ``cast a shadow over the business.'' But he and other studio execs insist they are delivering high-quality product and that overbuilding is to blame. The paradox is that more and better screens should have increased the number of show times and therefore, perhaps, box office sales itself. But capital spending combined with the sameness of summer pictures kept many chains from getting back on their feet -- an ominous trend being watched closely by studios.

- PG-13 was the magic number. Of the 17 weekends thus far since May 5, 10 of the top-grossing pictures have been rated PG-13. Six of the rest were R and only one was rated PG.

- Four films with blacks in lead roles were solid hits.

``Shaft,'' ``Big Momma's House,'' ``Nutty Professor II'' and ``The Original Kings of Comedy'' all scored big with black audiences, and their varying abilities to draw across all races boosted their grosses.

``Kings of Comedy'' turned a profit in its first wide weekend, grossing a powerful $11.1 million. The $3 million concert film is director Spike Lee's biggest opener.

- A lackluster September slate means the slide will likely continue.

Thanks to the Olympics, the box office probably won't show much of a pulse again until October releases ``Meet the Parents,'' ``Pay It Forward'' and ``Blair Witch 2'' appear.

At that point, the pressure will be on to exceed the annual total from 1999. Because as much as traditional show business would like to take a breather and appreciate the positives of summer 2000, they are operating in a different environment.

Studios' corporate parents and investors demand steady increases in revenue -- a standard now applied equally on Wall Street and Hollywood Boulevard.

Future focus: If this summer's boxoffice disappointed you, don't despair -- next summer's already shaping up as bigger and better.

As this summer heads down the homestretch, early drafts of next summer's release schedule are starting to circulate and are raising spirits. It's a product mix that blends blockbuster sequels and a blockbuster remake with originals from some of Hollywood's most successful filmmakers.

Clearly, the rough draft schedules now making the rounds aren't chiseled in stone. It's likely that some opening dates will change between now and then. In some cases, different schedules around town now are showing different dates for some of these films. Moreover, some titles always wind up being pushed back to fall or winter. And producer and writer credits are often fine-tuned or arbitrated late in the game. Nonetheless, the present roster of summer product is a good starting point for discussion, providing a helpful overview of what to expect. What's important here is getting a sense of what the summer's high profile product will be, not whether a tentative release date is right or wrong. With many summer of 2001 films' opening dates not firmly set now, in many cases there is no right or wrong date yet.

Just looking at the period from next May through July, as I have for today's column, suggests that Hollywood could be a lot happier with next summer's boxoffice.

The summer of 2001 will continue the tradition in recent years of the summer getting underway in early May when moviegoers are hungry for large-scale films after Hollywood's typically lean winter months. The presummer action gets under way May 11 when Universal's "The Mummy Returns" marks the return of writer-director Stephen Sommers and Brendan Fraser. Also starring are Rachel Weisz and John Hannah. In the sequel, when the Mummy resurfaces in London Fraser's character and his wife and son must join forces to stop the creature. In 1999 the first "Mummy" grossed over $155 million in domestic theaters and over $258 million internationally.

Also likely for mid-May is MGM's sci-fi action adventure "Rollerball," directed by John McTiernan and starring Chris Klein, L.L. Cool J, Jean Reno and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. It's futuristic story is set in a world where corporations control where a young man uses the sport of Rollerball to fight for his freedom and individuality. It's a story that brings to mind "Gladiator," which took us back in time rather than into the future and used a different sport to make a similar point about freedom. "Gladiator" has grossed over $182 million domestically and over $235 million internationally and is still in theaters.

DreamWorks' animated family film "Shrek," arriving May 18, is a fairy tale about a young ogre who falls in love with the world's ugliest princess. DreamWorks' "Chicken Run" has grossed about $102 million this summer and is still in theaters. It's the most successful animated feature in DreamWorks' history, having overtaken "Prince of Egypt," which did just over $101 million.

Buena Vista/Touchstone's "Pearl Harbor" from producer Jerry Bruckheimer is scheduled to sail into theaters May 25 for next Memorial Day weekend. Directed by Michael Bay, its extensive cast includes such stars as Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale and Cuba Gooding, Jr. Not only is it the biggest budgeted film ever greenlighted for production, it's an obvious candidate to do blockbuster business.

Next May is also likely to see "Scary Movie II" from Miramax's Dimension Films. With the original grossing over $147 million (and still playing), there's clearly big potential for the sequel, which will reunite director Keenen Ivory Wayans and actor-screenwriters Shawn and Marlon Wayans. Production gets underway this fall and the studio hopes to have it out sometime next May.

Late May may also bring 20th Century Fox and New Regency's action adventure comedy "Black Knight," directed by Gil Junger and starring Martin Lawrence. It's a time travel tale about a young hustler working in a medieval themed miniature golf course who goes back to the Middle Ages where he joins an ex-knight and a pretty peasant girl to defeat an evil king. Lawrence scored a major hit for Fox this summer with the comedy "Big Momma's House," grossing over $115 million.

Another "Knight" on the scene next summer will be Columbia's action adventure comedy "A Knight's Tale." Directed by Brian Helgeland and starring Heath Ledger ("The Patriot") and Mark Addy ("The Full Monty"), it's slated for early June. Set in 14th Century France, it's the story of a commoner pretending to be a nobleman so as to combat an evil man.

Moving into June, the first half of the month should see Fox's comedy sequel "Dr. Dolittle 2," again starring Eddie Murphy and directed by Steve Carr. This time Murphy's busy trying to save the forest and the endangered Pacific Western Bear. Murphy's first "Dr. Dolittle" grossed over $144 million domestically and about $146 million internationally in 1998.

Also coming in June is Buena Vista/Disney's next animated feature "Atlantis," featuring such voices as Michael J. Fox and James Garner. It's set in the early 20th Century and revolves around an explorer using a mysterious map to lead a submarine mission to find the famous lost undersea city.

Mid-June will see Warner Bros.' "Swordfish," directed by Dominic Sena and starring John Travolta. It's an action adventure drama about an ex-computer hacker for the CIA whose life is ruined by a conviction for a crime he didn't commit. Producers Joel Silver and Jonathan D. Krane each have enviable commercial track records.

Paramount's action adventure "Tomb Raider," also arriving in mid-June, is directed by Simon West and stars Angelina Jolie. It's based on the hit video game revolving around gun-toting adventurer Lara Croft and her travels to exotic locations in search of ancient artifacts. If audiences respond to it as a female "Indiana Jones" movie, it could do huge business.

Late June should see the arrival of one of the summer's highest profile releases, Warner Bros.' sci-fi fantasy "A.I." directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jude Law and Haley Joel Osment. Not much is known about the project other than its title stands for "Artificial Intelligence" and that it was a film the late Stanley Kubrick and Spielberg had hoped to make together. As for its boxoffice potential, the sky's clearly the limit!

Late June or July should bring MGM's action adventure "Windtalkers," directed by John Woo and starring Nicolas Cage, Adam Beach and Christian Slater. It's a World War II story involving protecting a Navajo Indian code being used against the Japanese at the time. The last World War II summer release, Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," grossed over $216 million domestically and over $263 million internationally in 1998. If audiences are ready for more WWII action, "Windtalkers" will have the market cornered.

July Fourth weekend should be dominated by 20th Century Fox's remake of its blockbuster "Planet of the Apes," directed by Tim Burton and starring Mark Wahlberg and Paul Giamatti. The 1968 original reportedly cost $5.8 million to produce and grossed a then-hefty $26 million domestically. This one will certainly cost more and looms as a brand name blockbuster. Among its producers, Richard Zanuck has a reputation not only for making commercial films, but for making quality movies.

Universal's "Jurassic Park 3," arriving July 18, is another of next summer's highest potential titles. Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, it is directed by Joe Johnston and stars Sam Neill. The original "Jurassic Park" in 1993 grossed over $356 million domestically and about $563 million internationally. The first sequel, "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," in 1997 grossed over $229 million domestically and about $385 million internationally.

Late July or early August should bring MGM's "Bandits," directed by Barry Levinson and starring Bruce Willis, Cate Blanchett and Billy Bob Thornton. It's a romantic comedy -- exactly what was lacking this summer, but did so well the prior summer when "Notting Hill" and "Runaway Bride" were playing -- about two ex-cons who become celebrities for robbing banks and find themselves in love with the same woman.

Another late July possibility is New Line's "Rush Hour 2," directed by Brett Ratner and starring Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan and Chris Penn. The 1998 original grossed more than $141 million domestically and more than $104 million internationally.

At this point, August is harder to define based on early draft schedules. Moreover, the highest-profile guns of summer tend to surface between May and July. There will, of course, be other releases during this period that aren't noted here today. Some are lower-profile films and others just aren't plugged into schedules now making the rounds. They'll be grist for another column down the road taking another look at the prospects for next summer. 

TORONTO - Piers Handling's annual roll call of incoming celebrities to the Toronto International Film Festival has reached epic -- some might say epidemic -- proportions.

At a news conference yesterday at the Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto, Handling, the festival's soft-spoken director, put the finishing touches on preparations for the 25th annual spoolfest -- running Sept. 7-16 -- with his usual Reading of the Names. Handling called it his "favourite part of the festival," then quickly amended that to his "favourite part of the press conference," lest anyone think the sober-minded festival boss now favours starlets over serious cinema. (Anyone who knows Handling knows he would rather sit through a four-hour Swiss-Commanche co-production than mingle too long with the glamour set.)

For reasons of brevity, we have edited Handling's celebrity list, which threatened to stretch the morning news conference into the dinner hour with its run-on barrage of four-star talent. Here, then, an abbreviated peek at the beautiful people and world-class cineastes expected at next month's silver anniversary fete:

"Stephen Frears, David Mamet, Ang Lee, Denys Arcand, Daniel Auteuil, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sally Field, Minnie Driver, Daryl Hannah, Liv Ullmann, Nicolas Cage, Lynn Redgrave, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Gretchen Moll, Alec Baldwin....

"Sarah Jessica Parker, Willem Defoe, William H. Macy, Kevin Smith, Farrah Fawcett, Jessica Pare, Dan Aykroyd, Ellen Burstyn, Jeff Bridges, Joan Allen, Richard Gere, Kenneth Branagh, Ken Loach...."

It was here, roughly, that Handling's face began to turn blue and so, out of mercy (and a pending deadline), we shut off our tape recorder and tried to exit the jam-packed ballroom before total bedlam erupted. Earlier, Handling had announced yet another list, this one itemizing the Canadian directors contributing short films and/or workshops to Toronto's 25th festival, including David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, Don McKellar, Jeremy Podeswa, Jean-Pierre Lefebvre and Patricia Rozema.

Toronto's annual, late-August conference has always been an upbeat affair -- the last salvo of hype before the limousines arrive and the projectors whir. But yesterday's get-ready-get-set had a positively giddy ambience, included the cutting of a commemorative 25th anniversary cake.

"We've seen close to 2,000 films in 10 weeks," said Handling, referring to the number of submissions his staff of 12 programmers sorted through to arrive at the final list of 329 films.

"We're actually showing one less feature film than in 1999, so maybe someone can write that the festival is getting smaller," he joked.

It also was noted that the festival will draw some 600,000 visitors to Toronto and will contribute $30 million in direct economic impact.

More good news -- or bad, if you're still without tickets -- was delivered two days ago, when it was announced that all festival passes, coupon books and gala and daytime passes had sold clean out. Advance single tickets are available in person at the College Park box office -- 777 Bay St., Lower Level -- beginning Sept. 6. Visa cardholders can get a jump on orders for single tickets starting Saturday, again in person and only at the box office.

Remaining galas announced yesterday include How To Kill Your Neighbor's Dog, a comedy directed by Michael Kalesniko about an L.A.-based playwright (Kenneth Branagh), who falls upon hard times after a string of flops. Robin Wright-Penn co-stars as the playwright's wife.

Also confirmed: The world premiere of The Dish, starring Sam Neill and Patrick Warburton, set in the Australian outback during the 1969 Apollo XI mission to the moon; and Sexy Beast, a genre-bending gangster heist starring Ben Kingsley and Ray Winstone, directed by Jonathan Glazer. Other galas: Pandemonium, a Julien Temple film about the 19th century poets, William Wordsworth (John Hannah) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Linus Roache); and The House of Mirth, an adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel directed by Terence Davies and starring X-Files sleuth Gillian Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Laura Linney, Elizabeth McGovern and Eric Stoltz.

The festival's lineup of Special Presentations includes: Joel Schumacher's Tigerland, about a 1971 Vietnam War boot camp in the swamps of Louisiana; Chinese Coffee, based on Ira Lewis's play and directed and starring Al Pacino; James Gray's The Yards, a thriller starring Mark Wahlberg, James Caan, Faye Dunaway, Ellen Burstyn and Charlize Theron; Il Postino director Michael Radford's Dancing at the Blue Iguana, starring Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Tilly and Canadian Sandra Oh as dancers at a down-at-the-heel dance club; and Francois Ozon's Sous Le Sable, about a woman (Charlotte Rampling) whose husband vanishes while she's napping on a beach. Titles previously announced for Special Presentations include: Sally Field's Beautiful; Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls; Bruce Paltrow's Duets, starring daughter, Gwyneth, and Canada's Scott Speedman; David Mamet's State and Main; and Quebec director Robert Lepage's Possible Worlds.

The festival opens Sept. 7 with Denys Arcand's Stardom, the Canadian entry at last May's Cannes film festival.

SYDNEY (Variety) - As usual, U.S. majors fired some big guns overseas in late summer, with ``X-Men'' excellent in the U.K. last weekend (though slightly less incandescent in France and Belgium), while ``The Perfect Storm'' made waves in Spain, Taiwan and Thailand, and ``Gone in Sixty Seconds'' had its pedal to the metal in Germany, Austria and Argentina.

Bryan Singer's ``X-Men'' pulled in $7.1 million in three days in the U.K. -- the No. 1 opening there this year, and Fox's fourth-highest premiere ever in that market behind ``Star Wars: Episode One -- The Phantom Menace,'' ``Independence Day'' and ``Titanic.''

The sci-fi caper generated $3.5 million in five days in France (Fox's fourth-best bow), $463,000 in Belgium and $371,000 in four days in New Zealand. The Kiwi entry was the industry's fifth-largest and Fox's No. 3 of all time, trailing ``Independence Day'' and ``Phantom Menace.''

After stellar debuts, the picture retained top spot in Mexico, tallying a terrific $5.9 million (sliding 39%) and Brazil at $3.7 million (off 37%).

All told, ``X-Men'' conjured up $16.4 million from 24 countries and the foreign total levitated to $41.8 million.

``Perfect Storm'' sucked up $11.4 million as its foreign total surged to $86.2 million. Wolfgang Petersen's epic snared $1.7 million, including previews, from Spain, marking Warner Bros.' second-highest bow ever there, just 12% below ``The Matrix''

The high-seas adventure hauled in $2 million in two days in Taiwan, accounting for 71% of the top five titles' box office in the capital Taipei, $679,000 in Thailand (the distributor's fourth-best bow of all time and the industry's third-highest this year) and $381,000 in Sweden. ``Storm'' ebbed by 32% in France for a so-so $4.4 million in 12 days.

The George Clooney-Mark Wahlberg vessel has opened at No. 1 in 17 of the 25 territories in which it's been released thus far, according to WB.

``Gone in Sixty Seconds'' stole $3.5 million in Germany, a personal best for Nicolas Cage, topping ``The Rock'' by 14%. The carjack saga scored $751,000 in Argentina, $598,000 in Austria and $350,000 in the Philippines.

Fueled by a $10 million weekend in 32 territories, the picture hit $64.1 million overseas, highlighted by the U.K.'s $8 million through its third lap, the Netherlands' $1.2 million (slipping just 7%) and Belgium's $1.1 million (up 7%), both in their sophomore sessions.

Ridley Scott's ``Gladiator'' ascended to $235.3 million overseas, powered by Greece's $378,000 in three days and China's nifty $1 million in 12 days.

A $6.2 million weekend from 25 markets hoisted ``Mission: Impossible 2'' to $276.3 million.

Ang Lee's Chinese-language ``Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,'' kicked butt in South Korea to the tune of $630,000 in two days.

``Scary Movie'' took pole position in Hong Kong with a potent $573,000, and has raked in an impressive $717,000 through its sophomore session in Denmark, $1.2 million in the Netherlands and $1 million in Israel, both in its third rounds.

``The Patriot'' whistled up $4.2 million overseas, including a smart $298,000 in Turkey (hailed as the market's fifth-highest summer debut ever), and it climbed to $66.1 million.

A monster hit in its native Britain, ``Chicken Run'' didn't have much to crow about in Spain, winging in with about $594,000, according to one tracking service that monitors about 80% of the total territory box office, and it laid an egg in Sweden and Hungary.

``Shanghai Noon'' dawned in Mexico with a fair $413,000, but barely flickered in Italy, where Jackie Chan has a limited following. ``Noon'' fell by 39% in Oz but retained top spot in a subdued weekend for $1.8 million in 11 days. Its foreign total is $23.4 million.

Reuters/Variety REUTERS

"Storm" score: Music is one of the most important elements contributing to a film's impact, but it's frequently one of the last things done in postproduction when time is running short.

"That's often the case," explained James Horner, an Oscar and Golden Globe winner for "Titanic's" score and song ("My Heart Will Go On," lyrics by Will Jennings) and a potential nominee for his rousing new score and moving song ("Yours Forever," lyrics by John Mellencamp and George Green) for Warner Bros.' "The Perfect Storm." "It depends on the filmmaker. It depends on the postproduction schedule. It depends on when the composer gets hired. There are several variables."

In the case of "Storm," directed by Wolfgang Petersen, Horner told me, "Wolfgang asked me to do it months before they started shooting. He knew what his next project was and he asked me if I'd be interested. And I was. So I can't blame doing the scoring late on not being involved in the film early enough.

"But what sometimes happens is, given the postproduction schedules and given the amount of special effects, etc., it ends up being that the film is still being edited -- and this (movie) falls in that category -- while you are supposed to be working on locked, finished sequences. So sometimes you end up working on a sequence that gets changed or manipulated in some way or juxtaposed with another scene in a different sequence and you end up having to make last minute adjustments and little tweaks even after the music is written. You tend to put the scoring off until the very last possible moment because you can theoretically still make changes up till the last moment to accommodate picture changes and not have to go in and rerecord the music, which is horribly expensive."

Given Horner's great success with the score for "Titanic," I asked if Petersen approached him to do "Storm" because of his identification with music linked to water and the most famous case of a ship sinking at sea. "No, actually, I've known Wolfgang for a very long time and he's asked me to do quite a few of his films," Horner replied. "For one reason or another, it was either not the project I wanted to do or, most likely, it was a scheduling conflict. That was actually the case in three of the last things he's asked me to do. So (with) this, he asked me very early on so there would not be any kind of scheduling problem and that's how I got involved. It was not so much being able to do music to drown by."

Horner's "Titanic" score became the biggest selling film score album ever, with sales of over 28 million copies worldwide. His sequel album "Back to Titanic" sold another four million copies. Horner began writing film music in 1980 after receiving his doctorate in composition at UCLA and studying earlier at London's Royal Academy of Music and the University of Southern California. Early in his career he worked for Roger Corman's New World Pictures, developing relationships there with two emerging young directors -- James Cameron and Ron Howard. Horner, of course, worked with Cameron on "Titanic." He's doing the score for Howard's next film "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas," starring Jim Carrey, from Universal and Imagine Entertainment, opening in mid-November. Among Horner's many previous scores are those for "Apollo 13," "Braveheart," "Field of Dreams," "Deep Impact" and "Patriot Games."

Asked why he wanted to tackle the score for "Storm," he told me, "Well, I knew the book. I knew the story and I just thought it would be a very intense sea saga, something which would give the music a huge canvas. The downside is that because it's all in a storm for the most part, it's going to be very special effects and sound effects heavy and there'll be a lot for the music to compete with. But in discussing that with (Petersen) he said, yes, that's true, but it's very important for him to have the drama of the music and the drama of the emotions coming out through the music. Sort of based on that and on our friendship and experience together, I decided to do it. Usually, I'm nervous about that because without seeing any footage you never know what you're getting. But there's also something about Wolfgang's past in that if there was anybody to make an interior bad situation water movie, he's the person to do it. He's brilliant at that, as well. Then I started seeing the footage and some of the sequences are pretty amazing, as you saw."

I told Horner I've been riding around town listening to his score -- the CD is a Sony Music Soundtrax on the Sony Classical label -- and finding it definitely takes one's mind off the traffic. "People seem to like the music," he said, "but it's very different from other things I've done. It was not written like 'Titanic' was. It was written more in a way to sort of stand up for itself with effects and noise and in the middle of this maelstrom, which the whole film takes place in. But I didn't want it all to be hammering an audience over the head. It sort of had to dip and bob and weave around a lot."

It took about six weeks for him to compose the score. "There's almost two hours of music," he pointed out. "It's a very long score. I very seldom get more than six weeks (in which to work). The way I work is pretty simple. I don't have any assistants or anybody. I just see the film and meet with the director. We discuss the kind of thematic things that I would like to do. And I go home and work on melodic elements and then play them for the director. Once I have his blessing, I start writing at home at a desk and pretty much orchestrating as I go, writing each sequence. Sometimes I'll play them back for myself or for the director against a video picture. But, for the most part, I don't do a lot of that. So it's pretty much lots of conversations over the phone. I like to check in once or twice a week with the director to make sure he knows what I'm doing and what I'm working on."

Computers aren't part of Horner's approach to composing. "Oh, no. I don't do anything like that. I'm one of the last hold-outs," he said, adding that the only equipment in his studio is a piano.

Asked if there were differences between how he worked on "Storm" and "Titanic," Horner told me, "A lot more of 'Titanic' was electronic (music). And Jim was a lot more involved in 'Titanic' in terms of approving things. I would meet with Jim maybe every day or two and play him stuff. I met with Wolfgang maybe every 10 days or so and played him stuff. But beyond that, it was a similar process that I gave each director sort of an idea where I was going and what the themes were doing. Going into 'Titanic,' Jim didn't know there was going to be an end credits song. Going into Wolfgang's movie, the studio wanted an end credits song. There was a difference there."

"Storm's" theme, "Yours Forever," is performed by John Mellencamp and was produced by Horner, Mellencamp and Michael Wanchic. "I wrote the theme, and I wanted it at the end of the movie," Horner said. "Because there was so much noise during the movie, I thought I could write a very nice end credit (song). But I thought it might be nice to write a song that was not designed to be a top 10 song. It was just designed to be sort of like a lullaby and sung by somebody who is pertinent to the world of radio people of that era and those working class guys on the dock. I guess if I could have gotten a great original song by Bruce Springsteen or Mellencamp or something, that would have been another possibility. But that wasn't in the cards. So I wrote a song based on the main theme of the film and then looked for an artist with a gravelly, used-up sort of sound.

"John actually was the first person who came to mind. It took a while to work out all those deal details and technical details, but he finally agreed to do it. He's the right sort of voice. He sings very softly and it's a relatively quiet song. Again, it's not meant for climbing the charts. It was never designed for radio play. The studio probably ultimately would have liked that. It would have been wrong for the film. It was designed simply to be a very simple last statement to the movie in a language that was relatively true to these Gloucester fishermen."

Is the end credits song intended to keep moviegoers in their seats a little longer? "I would say maybe 10% is to keep the theater going a little bit longer, so that you don't just have the lights come on and everybody moves on and the next (audience) comes in," Horner explained . "I like to sort of keep the magic going on just a little bit longer, if I can, and the song is a way of doing that. But it really is mostly a summing up of all the parts in a very personal form and putting text against it. It's sung in a very quiet way by somebody who was a big star at the time and has that voice of experience. There's something about these guys who have made that voice by belting out these big ballads and it's wonderful when they sing quietly. And he does. It has that desired effect."

What generally makes for a good score? "I think a score that doesn't get in the way," Horner told me. "I think a score (where) you're not noticing what's going on with the score until afterwards when you feel like you've seen a movie that has made some impression, but you're not aware that the score has manipulated you or that it's been crashing over your head telling you what to think while it's been going on. I think the score, for the most part, works somewhat in the background and I think it best that it shouldn't really be noticed until, perhaps, when you're all done with the film and you sort of review the whole experience. A score where the music is always leading you on and is always big and pompous and bombastic, I just think is death. In fact, when the movie got temp scored I had the music editor change some of the music. It's a very hard movie to temp score, as you can imagine, but I thought some of the cues were just so bombastic and relentless -- and yet more trouble at sea! I just thought, oh God, you can't put an audience through this. They're just going to walk out or wish there was an intermission and then walk out. So the music has to be, I think, a little bit innocuous in places just so it doesn't hit an audience over the head."

Asked about differences between scoring films today and the way things were done in Hollywood's golden age, Horner observed, "I think the style has changed. In those days, because of the style of the writing and the style of the drama, the scores, for want of a better word, tended to be a little bit more schmaltzy than they are today. There wasn't quite as much character in the music, perhaps, as there is today. And they were wall-to-wall in terms of a scene being scored with no gaps in it at all. Music got turned on when anybody had a look in his eye. At every available given moment there was score running. It tended to be real wallpaper and very seldom -- unless somebody got shot or there was a very powerful scene on camera -- did it really make a difference. It was just always running in the background. You tended to notice when there was no music. It tended to make a much more austere realistic approach. When you see a black and white movie with very little score, it's very dramatic when there's no score.

"To me, what film music does is it tends to sanitize a movie. All films made today get film music of some sort. Some a lot. Some a little. But almost all movies made get some sort of score. I just tend to think it makes all the movies sound so homogenized and they don't take very many chances with not using a score. It can be so dramatic not to have a score and so empty, but that's a very dangerous thing to dangle at a director because he gets very nervous if he's not covered. He figures an audience is going to get up or fidget at the first (music free) moment and to always keep them nailed to their seats (by having music). It just tends to, I think, over sanitize the films.

"As soon as you hear a score, you know it's a movie. I think there was, perhaps, a little too much music in our movie. I would have loved to have seen maybe 15 minutes taken out here and there. To have some of the ocean mayhem done without music I think would have been a little more realistic than me just hyping up the drama of it. And, yes, it does that in a television sort of way and a very conventional way. But there's a case that could be made for doing it absolutely real. It's just a difference in taste and a nervousness level on the part of the filmmakers or the studio where they think that everybody does it this way and I'm too nervous not to. Or, I think it plays better with music. Or, we certainly need music on that scene, don't we, and you've just left a scene with 20 minutes of music in it. I'm fighting the argument of much, much, much less music would have been more effective."

Sometimes temporary scores, which are used before the real music for a film is finished, can pose special problems. "I'll see films with their temp score just to see what the director had in mind," he said. "That's a great help. Then I'll see it without. I find that very often they're over scored and they tend to, worst case, want similar music when you actually go to do the score. Best case, they want some music running. Even if it does something different, they want music running where they had it in the temp score. They're not very often willing to take a chance and not put it in, especially if they've gone through any previews. They're afraid that without music the numbers will go lower where if you slam more junk in -- effects, music, whatever -- the numbers will go higher. That to me doesn't necessarily work. I find the music tends to make it a movie to me whereas taking out the music and just using it very, very judiciously can make it much more real."

BURBANK, Calif.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--Aug. 16, 2000--DVD users all over the world will share in the unique opportunity of simultaneously watching ``Three Kings'' while chatting online with the movie's hot young star, Mark Wahlberg, and director David O. Russell.

This Warner Home Video event, featuring the highly praised action-adventure film, marks the first synchronized online chat and screening featuring a highly successful actor.

The screening/chat is scheduled for Aug. 25 at 6 p.m. PT. Users can register by going to ``Online Events'' in their DVD-ROM's menu; at Wahlberg's Web site, www.markwahlberg.com; www.warnervideo.com/threekingsevents; or through www.entertaindom.com.

To participate, users need a computer equipped with a DVD-ROM drive, the ``Three Kings'' DVD and an Internet connection. A cue delivered by Warner Home Video via the Internet will trigger the movie to begin at the same time for all users on their computer. Users will then view the movie at DVD quality in a ``virtual theater'' and will be able to ask Wahlberg and Russell questions as everyone watches the movie together.

Users without a DVD-ROM computer will be able to participate in the chat only. Autographed DVDs of the ``Three Kings'' will also be given away as prizes during the event.

For more information or to submit a question in advance, visit www.warnervideo.com/threekingsevents.

``Three Kings,'' starring George Clooney, Wahlberg and Ice Cube, was voted best picture of the year by Newsweek's David Ansen and by the Boston Film Critics Association, which also gave a best director nod to David O. Russell. In addition, the film has landed on more than 125 U.S. critics' top 10 lists.

``Three Kings'' centers around career soldier Archie Gates (Clooney), who has been marking time in his Gulf War base camp while high-tech U.S. specialists fight. But now, after the war's end, it's time for action as Gates and three other restless Americans decide to raid a bunker holding a stash of fold stolen by the Iraqi army. Get in, get out, get rich: the plan couldn't be easier. Or so they thought.

With operations in 78 international territories -- more than the video division of any other studio -- Warner Home Video commands the largest distribution infrastructure in the global video marketplace.

Warner Home Video's film library is the largest on any studio, offering top-quality new and vintage titles from the repertoires of Warner Bros. Pictures, Turner Entertainment Co., Castle Rock Entertainment, HBO Home Video and New Line Home Video.

Note: A Photo is available at URL: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/photo.cgi?pw.081600/bb6

llen Burstyn and Jeff Bridges will be honored with Film Excellence Awards at this year's Boston Film Festival, which starts Sept. 8 and runs through Sept. 17.

More than 40 features and 37 short films, including work by local filmmakers, will be shown during the festival screenings at Copley Place and the Cheri. Organizers Mark Diamond and Susan Fraine announced the films and award recipients yesterday at a luncheon at the Lenox Hotel.

Burstyn and Bridges, who co-starred in the acclaimed ''The Last Picture Show'' in 1971, are slated to appear at the festival party Sept. 11. Burstyn appears in ''Requiem for a Dream,'' directed by Darren Aronofsky, which screens Sept. 12. She also has a role in another festival premiere, ''The Yards,'' which features Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron.

Bridges's film is ''The Contender,'' a contemporary political drama costarring Joan Allen. It screens Sept. 11.

The festival also will present the 27th-anniversary edition of ''The Exorcist,'' to which director William Friedkin has added 11 minutes of footage. William Peter Blatty, who wrote the book on which the film is based, and Linda Blair, the actress who portrayed the possessed, will be in Boston for the Sept. 15 screening and a Q&A session with the audience. Burstyn, incidentally, played the mother in the 1973 film.

The opening-night selections are ''Venus Beauty Institute,'' a French film set in a Paris beauty spa; ''What's Cooking,'' a family comedy with Alfre Woodard; ''Shadow of the Vampire,'' with John Malkovich, about a filmmaker's quest to remake a classic; and ''Songcatcher,'' with Janet McTeer and Aidan Quinn, set in the world of musicians in Appalachia.

Diamond acknowledged that the festival had a tough act to follow in last year's coup of ''American Beauty'' and award recipients Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening. That film went on to win Oscars for best picture and best actor.

''What do you do after that?'' said Diamond, who's hoping that one of this year's films has the same good fortune.

For more information, visit the festival Web site, www.bostonfilmfestival.com.

E llen Burstyn is breathless when she answers the phone at her New York home. She's in the middle of packing for her evening flight to Cannes, where she's featured in two films at the festival.

"The Yards," directed by James Gray ("Little Odessa") and co-starring Faye Dunaway and James Caan, is in competition. "Requiem for a Dream," Darren Aronofsky's follow-up to "Pi," will have a special screening.

Burstyn plays mothers in both -- to Mark Wahlberg in "The Yards" and to Jared Leto in "Requiem" -- but neither role is anything Donna Reed would covet.

"Requiem," based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr. (who also wrote "Last Exit to Brooklyn"), is stocked with desperate characters. "Everyone in the movie is addicted to something," Burstyn says. "I'm addicted to food and chocolate and television, and then I become addicted to diet pills."

The 67-year-old actress has done well by screen motherhood. She won an Oscar as the widowed waitress mother of a young son in Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." She was nominated for playing both the knowing parent of Cybill Shepherd in "The Last Picture Show" and of the ultimate problem child in "The Exorcist."

Despite her veteran status, neither of her current roles were easy births, particularly that of "Requiem." "I'd say it's right up there, definitely in the league with 'The Exorcist,' in terms of the demands on the actor," she says. "It's just a harrowing descent into hell she goes through. There's hardly any scene in the film that isn't emotionally difficult."

And physically difficult. For a few scenes, Aronofsky mounted a heavy camera on Burstyn's front, to film her face as she walked through an apartment, and then on her back.

Burstyn's first instinct was to reject the role when she read the script. "It wasn't very much money," she says. "I thought, 'These people are crazy if they want me to put myself through that for a buck and half.' It was so depressing."

B ut she decided to watch Aronofsky's first feature before she made a final decision. "A minute and half into 'Pi,' I thought, 'OK, I get it.... [My decision] really was [made] on the basis of the creativity of Darren that I saw in 'Pi.' It wasn't because I had the faintest desire to put myself through this."
 

The atmosphere was lighter on Miramax's "Yards" set. Though it's also a dark film about the investigation into a cop's death, director Gray's sense of humor leavened the mood. "He has sort of a comedic frame of mind all the time, so even when he's serious that's funny," the actress says. "The movie's not funny at all....It's just that his way of expressing [himself] on the set through humor is a very strange contradiction. [with the film's tone.]"

Burstyn plays Val Handler. "I'm a very kind of repressed character. She hasn't had much life experience -- she's lived her whole life in Brooklyn. Her son is the most important thing in the world to her, all she has."

As far as sibling rivalry, Wahlberg is the favorite son. "I absolutely adored Mark Wahlberg," Burstyn says. "He's just the sweetest, dearest young man, and I really feel like his mother. The chemistry was very good between us.

"Jared I don't know very well.... During the scenes we related, but he's very mysterious and standoffish between scenes."

Perhaps the actress' experience intimidated the young Leto. It seemed to have had such an effect initially on their director. "Darren told me the other day that the first time we went out to lunch, he brought a camera and wanted to take a picture of me and was afraid to ask me," she says. "That surprised me so much. I had no idea he was so intimidated....He said, 'You were very serious at lunch, like a scientist, till we got on the set.'"

She welcomes, in fact, the directors' relative inexperience, pointing out that "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" was only Scorsese's second film as well.

"I like working with directors when they're still young and excited about filmmaking and impassioned," she says. "Sometimes directors, after they've made a lot of films, don't have the same kind of passion for it, so that's a plus as far as I'm concerned."

And her latest directors, Gray and Aronofsky, have an uncanny symmetry. "They're both from Brooklyn, they're both 30 years old, they're both Ashkenazi Jews, they're both on their second picture, they've both got me in their second picture, they're both showing at Cannes," Burstyn says, a little breathless again. "And they both have red hair. And they're both tall and thin." -- Melissa Morrison

"The Yards." Starring Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Charlize Theron, Faye Dunaway, Ellen Burstyn and James Caan. Directed by James Gray. Written by James Gray and Matt Reeves. Produced by Nick Wechsler, Paul Webster and Kerry Orent. A Miramax release. Drama. Rated R for language, violence and a scene of sexuality. Opens 9/8 NY/LA.

"Requiem for a Dream." Starring Jared Leto, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly and Marlon Wayans. Written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. Produced by Palmer West. An Artisan release. Drama. Not yet rated. Opens 10/6.

SYDNEY (Variety) - U.S. studios threw a lot of films into the foreign fray last weekend, but only a few look like sticking around as box office activity slackened across much of Europe and Australia.

However, Latin America was abuzz with ``X-Men'' while ``The Perfect Storm'' posted sturdy bows in France and a handful of smaller markets, ``Gone in Sixty Seconds'' energized the Netherlands and Belgium, and ``What Lies Beneath'' had a promising $481,000 foreign premiere in Singapore.

``Mission: Impossible 2'' hit $253.8 million overseas, excluding weekend tallies from France, Japan and Italy, where offices were closed for national holidays.

``X-Men'' grabbed $8.3 million from 17 countries, lifting the foreign total to $20.1 million ahead of its European rollout next weekend. Bryan Singer's comic book-inspired caper minted $1.9 million in Brazil, the market's third-best debut ever; $2.7 million in Mexico; an excellent $1 million in South Korea; and and OK $638,000 in Taiwan.

``The Perfect Storm'' grossed $10.3 million from 27 markets, hoisting the foreign total to $65.1 million.

The George Clooney starrer fetched an estimated $2.3 million in France, 11% up on domestic rival ``The Patriot'' Venezuela's $342,000 was the industry's second best behind ``Star Wars: Episode One -- The Phantom Meance.''

Wolfgang Petersen's epic had buoyant bows in Portugal, South Africa and Finland, and surged by 16% in its third weekend in Japan, benefiting from the Obon vacation, for a territory total of $13.8 million.

``Sixty Seconds'' charged into the Netherlands with $531,000, beating star Nicolas Cage's ``Con Air'' by 20%, and into Belgium with $504,000, 21% ahead of Cage's ``Face/Off'' and more than 50% better than ``Con Air'' and ``The Rock''

The heist thriller had pretty good sophomore sessions in the U.K., tallying $5.9 million (falling by an acceptable 35%); Spain at $3 million (off 35%); and Brazil for $2.8 million (slumping 46%). A $6 million weekend brought the foreign total to $48.8 million.

``Shanghai Noon'' debuted at No. 1 amid sluggish trading in Australia with $930,000, and took a mediocre $567,000 on 254 in France, a difficult market for Asian-oriented fare.

The Jackie Chan starrer barely caused a ripple in Spain with $337,000 and eased by 35% in Japan for a so-so $1.9 million in nine days. The foreign total is $17.9 million from 19 markets.

``The Patriot'' collected $6.1 million from fine openings in the Philippines, Norway, New Zealand and several other territories, plus holdovers, and its foreign total reached $58.7 million. The picture slumped by a worrying 50% in director Roland Emmerich's Germany for $6.3 million in 11 days.

Among the weekend's under-achievers, William Friedkin's ``Rules of Engagement'' marshaled a meager $517,000 in three days in the U.K. and an estimated $425,000 in two days in Japan; and ``Titan A.E.'' had soft landings in Germany and Japan.

Scouting of Big Island locations for "The Visitor," 20th Century Fox's update of "Planet of the Apes," is continuing with a major technical scout planned for later this month.

The studio and director Tim Burton are considering several volcanic areas for what sources believe will be a $100-million-plus budget film. If Hawaii is chosen, filming here would begin in December, Burton told the Star-Bulletin when he was scouting Maui in May.

Burton said he hopes to begin shooting the film in October with a 2001 summer release.

Helena Bonham Carter will portray the ape princess, who believes apes and humans can coexist. Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth and Estella Warren will also star.

The script is being written by William Broyles Jr. and the producer is Richard Zanuck, who was head of production at Fox back in the late 1960s when the original five "Apes" films got started.

"The Visitor" plot has been a closely guarded secret. However Burton said it will be a "reimagining" of the "Apes" series set in a world where men are enslaved by apes.

Warner Bros. Pictures is in negotiations to acquire "Born to Steal," a nonfiction manuscript by Business Week senior writer Gary Weiss that the studio will develop as a vehicle for Mark Wahlberg to star in and possibly produce.

Pic will be based on the true story of mob infiltration on Wall Street, which resulted in the 1997 indictment of 19 people on charges of securities fraud. Manuscript stemmed from a series of investigative pieces that Weiss wrote for Business Week.

Neither the deals for the manuscript nor Wahlberg have been closed.

Wahlberg's most recent pic, Warners' "The Perfect Storm," has been a major warm-weather hit for the studio. Warners will release the Wahlberg-starrer "Metal God" in 2001.

Wahlberg is currently preparing to shoot "Planet of the Apes" for 20th Century Fox.

Weiss is repped by Mort Janklow at Gotham literary agency Janklow & Nesbit Associates. Wahlberg is repped by Endeavor, Leverage Management and attorney Jason Sloane.

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Warner Bros. Pictures is in negotiations to acquire ``Born to Steal,'' a nonfiction manuscript by Business Week senior writer Gary Weiss.

The studio will develop it as a vehicle for Mark Wahlberg to star in and possibly produce. The picture will be based on the true story of mob infiltration on Wall Street, which resulted in the 1997 indictment of 19 people on charges of securities fraud. The manuscript stemmed from a series of investigative pieces that Weiss wrote for Business Week.

Neither the deals for the manuscript nor Wahlberg have been closed.

Wahlberg's most recent picture, Warners' ``The Perfect Storm'' has been a major warm-weather hit for the studio. Warners will release the Wahlberg-starrer ``Metal God'' in 2001.

Wahlberg is currently preparing to shoot a ``Planet of the Apes'' remake for 20th Century Fox.

Reuters/Variety REUTERS

LOS ANGELES – As actors striking over payment for commercials near their fourth month out of work – with no end in sight – panic is beginning to set in around Hollywood with the realization that a similar job action could shut down film and television production next year.

Across the entertainment industry, studios are scrambling to put projects into the pipeline to be sure they'll have movies to release next year. Television production houses are trying to finish extra episodes in anticipation of a work stoppage by actors and screenwriters, both of whose unions will renegotiate their contracts in 2001.

In the current labor dispute, actors want to be paid residual fees every time their commercials air on cable television. That's the same system that applies to network TV. Advertisers, claiming ever-narrower television and cable audiences, want to replace the pay-per-play residuals with flat fees that represent a modest raise.

The same issues are expected to be on the table next June, when the studios' contract with the two major acting unions, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, expires. A similar contract between the studios and the Writers Guild of America expires in May.

"All the studios are well aware that they are facing the potential of two strikes, God forbid," said Susan Tick, a spokeswoman for Columbia Pictures. "We are trying to get everything done and wrapped up by a June deadline. You don't want to be halfway through a project when the strike hits."

Because movies take so long to shoot, edit and release, studios are hurrying to begin movies now to have "product," as they call it, to release in the fall and winter of 2001.

"We're taking the possibility of a strike very seriously; we are aggressively preparing for it," said Barbara Brogliatti, a spokeswoman at Warner Bros. Like executives at other studios, Brogliatti declined to outline Warner's strategy, but noted that one Christmas 2001 release, the animated "Osmosis Jones," is almost done, and "Angel Eyes," starring Jennifer Lopez, is about to begin production.

"Nobody wants to be caught off guard," she said.

At 20th Century Fox, directives have been issued to push movies into production as quickly as possible, with a warning that no productions will be permitted to begin after March. "We are reviewing our schedule," one senior executive said on condition of anonymity, adding that "‚'stockpile' is too strong a word."

Talent agencies are similarly jockeying to get their clients signed on to projects as soon as studios offer a green light, and are using the tightened deadlines as negotiating tools.

To the dismay of many, the expectation of a strike next year has taken on an air of inevitability throughout Hollywood. "A certain fatalism has infiltrated the community, which does not augur well for Hollywood's future," Variety Editor Peter Bart wrote this week. "The cost of a strike, or series of strikes, would be devastating, affecting not only those engaged directly in movies and TV – some 250,000 at last count – but also those in the myriad support mechanisms."

Along with the dispute over residual payments, the two sides also have failed to agree on a system of payment for performances shown on the Internet – a burgeoning area of entertainment that has yet to prove its commercial worth to movie studios.

The Internet and cable issues will be central in negotiations for movies and television shows, and there is no consensus on a direction for resolving them. Hence the fear of strikes.

Said Brogliatti: "We're dealing with philosophical changes, with breaking new ground. That makes negotiations more difficult, because neither side wants to make a mistake."

While actors claim that in the best of economic times they deserve a raise, the studios are expected to say that production costs are rising and the financial risks of releasing movies and creating new television shows are already huge.

The other complication is that the multimedia conglomerates that now own the Hollywood studios and television networks – Vivendi, Sony, Time Warner and Viacom among them – don't seem to be paying much attention to the current work stoppage and the potential for disruption next year.

In years past, Hollywood's most powerful mogul, Lew Wasserman, the former MCA studio chief, would usually step in and moderate disputes that threatened to torpedo the industry. That's not the case with the multinational companies running things.

"Their interests are so vast, their scenarios so conflicting, that the potential shutting down of Hollywood may actually fall below the radar until the point of no return," Bart wrote.

This awareness has also riled the unions, which have been watching their strike funds dwindle perilously low over the past four months.

"This used to be more a local thing," said SAG spokesman Greg Krizman with a sigh. "Now you have foreign ownership, people in France and Japan and God knows where else, where the studios or TV arms are just one facet of a multifaceted corporation. . . . How much do the corporate owners know about the business?"

Meanwhile, negotiations between lawyers for the advertisers' associations and the acting unions remain at a standstill. Two days of talks in late July led to no progress, and there has been no further contact except for dueling press releases accusing each side of intransigence.

As for the actors, 2,000 of whom showed up at the Palladium Theater in Hollywood this week for a rally, the prospect of another strike next year is understandably exhausting.

"It's wearing. It's very emotional," said actress Sally Kirkland. "It feels like somebody out there is trying to bust our union, to take away our benefits. It feels emotionally like it's a lot of corporate greed."

SYDNEY (Variety) - An infusion of new blood revived the overseas box office last weekend as ``Gone in Sixty Seconds'' roared into four markets, ``The Perfect Storm'' stirred Mexico and Argentina, and ``X-Men'' and ``Scary Movie'' ran amok in Asia.

Adding momentum to a busy frame, ``The Patriot'' bowed with a bang in Germany and Austria, Aussie drama ``Chopper'' started strongly on home turf, and ``Big Momma's House'' initialed reasonably well in France and Spain.

The summer season champ, ``Mission: Impossible 2,'' stole $11.9 million from 25 countries, and its foreign total soared to $243.6 million. (North America stands at $212.1 million.)

After stellar debuts, John Woo's pyrotechnic picture tumbled by 45% in France, collaring $12.1 million in 12 days, and by 39% in Belgium for $2 million in the same period.

``Sixty Seconds'' is elevating Nicolas Cage to another box office plane, scoring $2.6 million in the U.K. (surpassing ``Face/Off,'' the previous high for a Cage vehicle by nearly 10%), $1.4 million in Spain (4% up on ``The Rock'') and $1.4 million in Brazil, Disney's No. 2 film of all time, trailing ``The Sixth Sense''

The actioner raked in $1.1 million in Taiwan, 10% better than ``Face/Off'' but below ``The Rock.'' All told, the picture coined $8.6 million, elevating the foreign total to $37.4 million. (North America is $95.9 million.)

``The Perfect Storm'' whipped up $10.3 million, selling more than 2 million ducats in 20 markets, lifting the foreign total to $47.1 million. (North America is $165.6 million.) Wolfgang Petersen's doomed boat steamed into Mexico with $1.3 million, Warner Bros.' fourth-biggest premiere in that territory.

The George Clooney vehicle gave WB its best-ever catch in Argentina, notching $878,000, while the Philippines' $528,000 was the studio's fifth highest.

After solid launches, ``Storm'' dipped by a reasonable 33% in Japan, minting $9.4 million in nine days; by 43% in the U.K., for $7.3 million in 10 days; and just 20% in South Korea, for $2.8 million in 10.

Early in its foreign rollout, ``X-Men'' captured $857,000 in Thailand (Fox's second-biggest opening there) and a uniformly lively $643,000 in Hong Kong, $612,000 in Sweden, $360,000 in Malaysia and $207,000 in Chile. Its $3.4 million weekend haul brought the foerign total to $10.4 million.

``Scary Movie'' seized pole position in the Netherlands with $420,000 (albeit affected by a box office slump Saturday due to terrific weather) and Israel at $335,00.

``The Patriot'' conjured up a very good but not exceptional $3.3 million in Germany, $508,000 in Austria, $238,000 in Denmark (No. 1 in each) and a soft $131,000 in Singapore (beaten by ``X-Men'' in its sophomore session and rookie ``U-571''). The Mel Gibson starrer harvested $9.7 million last weekend, taking its foreign total to $47.6 million.

``Chopper,'' the bio of a real-life criminal toplining Eric Bana, generated a lot of publicity and want-to-see Down Under, paying off with $742,000 (plus $172,000 from the prior weekend's sneaks), just ahead of ``Patriot'' in its third round and freshman ``Frequency's'' $529,000 on 164.

``Big Momma's House'' laffed up $1.2 million in France (second behind ``M:I-2'') and $927,000 in Spain; the foreign total is $26.2 million from 23 territories.

Entering Japan, its last major market assignation, ``The Talented Mr. Ripley'' saw a so-so $964,000 in two days, placing third after ``M:I-2'' (which has taken a phenomenal $56.8 million in 30 days) and ``The Perfect Storm.'' Miramax is hoping the Matt Damon starrer will hold well as next weekend is a holiday and the audience is predominantly female. The foreign total is $43.4 million.

In addition to a live performance by special musical guest the Cult, celebrities expected at the bash include: Ben Affleck, Courtney Cox-Arquette, Kevin Bacon, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, Cameron Diaz, Michael Clarke Duncan, Kirsten Dunst, Carmen Electra, Shannon Elizabeth, Cuba Gooding Jr., David Allen Greer, Matt LeBlanc, Rob Lowe, Amanda Peet, Piper Perabo, Freddie Prinze Jr., Michael Rapaport, Will Smith, Vince Vaughn, Mark Wahlberg, Renee Zellweger, and more!

To bring the Maxim Motel to life, 21 of the motel's 65 guestrooms will become simultaneous, thematic parties. Inside, guests will discover a live tattoo parlor, a room featuring four lip-syncing "little people" dressed as Kiss, a kasbah, a honeymoon suite, and more. Each room will be equipped with its own spy cam to capture the night's events for online voyeurs tuned in to www.maximonline.com.

As guests exit the party, they will receive gift bags containing "Stolen From" Maxim Motel paraphernalia such as bath towels, ice buckets, ashtrays, stationery, magnets, beer mugs, shoe gloss and emery boards. Online partygoers will have the opportunity to purchase the items at the Maxim Motel Gift Shop on www.maximonline.com.

Maxim is the men's lifestyle magazine published 12 times a year by Dennis Publishing. Editor-in-chief: Keith Blanchard. Group Publisher: Lance Ford. Maxim's ABC Publishers Statement for the period June-December 1999 is 1,663,686. Guaranteed rate base for the second-half 2000 is 2 million. The UK version of Maxim was launched by Dennis Publishing Ltd. in early 1995. Other foreign editions include those in Greece, Holland, Israel, Italy and South Africa. French and Spanish editions are slated to launch this fall.

Maxim Online (www.maximonline.com), the premier destination Web site for men, launched February 14, 2000. Editor-in-Chief: Jake Levich; General Manager Maxim Online: Roger Munford; Marketing Director: Kim Willis.

Tim Burton's "reimagination" of "Planet of the Apes" may be too kinky for execs at 20th Century Fox.

Studio suits are said to be frowning over a sex scene Burton is dreaming up for co-stars Mark Wahlberg and Helena Bonham Carter.

The trouble? Wahlberg is playing a human — a version of Charlton Heston's astronaut who crash-lands in a world ruled by talking simians. Bonham Carter is believed to be playing an ape who maintains primates and humans can live in peace.

"Helena's character becomes Mark's love interest," an insider tells us. "Tim Burton thinks their relationship should evolve into lovemaking. The studio guys think it's too weird and unnatural. They think audiences will recoil. I think Tim is in for a battle."

Heston and co-star Kim Hunter confined their affection in the original movie to a tender caress or an awkward kiss. But Val Kilmer and catwoman Fairuza Balk went further in the remake of "The Island of Dr. Moreau." And what about Gene Wilder and that sheep in "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex"?

Burton's office did not return a call. A Fox source says: "We're not commenting on the script or the cast."

You may have seen actress-model Scarlett Chorvat in that Michelob commercial portraying a hot-to-trot wife who mistakenly dresses for a surprise birthday party in a negligee. (She's also scheduled to turn up in the forthcoming UPN series "Freedom.")

Well, turns out she was once a tennis phenom in Fraser (Macomb Player of the Year 1989!) and, according to US Weekly magazine, is the latest love target of he-man actor Mark Wahlberg, currently starring with George Clooney in "The Perfect Storm."

But US reports that so far Wahlberg has had several advances rebuffed after the two crossed paths at a party. Why? For the record, he's still squiring actress Jordana Brewster.

LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- Helena Bonham Carter is set to star in Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" for 20th Century Fox. The project is scheduled to begin shooting this fall with Mark Wahlberg toplining.

The studio said the project is a "reimagination" rather than a remake of the 1968 classic that starred Charlton Heston. Tim Roth, Michael Clarke Duncan, Paul Giamatti and Estella Warren have also been cast in the new "Apes" version.

Details of the "Apes" storyline are being kept under close wraps by the studio, but it is believed to differ from the original inasmuch as Wahlberg's character is a pilot instead of an astronaut.

Carter will likely play the role of an ape princess who holds a humanitarian belief that apes and humans can peacefully coexist. Duncan is said to be playing the role of an ape warrior and second-in-command to Roth's character, a military ape commander who believes humans are the inferior species.

Written by William Broyles Jr., "Apes" is being produced by Richard Zanuck, with five-time Oscar winner Rick Baker providing special effects makeup.

Carter, repped by United Talent Agency, last starred on screen in Fox's "Fight Club." She recently wrapped a role in Artisan Entertainment's comedy "Novocaine" opposite Steve Martin. She was nominated for a best actress Oscar for her role in "The Wings of the Dove."

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Helena Bonham Carter ("Fight Club") is set to put on the makeup as an ape princess in 20th Century Fox's update of "Planet of the Apes."

She joins Mark Wahlberg, who's starring in the picture for director Tim Burton, as well as Michael Clarke Duncan, Tim Roth, Paul Giamatti and Estella Warren.

Fox hopes to begin shooting the film in the fall and is aiming to make it a high-profile release for next summer.

Reuters/Variety

La película de Wolfgang Petersen arrasa en las taquillas de Estados Unidos. Sus dos actores protagonistas contribuyeron ayer a provocar un fenómeno similar en España con la presentación del filme en Barcelona.

El mar, de un azul verdoso, estaba calmado y tampoco el ligero viento presagiaba lo que se avecinaba. Cierto que en el aire se apreciaba una cierta tensión, una expectación espoleada por las informaciones que anunciaban la llegada de un fenómeno. Finalmente, con pocos minutos de retraso, apareció una gran ola monumental en forma de estrella de Hollywood que, tras poco menos de hora de una concurrida rueda de prensa dominada por las profesionales de sexo femenino, consiguió engullir la escuadra periodística. Era George Clooney, el protagonista del último gran éxito de las pantallas estadounidenses, La tormenta perfecta, que el próximo 18 de agosto se estrenará en los cines españoles y que ayer por la noche, en su première barcelonesa, provocó momentos de histeria entre los centenares de fans que aguardaban una mirada del actor.

Desde el primer momento quedó claro que él, Clooney, era la estrella. En un estricto atuendo negro, un George Clooney guapo, muy guapo, pero sobre todo ingenioso eclipsó con su savoir fair al director del filme, el alemán Wolfgang Petersen, que tras el éxito de El submarino (1982) -el primer filme en alemán que consiguió un Óscar de la Academia- ha hecho una desigual carrera en Hollywood con filmes como La historia interminable, Enemigo mío o Air Force One. Pero, sobre todo, el otrora doctor Ross de la serie Urgencias eclipsó a un apagado y casi tímido Mark Wahlberg, quien antes que actor fue modelo consiguiendo protagonizar muchos sueños eróticos gracias a sus famosos anuncios de los calzoncillos Calvin Klein. Wahlberg, que en breve rodará un remake de El planeta de los simios, consiguió su papel en La tormenta perfecta gracias a Clooney, con el que había trabajado en Tres reyes, de David O. Russell.

No fue el único en entrar de rebote en el proyecto. Tal como reconoció Petersen ayer, primero le ofrecieron dirigir la película a Steven Spielberg: "Sí, efectivamente, la productora se puso primero en contacto con Spielberg y él mismo les aconsejó que me pasaran a mí el guión. Él no quería hacer nada con agua después de Tiburón y Amistad. ¡Qué blandengue! Así que lo hice yo".

Tampoco Clooney fue el primero en el que pensaron para protagonizar el filme. Nicolas Cage y Mel Gibson rechazaron el papel. "Opto por todo lo que no quiere hacer Mel Gibson, así que cuando me llamó Wolfgang me lancé", bromeó Clooney, quien tuvo que lidiar con algunas preguntas respecto a su fama de ser uno de los solteros más cotizados del mundo ("Intento evitar este tipo de preguntas que me parecen casi un insulto para la inteligencia y el talento de uno) y su vieja relación con la televisión ("El 75% de las grandes estrellas han salido de la televisión. Yo estuve en una serie de gran éxito y esto me podía traer problemas, pero ahora estoy contento).

Clooney, efectivamente, se ha convertido en uno de los artistas más influyentes de Hollywood, pero hasta ahora no había conseguido estar en un gran éxito de taquilla. La tormenta perfecta, que le ha sacado "este peso de encima", está inspirada en un libro homónimo de Steven Junger (editado en España por Debate) que se convirtió en un best-seller de no ficción al narrar unos hechos reales que ocurrieron en octubre de 1991 en la costa nordeste de Estados Unidos. La víspera del día de Todos los Santos de aquel año se formó sobre el Atlántico una inesperada gran tormenta, a la que no dio tiempo siquiera de bautizar, formada por un huracán y dos grandes frentes tormentosos que confluyeron en un mismo punto: los Grandes Bancos, al sureste de Terranova. En aquel momento, un palangranero de pez espada, el Andrea Gail, se encontraba faenando aún más lejos, en el Femish Cap, y se disponía a atravesar la tormenta para regresar a su puerto de Gloucester (Massachusetts). El filme sigue el Andrea Gail en el antes y el espectacular durante de la gran tormenta.

Un maduro George Clooney curtido y arisco cual lobo de mar es el capitán del palangranero, Billy Tyne, y Wahlberg interpreta a Bobby Shatford, un pescador que se enrola por última vez para conseguir el dinero que le permita emprender una nueva vida con su novia Chris (papel que interpreta Diane Lane). Completan el reparto William Fichtner, Karen Allen, Allen Payne, Bob Gunton, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio y John C. Reilly.

El principal protagonista, sin embargo, es el mar, embravecido hasta límites inimaginables. La tormenta que da título y justifica la cinta es uno de los efectos especiales más espectaculares que se han visto jamás en el cine, con olas tan altas como edificios de diez pisos. Industrial Light and Magic -la empresa creada por Lucas para La guerra de las galaxias- invirtió muchos meses, un software especial que ha patentado pero no comercializado, más de cien artistas digitales y todo tipo de medios para crear una tormenta aterradora que, a juzgar por las críticas que ha tenido el filme en algunos países en los que ya se ha estrenado, también ha hundido a los tripulantes ficticios del Andrea Gail. No sólo tuvieron que rodar durante meses empapados en agua en una gran tanque construido en estudio y delante de una pantalla de croma azul en la que después se montó la gran tempestad, sino que, pese a su esfuerzo, la parte actoral y de dirección del filme no ha salido bien parada en comparación con los efectos digitales

"Tonterías, pamplinas. Las he leído y estas críticas me parecen una estupidez", dijo ayer Petersen. "En el Reino Unido y en Alemania hay una agresión anti-hollywood en el tema de los efectos especiales. Me parece equivocado y anticuado. Los efectos especiales son algo maravilloso que nos abre nuevos mundos. La película arranca suave, hasta el minuto 48 no empieza la lucha con el mar. Lo que nos interesaba eran las personas y hemos alcanzado un equilibrio perfecto entre ellas y los efectos".

Para Petersen, el filme es una especie de mezcla de Twister y La ley del silencio. "Fue una oportunidad única de combinar en un estudio de Hollywood las catástrofes y los efectos visuales que, como una montaña rusa, atrapan al público de verano con los problemas reales de unos pescadores que luchan por llegar a fin de mes. El filme es esta combinación de drama humano y efectos espectaculares."

El hecho de que fuera una historia verdadera y que existan familiares de los protagonistas fue bueno y malo a la vez. "No es Titanic", afirmó Clooney. "Los hijos de Bill Tyne tienen ahora 18 años y no se pueden cambiar las cosas porque sea más cómodo para el cine". Respecto a la ex mujer de Tyne, que al parecer se quejó de la forma en que el actor presentaba al personaje, afirmó: "Bueno, primero dijo que no se parecía y después, cuando le ofrecieron cierta cantidad de dinero, dijo que sí. Es una madre soltera trabajadora y espero que todo le vaya bien". Mark Wahlberg se crió en una población a treinta kilómetros de Gloucester: "Son pescadores con unas historias duras y era una responsabilidad interpretarlos, sobre todo para con las familias".

En el filme no sólo el Andrea Gail queda atrapado en la tormenta. Un velero, un carguero y un helicóptero de rescate -que en su amerizaje perdió a uno de sus cinco tripulantes- también sufrieron sus consecuencias. El palangranero hubiera podido evitarla, pero decidió salvar su carga. Para Clooney, los pescadores representan "el heroísmo del trabajo cotidiano. Sólo sabemos que estaban allí, sin radio, con la máquina de hielo rota y la seguridad de que 999 pescadores sobre mil habrían tomado la misma decisión". Para Peterson, "el de los pescadores no es un heroísmo a secas porque existe la decisión de volver o no. Lo hacen por razones económicas, para salvar la carga y sabemos que pasan un límite, hay un punto oscuro. Ellos se sienten machos, 'Somos o no hombres de Gloucester', se dicen. La gran ola del final es la respuesta".

El contrapeso de estos valores es la capitana Linda Greenlaw, papel interpretado por Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. "En el momento de elaborar el guión, pensamos que estaba bien tener a alguien con más sentido común que los hombres y que tenía otro punto de vista sobre la tormenta", dijo Petersen. Wahlberg, en cambio, no tiene dudas: "Estos chicos tienen que embarcarse a los 18 años porque no hay otra salida, en mi opinión tienen mucho coraje". Tanto, que Steven Junger creó, con los beneficios de su libro, una fundación para que los jóvenes de Gloucester no tuvieran que dedicarse a la pesca. El filme, dice Petersen, no contribuyó a ello: "Los peces no son de verdad, no matamos ni un pez espada".

Aguas turbulentas
ISABEL PIQUER, Nueva York
El libro lleva meses en los primeros puestos de la lista de best-sellers de The New York Times. Su adaptación cinematográfica, que llegará a España a mediados de este mes, ha conseguido recaudar 158 millones de dólares (cerca de 27.000 millones de pesetas) tras cinco semanas en pantalla. La Tormenta Perfecta, la historia real del Andrea Gail, el barco pesquero que se hundió en las aguas del Atlántico una noche de invierno de 1991, se ha convertido en un auténtico fenómeno en Estados Unidos. Un fenómeno que ha sorprendido también al autor de la novela, Sebastian Junger e incluso del director de la película Wolfgang Petersen que no esperaban un éxito de taquilla tan importante.

La Tormenta Perfecta ha cambiado la vida, en mayor o menor medida, de todas las personas involucradas en el relato: Gloucester, la pequeña, encantadora y hasta ahora desconocida comunidad pesquera, cerca de Boston, se ha convertido en una nueva atracción turística. Las condiciones de vida y de trabajo de sus marineros, especializados en la pesca del pez espada, ha sido objeto de numerosos artículos y documentales. Y también ha catapultado a la fama a Junger, un periodista hasta ahora desconocido, especializado en reportajes de guerra, que se pasó tres años sin un duro, investigando la tragedia del Andrea Gail.

Ahora Junger ha decidido utilizar su nuevo estrellato y la ayuda de tres de sus amigos para abrir un bar en Nueva York, que espera convertir en un lugar de encuentro para periodistas y escritores. The Half King, que toma su nombre de un oscuro jefe indio de la época revolucionaria, abrió sus puertas la semana pasada en el barrio de Chelsea (en la calle 23, esquina con la décima avenida) que se ha convertido en uno de los sitios de moda de la ciudad, desde que las galerías de arte lo han elegido para huir del mundanal y demasiado comercial Soho.The Half King es un lugar desenfadado, que todavía conserva la frescura de su reciente inauguración, y que promete convertirse en uno de los lugares calientes de este verano en la Gran Manzana

Boston magazine's annual best-of issue is out, hot on the heels of the Improper Bostonian's best-of issue - and how this must gall whoever's left at Boston because they were there first. Well, not they specifically, as the turnover rate is rather high, but their predecessors. Anyway, among the winners are usual suspects Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobson, cover boy Pedro Martinez, Ted Kennedy, Mark Wahlberg, and Louis Boston (''best all-around clothing store,'' not a human). There are about a zillion restaurant and beauty care subdivisions, if you care to wade through the thicket. ... Also out, the second issue of the Framingham-based Darwin magazine, featuring Ben Affleck on the cover. Affleck tells writer (and former Boston editor) Art Jahnke of his early adventures with computers and his semi-secret life as a tech-head

     GLOUCESTER, Mass.--The sight itself is innocent enough. A fishing boat taking on ice from Cape Pond Ice, an ice house on the waterfront here. The ice flows in a torrent into the hold. A crew member is packing cans of soda in it. Presumably he'll soon be packing fish. Gazing down at the boat, Scott Memhard, the owner of Cape Pond Ice, remarks, "It's very rare to have an ice machine on a boat. Ice machines are notoriously difficult to maintain."
     The exception is sword-fishing boats, which have ice machines because they go out so far for so long. The Andrea Gail had one. As recounted in Sebastian Junger's bestselling book "The Perfect Storm," and now in the blockbuster movie of the same name, starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, the Andrea Gail's ice machine broke, putting its crew in the position of either saving the fish they'd caught by heading home into the teeth of a storm or losing them by waiting it out. They chose to go home.
     The Andrea Gail was never found, but its memory lives on in Gloucester nearly 10 years later. It lives on in the people who knew the crew and in the merchandising that inevitably accompanies a hit movie. But this is not an occasion for a McDonald's or Burger King tie-in. There is no Andrea Gail Swordfish Sandwich. There are no Billy Tyne, Bobby Shatford, Mike Moran, Dale Murphy, David Sullivan or Alfred Pierre--the Gail's crew--action figures.
     At Cape Pond Ice, for example, they're selling T-shirts that read "Cape Pond Ice--the Coolest Guys Around." These are in demand because audiences saw "Bugsy" Moran, played by John Hawkes, wearing one in the movie. Memhard says he now has more money in T-shirt inventory than in ice.
     In addition to the T-shirts, he's got hooded sweatshirts, tank tops, baseball caps. He's even considering boxer shorts. A hundred of them are being sold at theater concession stands in Germany. One woman, confused by advertising associating Cape Pond Ice with the movie, asked for an ice sculpture "as seen in 'The Perfect Storm.' " Memhard obliged her by having the ship carved in ice.
     The epicenter of media and public interest in "The Perfect Storm" is not Cape Pond Ice but the Crow's Nest, a watering hole once patronized by the boat's crew members. In the movie, it's at the foot of the dock where the Andrea Gail is berthed. In reality, it's about a half-mile away. Inside it's as described in Junger's book and as seen in the movie (though the interior was shot on a sound stage in L.A.): a rectangular bar, a pool table, TVs, lots of "atmosphere."
     One thing that's changed since last fall, when the production spent three weeks here shooting, is the walls. Previously they were adorned with a few photos of local fishermen, including the boys who died. Now, in addition to those, there are pictures of cast members. There's also a photo of Junger wielding a chain saw (he was formerly a tree trimmer).
     "That's what people want to see," says Gregg Sousa, who has owned the bar since 1984 and seems a little apologetic about the new pictures. "It gives them something to look at, and it takes pressure off the bartender. You want to talk to people, and if it's busy you don't have time, so they look at the pictures and you can explain them. If it's not too busy, you give them what we call the 10-cent tour."
     That and Crow's Nest T-shirts are about as far as Sousa is willing to go to cash in on the movie. Certainly business has picked up, though it's nowhere near as insane as it was when the movie was shooting and groupies were hanging off Wahlberg's cue stick. A casual visit one Monday afternoon in July reveals a smattering of tourists wearing visors and shorts, sitting mostly at the tables, and at the bar fishermen and other locals drinking Budweisers and either ignoring the out-of-towners or surveying them with a kind of bemusement.
     Asked if he minds being a tourist attraction, Mark Ring, who crewed on the Hannah Boden, which is featured in the book and movie, and now has a boat of his own that was used in the production, says, "Everything is public relations these days. Why look like a jerk? You meet a lot of nice people from all over."

     'Very Respectful of What Happened'
     Perhaps the person most directly affected by the hype and hustle surrounding the movie is Mary Anne Shatford, Bobby's sister and Sousa's wife. Her mother, Ethel, was a bartender at the Crow's Nest for years and served as unofficial den mother to many of the fishermen around here. Ethel was played in the movie by Janet Wright, who looked and acted so much like her that one day on the set Shatford could have sworn it was her. People from all over have addressed letters and e-mails of condolence to Ethel for what happened to her son, not knowing she has joined him. Ethel died in October of cancer.
     "I think that people are being very respectful of what happened," Shatford says of Gloucester's merchants. "I think that if their business has picked up, it's good. We don't have any strong industries anymore, obviously, with the fishing industry the way it is. Realistically, there's nothing we can do to bring them back.
     "I don't want to turn around and see 'Perfect Storm' all over the place. Cape Pond Ice is selling a lot of T-shirts, we're selling a lot of T-shirts. The foundation is selling T-shirts, but that money is going to scholarships. My nephew Bobby--my brother Bobby's son--got a substantial scholarship from the foundation."
     Shatford is referring to the Perfect Storm Foundation, established by Junger to help the children of fishermen explore avenues other than fishing for a living. It sells T-shirts, baseball caps, etc., out of the Tourist Trap, a store next to the Crow's Nest, and also from a Web site, http://www.perfectstorm.org. Though the foundation got a boost from the movie, the only film-crew member who actually contributed to it was actor Hawkes. He sent $500 months before shooting even began.
     In fact, of the principals in the film--Clooney (Tyne), Wahlberg (Shatford), John C. Reilly (Murphy), William Fichtner (Sullivan)--Hawkes was clearly the favorite of many people here, both for his onscreen depiction of Bugsy, whom he in no way resembles physically, and for his offscreen behavior. In addition to the foundation contribution, Mary Anne Shatford says he helped wallpaper Ethel's bedroom while she was in the hospital.

     Locals Pleased With Performances
     According to locals, Hollywood by and large did right by Gloucester. Nobody in town was under the illusion that the characters would resemble their real-life counterparts, but with the exception of crew member "Sully" Sullivan, who was not nearly as belligerent as depicted on screen, the filmmakers were not far off.
     Shatford says her brother Bobby was more reserved than the way Wahlberg played him. Richard Haworth, who skippered the Andrea Gail for eight years and served as a technical consultant on the film, says that Tyne was a tougher captain than Clooney's character, more autocratic. He wouldn't have called for a vote on whether they should head home, as Clooney does in the movie.
     Of course, the movie's characterizations and inspirations were drawn from many sources. Mark Ring says he recognized some of Haworth in one of the film's few joyous moments. There's a scene in which the crew fishes and rocks to the music of ZZ Top. Haworth, who is known around Gloucester as "Lupa," Italian shorthand for sea wolf, because he would go to sea in all kinds of weather any time of year, would crank up the Marshall Tucker Band and dance on deck wearing nothing but a hula skirt, with his rear end hanging out.
     "After reading the book, my biggest fear [was] that they were going to be portrayed as rowdy drunks," Shatford says. "But I think they got it right. I think they were very caring in their portrayal. They showed the tough side of them, but they showed the goodness in them as well. My other fear [was] that there would be these long, horrendous drownings."
     Some people have told Shatford that they objected to how the deaths were handled, showing Bobby being left all alone, but she doesn't have a problem with it.
     "We all have our own images of what happened, and they're probably not very pleasant," she says. "It was much better for me to see it that way than to see him actually drown. And he didn't seem terrified. I liked that they were sort of at peace with what was coming. It can put everyone's mind at ease a little bit."
     Shatford's only misgiving is that the Andrea Gail has been singled out by the book and movie when so many other ships before and since have met the same fate. But in a sense, the boat and its crew stand in for everyone who has gone to sea. And because of that, she is willing to see it live on, at the Crow's Nest, on the Net, in the book, in the movie, in documentaries, on T-shirts and baseball caps, maybe even in ice sculptures.
     "A lot of people want to just let it go, to be over with," she says. "But I like to keep the memories alive. Holding on to my brother and my mother. It's a great tribute to them in the movie and to have everybody, not just in the country but all over the world, know who Bobby Shatford and Ethel Shatford are--and [about] Gloucester, Mass."

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- DVD.com, the #1 resource for DVD consumers, is predicting that enthusiasts won't be able to keep their ``damn hands off'' ``Planet of the Apes: Evolution,'' the new six DVD set from Fox Home Entertainment that hits streets August 15. Starting today, the site, part of the Express.com family, is going bananas in celebration of the ``Planet of the Apes'' franchise past and present at http://www.dvd.com/stories/play/apes/default.asp. DVD.com is offering fans the opportunity to check out exclusive sneak peeks of new ``Planet of the Apes'' DVD footage and vote on potential cast choices for the upcoming ``Apes'' remake. Visitors can also monkey around with ``The Ape-licator'' after a hard day in the concrete jungle and enter to win the ``Evolution'' six-disc set.

Bonus Features: The ``Planet of the Apes: Evolution'' box set reminds viewers of a time when big hair was in, people lived like animals and clothing was optional: the 70's! DVD.com offers first-peek streaming video of the cult-classics ``Planet of the Apes,'' ``Beneath the Planet of the Apes,'' ``Escape from the Planet of the Apes,'' ``Conquest of the Planet of the Apes,'' and ``Battle for the Planet of the Apes'' on DVD plus choice clips from the ``Behind the Planet of the Apes'' documentary bonus disc.

Casting Couch: With Mark Wahlberg reprising Charlton Heston's role of Col. George Taylor in director Tim Burton's upcoming remake of ``Planet of the Apes,'' DVD.com is inviting fans to vote on celebs it is auditioning on its Casting Couch. Will Dr. Dre beat out Dr. Ruth and Dr. C. Everett Coop for the role of Dr. Zaius? Who will play the next mute girl, Nova? Fans decide in a real-time poll.

The Ape-licator: Fans can make monkeys of themselves -- literally -- with the DVD.com ``Ape-licator,'' an interactive engine that reveals which type of ape they resemble. Click the appropriate descriptors and let the Ape-licator work its magic with incredible accuracy.

About Express.com

Express.com is the only aficionado-driven high speed entertainment e-tailer and one of Southern California's largest e-commerce operations. Movies, music and videogames are the passion of every employee; the collective obsession and expertise spill over into Express.com's content, community and award-winning customer service. The company is one of the top 10 worldwide retailers of DVDs as well as that industry's editorial voice and leading consumer resource through DVD.com. It also operates the videogames media franchise GameFan, which includes the webzines GameFan.com and VoodooExtreme.com, the 40-site GameFan Network and monthly Game Fan print magazine. Later this summer, Express.com officially launches its music store with nearly a quarter million titles. Founded in 1996, Express.com is headquartered above Don Knotts' star on the ``Hollywood Walk of Fame.'' For more information, visit: http://www.express.com/consumer/corp.

For more information, please contact: Diane Tanaka, [email protected], or Dorey Nielsen, both of Fleishman-Hillard, 213-629-4974, for Express.com. 

Mark Wahlberg is one sick puppy. The 29-year-old actor sinks into a couch at Tokyo's plush Park Hyatt, Homer Simpson-style, pats his stomach, takes a deep breath and looks around while letting the air out slowly. "Well, it tasted awfully good last night," he smiles. "But I really don't like what it's doing to me now."

It will obviously take a lot more than a touch of food poisoning to dampen Wahlberg's mood. The Perfect Storm, the Warner Bros production Wahlberg, George Clooney and director Wolfgang Petersen are in Japan to promote, has hauled in some US$190 million (HK$1.5 billion) from the US box office in its first month. And that success means Wahlberg has now officially joined the ranks of Hollywood's big boys.

While the praise and adulation are flowing in thick and fast, Wahlberg seems to have retained a quiet demeanour that sits comfortably alongside his boyish looks. Softly spoken and choosing his words carefully, the former bad boy appears completely at ease with himself and his role in the greater scheme of things. Despite a glint in his eye that suggests the wildchild within is still alive and kicking, sitting in this plush hotel suite with his famous tattoos well covered Wahlberg is the epitome of control. The man made famous for his muscular physique is now being hailed an actor of our time.

Even the sight of a mob of Japanese teenagers screaming his name at the premiere of The Perfect Storm in Tokyo - a luxury not afforded uber-stud Clooney - has failed to lift the almost-polished star's feet off the ground.

"I think I know the ups and downs and the goods and the bads of it [being a celebrity] so I have learned to pretty much keep to myself," he says. "I think that, unless something crazy happens, you can keep to yourself. I think a lot of people complain about it [celebrity] but then they will do everything to keep themselves in it. So I don't have that problem with it.

And because of my approach, things like that [being a celebrity] don't really haunt me at all."

Wahlberg has come a long way from his beginnings on the streets of Dorchester, Massachusetts. Born into a family of nine siblings - he has five brothers and three sisters - Wahlberg dropped out of school at 16. He would later return to finish his diploma but not before several minor felonies landed him 45 days in jail. After serving his time, Wahlberg went from job to job and then totally re-invented himself as a singer.

He formed Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch in the early 1990s and scored a hit in 1992 with the easily forgotten Good Vibrations. From there, of course, his fame grew with his appearance in Calvin Klein's 1992 underwear campaign alongside model Kate Moss.

Not content with conquering the music and modelling worlds, Wahlberg turned his attentions to acting in 1993 when he landed a role in director Hal Hartley's forgettable The Substitute.

But it was his role as a junkie - alongside Leonardo Di Caprio - in 1995's The Basketball Diaries that really made people sit up and take notice. And they noticed even more in 1997 when - along with that impressive prosthetic - he starred as priapic porn star Dirk Diggler in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights. That film signalled Wahlberg's arrival in Hollywood but his next few projects - The Bit Hit and The Corruptor, with Chow Yun-fat - proved major disappointments.

Enter Clooney and 1999's Three Kings. The film was ignored at the box office but the on-screen chemistry between the pair - plus some urging from Clooney - led Petersen to reunite them in The Perfect Storm; Clooney as Billy Tyne, captain of ill-fated fishing vessel the Andrea Gail, and Wahlberg as crewman Bobby Shatford. And now Clooney, for one, is happy to take a back seat and watch Wahlberg take centre stage. "With me and Mark," Clooney says, "it's like when you're the older brother and then you have a brother who ends up becoming bigger than you, but you can still kick the hell out of him. You still sort of have him, psychologically. Mark is now becoming a huge star but I can still con him into doing parts in movies with me, so I love it."

The friendship with Clooney comes, according to Wahlberg, though their similar work ethic. "[Clooney's] commitment to the work isn't like one of your average Hollywood movie stars," he says. "He's very much a guy's guy who just comes in and is committed to the director's vision, which is a rare thing for a guy in his position - not to be selfish. We obviously work well together and we have very similar approach to the work. It's a good feeling to know somebody is out there working as hard as you are.

"And I think that the only reason I'm where I am today is because of my level of commitment towards the work. I'm happy when, at the end of the day, the director feels I have given him what he wants. But success to me means being in a position where you can do what you want to do, not what you have to do. It's being in that position where you can say yes or no, and have more to choose from."

If he continues at this rate, Wahlberg will certainly have that. He has just finished making Metal God - about a Kiss-like rock'n'roll group - and has director Tim Burton's remake of the sci-fi classic Planet Of The Apes scheduled for later in the year. Throw in another collaboration with the Boogie Nights crew and the much-anticipated remake of the Frank Sinatra rat-pack caper, Ocean's Eleven, early next year - where he will again work with Clooney - and it's obvious he is a man much in demand. "The kind of movies I want to make aren't necessarily what Hollywood [people] are interested in making," he says. "They are in it to make a dollar and that's understandable. I think if you're spending money you at least want to make your money back. But I'm not necessarily into the 'big' commercial movies. Even with this movie [The Perfect Storm], I was obviously overwhelmed with the success, but I definitely saw it as a big risk for them because of the ending and because these aren't your ordinary heroes. They're just blue-collar guys from a small town." It was a risk, too, for director Petersen (Das Boot, Air Force One). Casting difficulties, the fact the story has no "Hollywood" style ending, and an exhaustive shoot in the waters off Glouchester, Massachusetts, and in the Warner Bros studio water tank, had him scratching his head at times and wondering if the effort would pay dividends.

But by the time their promotion tour hits Tokyo, the money is in the bank and Petersen has the look of a very contented man. "I was very glad about the way the casting turned out," says the 59-year-old German. "You know, first I had thought about Nicolas Cage and then Mel Gibson [to star], and for various reasons that didn't work out. I then saw Three Kings because someone had said: 'Have a look at George'. I was looking for George and I liked him a lot, so I said: 'Let's meet him'.

"But, of course, I saw the 'other guy' and said 'That guy is not bad either'. And of course that was Mark, and I knew him from Boogie Nights. Later I heard he was from the area the story is set, he's from Dorchester, and he has all that blue-collar background, so I had that in the back of my mind. Then I asked [Clooney] about Mark and he said 'He is not only a great guy, he is wonderful to work with'.

"They are almost like a father and son combination," he continues. "It's not that much of an age difference but it's like older brother, younger brother.

"And that shows in the film, their relationship and their chemistry is very important to the film's success." And Petersen is quick to predict Wahlberg will soon be up among the big Hollywood players.

"What I like about him is he's not an 'actor' actor, he has a sort of natural instinct that gives you reality when he acts," says Petersen. "There's not a false tone in it, he is the real deal. There's something about him that makes you forget he is an actor. I think that's what is really refreshing and interesting about him. He has great talent and will have a long career. He will be one of the big guys. There are a lot of pretty boys out there, but that's not all you need. You need some more qualities to be a real movie star and he has them all."

And that's something Hollywood has found out rather quickly.

GLOUCESTER, Massachusetts - It was the sight of a poster for The Perfect Storm that finally did it for Mark Wahlberg. Until that moment, he hadn't really accepted the fact that he was now a bona fide movie star.

He knew that his contract for the epic storm film gave him top billing with George Clooney -- "but I didn't think about it very much. It didn't really hit me until I saw that poster with George's name and my name above the titles."

He again became conscious of his celebrity status when he went to renew his driving

licence and was given the red carpet treatment. "It took me 30 seconds to get my licence renewed and then, of course, I spent 45 minutes signing autographs," he chuckles. "So there are advantages and a lot of disadvantages."

But he isn't complaining.

After all, a skyrocketing movie career is better than being in jail. "By normal standards, by Middle American standards, I should have been locked away, and they should have thrown the key away," Wahlberg once famously observed.

He's still making this point during interviews in the seaport town of Gloucester where much of the hit Warner Brothers film was shot. His transformation from street punk to critically respected actor -- he's received excellent reviews for his performance as an embattled Atlantic fisherman in The Perfect Storm -- is one of Hollywood's most astonishing success stories. And he's desperate for people to understand why acting has become such a lifeline for him.

"It's been a way to educate myself and to learn so much about myself, and so much about life," he says, struggling to explain himself. "It's also a way to kind of make good with my past. I had a really tough childhood, and I call on a lot of those things, and I go back to those things, and I find it all easier to deal with, easier to kind of move forward."

Giving a good performance is all that matters: "Yeah, the only way I feel I've really accomplished something is if I go out and do that."

At 28, he's put his turbulent past behind him, yet he's still haunted by it. It's only 12 years since he was imprisoned at the age of 16 for beating up a Vietnamese man: at the time he was drunk, high on marijuana, and wanted a case of beer in his victim's possession.

When he talked to Southam News four years ago, he clearly felt a compulsion to come clean about his past. "I grew up in Boston. I left school in the ninth grade and was incarcerated at 16. I was as messed up as it sounds. We robbed somebody, we assaulted him. The charge was originally attempted murder.

"My brother had been to prison. All my friends had been in and out of prison. I was the youngest of nine kids. It had happened to eight of them before me. My mother would have done anything for me and I broke her heart. But I've made her proud today. She knows the kind of person I am now."

Mothers are all important to him. That's why he related so strongly to Canadian actress Janet Wright, who plays his mother in The Perfect Storm. "Janet is just a wonderful woman. I don't mind having a movie mom I can get along with because I love my own mother to death. I have the strongest feelings in the world for my mother. She's proud of me, but tough." He grins shyly. "She's always telling me to clean the house. I get no special treatment."

Wahlberg was still embracing a tough lifestyle after he was released from prison at the age of 17. He got a job driving a towtruck, repossessing vehicles. "I was basically stealing somebody's car. I don't know how many times I got chased with guns."

But he also became involved with the rap group, Funk Bunch, where -- under his stage name of Marky Mark -- the muscular young performer revelled in ripping off his shirt and dropping his trousers on stage. Entertainment tycoon David Geffen caught a performance and recommended that Calvin Klein use him as an underwear model. By the time he was 20, his presence was adorning billboards and magazines around the world.

Then came his first real acting opportunity in the 1994 Renaissance Man for director Penny Marshall, and then a major breakthrough playing a porn star in Boogie Nights. By this time, he was realizing that acting had given him a sense of personal fulfilment he hadn't dreamed possible. He had no grandiose ambitions.

"All I could really hope to do was a good job," he says now. "I wasn't out to become a movie star or a $20-million player. Acting was something I was going to do, so I was going to try and do it as well as I could."

He won further applause last year when he appeared with Clooney in Three Kings, filmmaker David O. Russell's quirky spin on the Gulf War.

Wahlberg took his Perfect Storm assignment with the utmost seriousness. During filming in Gloucester, he absorbed himself into the town atmosphere -- to the extent of renting a room in the Crow's Nest, the seafront hangout where the fishermen used to congregate.

When he first accepted the role, he knew the film was based on a real-life incident -- a 1991 storm which convulsed the Atlantic seaboard and left a fishing boat in terrible jeopardy -- but "it wasn't a big deal to me. I wasn't aware of the impact on the community, of the loss for so many people." But then he started researching not only the 1991 tragedy but the entire history of the region, and the terrible losses of life that have occurred there. "It was mind-blowing. Just to find out about commercial fishing and how dangerous it is and how many lives have been lost -- it's incredible.

"I hope the people of Gloucester are satisfied with this movie because it's definitely a tribute to them. These Gloucester guys have some serious pride, and they should, because it takes a serious man to go out and do what they do. I respect that ... They are heroic and courageous men."

SYDNEY (Variety) - Socko debuts by ``Mission: Impossible 2'' in France and Belgium combined with sturdy launches by ``The Perfect Storm'' in Japan, the U.K., South Korea and Hong Kong to give foreign wickets a much-needed boost last weekend.

``X-Men'' and ``Dinosaur'' scored impressively in Asia, the former capturing a juicy $664,000 in Singapore, Fox Intl.'s third-biggest debut in that market, after ringing up a fine $4.9 million through its third lap Down Under.

``Dinosaur'' bounded into the Philippines with $538,000, Disney's No. 2 animated bow ever there behind ``The Lion King'' and continued its hot streak in Mexico and Argentina, amassing $14.2 million and $6.6 million respectively in its fourth week. The foreign haul is $60.1 million, with Europe and Japan to come in the fall.

Still the pacesetter overseas, ``Mission 2'' minted $19.7 million from 28 countries, hoisting the foreign total past domestic's $211.3 million, to $219.8 million. John Woo's actioner has an excellent shot at cracking $300 million in foreign, surpassing the original's $286 million.

The Tom Cruise headliner detonated $6.8 million in five days in France, the market's second-highest entry this year behind Gallic click ``Taxi 2.'' ``M:I-2'' also took $1.3 million in Belgium.

``The Perfect Storm'' racked up $12.5 million from 17 territories, lifting the foreign total to $27.5 million. Wolfgang Petersen's picture generated $3.6 million in two days in Japan., Warner Bros.' second-biggest bow ever behind ``The Matrix'' and nearly 9% up on Petersen's ``Air Force One.'' But it couldn't dislodge ``M:I-2,'' which reigned in its fourth weekend in Japan, towering at $49.1 million.

The high-seas thriller fetched $3.3 million in three days in the U.K., commanding 29% of the total market. South Korea's $911,000 ranks as Warner Bros.' second-highest debut after ``Matrix'' and the industry's 15th best of all time. The picture took pole position in Hong Kong with $635,000.

Further down the achievement scale, ``The Patriot'' collared $7.8 million from 29 territories for a foreign total of $33.2 million. The Mel Gibson vehicle entered the Netherlands in second spot (behind ``Mission's'' fourth frame) with $275,000, and was No. 1 in Sweden at $256,000.

Similarly medium-level launches in Poland, Malaysia, Hungary, Portugal and Finland ponied up a combined $524,000. After good but not earth-shattering debuts, ``Patriot'' had reasonable holds in Australia (off 34%; tallying $3.3 million in 11 days), Brazil (down 21%; $2.6 million), Spain (off 32%; $2.8 million) and Argentina (dropping 27%; $2.9 million).

Judging by its less than stellar results to date, director Roland Emmerich's epic doesn't look to be registering more strongly abroad than it has in North America.

``Gone in 60 Seconds'' wowed Mexico with $1.4 million, a personal best for Nicolas Cage, beating ``Snake Eyes,'' and raked in $545,000 in Hong Kong. The foreign total is $25.8 million, with all of Europe and Japan ahead.

``Big Momma's House'' swung into Germany with a jolly $2 million, bringing its foreign total to $20.4 million from 19 countries.

``Gladiator'' conquered New Zealand, star Russell Crowe's native land, coining $642,000, as the foreign total reached $220 million.

``Titan A.E.'' added to its woes by bombing in the U.K, South Korea and Taiwan, and ``The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas'' had soft landings in Blighty, Korea and Spain.

LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- Warner Bros.' "The Perfect Storm" was the top-grossing film during the sizzling month of July, helping raise the temperature of the national boxoffice to an all-time high $1.10 billion -- nearly 5% better than last year's $1.05 billion. The tally marks only the second time boxoffice has passed the $1 billion mark for the month.

Additional good news sure to please exhibitors is that estimated ticket units for July also posted a modest gain from the comparable period last year. Admissions tallied an estimated 204.6 million, compared with 202.6 million last year. Although the difference is a scant 1%, it is enough to rank this year's tally as the third-largest July admission count of the past 20 years.

The all-time high in admissions for July was recorded in 1994, when 212 million patrons graced the turnstiles and Paramount's "Forrest Gump" and Buena Vista's "The Lion King" were filling theater seats. The second-highest count was in July 1998, when 206 million tickets were tallied.

Helping to fuel the blistering pace of the July national boxoffice were a record four consecutive $200 million-plus weeks (Friday-Thursday). The previous record was registered during the summer of 1999, when boxoffice exceeded $200 million for three straight weeks on two separate occasions. By Labor Day last summer, the boxoffice had generated a total of six weeks topping $200 million. This summer has tallied five weeks to date, including Memorial Day week, with six weeks left in the boxoffice season.

The boxoffice rebound began on the Fourth of July weekend, when "Perfect Storm" and Sony's "The Patriot" were on the docket, starting the fireworks that illuminated the entire month.

Dimension's "Scary Movie" opened the subsequent week with an impressive $42.3 million, followed by 20th Century Fox's "X-Men" the weekend after, tallying a staggering $54.5 million during its first three days. DreamWorks' "What Lies Beneath" debuted with $29.7 million the next weekend, leading a seven-day frame that topped $200 million.

Receipts for the 10 most popular pictures this month outgrossed their counterparts from a year ago by 7%, rising to $822.6 million from $765.6 million.

Last month saw three films top the $100 million mark: "Perfect Storm," "Scary Movie" and "X-Men." July 1999 also saw three films hit $100 million -- Sony's "Big Daddy," Warner Bros.' "Wild Wild West" and Buena Vista's "Tarzan" -- but this year's group generated nearly 8% more at the boxoffice.

The month was driven primarily by new releases; eight of the 10 most-attended films debuted during the survey period.

Projections for boxoffice and attendance figures come from The Hollywood Reporter's exclusive survey, which this year covered the five weeks ending July 27.

As it weathered the competition, "Perfect Storm" took on $150.5 million in U.S.-Canadian boxoffice, followed by "Scary Movie" with $123.8 million and "X-Men" with $110.3 million.

"Patriot" marched into the fourth slot with $96.8 million, followed by DreamWorks' "Chicken Run" with $89.4 million in fifth.

Fox's "Me, Myself & Irene" ($84.4 million) was next, with Buena Vista's "Disney's The Kid" ($46.8 million) and "What Lies Beneath" ($46.5 million in seven days) following. Paramount's "Shaft" ($38.7 million of its total $68.4 million) was ninth, with Fox's "Big Momma's House" ($35.4 million of a cumulative $112.1 million) holding down the 10th spot.

LONDON (Reuters) - ``The Perfect Storm'' blew into British movie theaters at the weekend and washed away the competition with a box office take of nearly two million pounds ($3 million), according to figures released Tuesday.

The Warner Bros. film, starring George Clooney as a fishing boat captain caught in a monster storm, tallied sales of 1.92 million pounds for the July 28-30 weekend in Britain and Ireland.

``The Perfect Storm,'' based on a bestselling book by Sebastian Junger, played at 409 theaters on its opening weekend.

Figures from Screen International showed ``Stuart Little,'' a children's movie about a talking mouse, fell from top spot to No. 2, earning just under 1.4 million pounds from 463 theaters. The film has grossed 6.4 million pounds over five weeks.

Dipping from second to third place was homemade favorite ''Chicken Run,'' which scooped 1.2 million pounds at the weekend.

The feathered version of the 1963 classic ``The Great Escape'' has amassed a whopping 19.3 million pounds in British and Irish sales after only five weeks in theaters.

Tom Cruise's ``Mission: Impossible 2'' slid from third place to fourth, grabbing 871,000 pounds. ``High Fidelity,'' starring John Cusack as a record store owner, also slipped one spot, falling from No. 4 to No. 5 with a take of 562,000 pounds.

Other new releases included the science-fiction adventure ''Titan A.E.,'' which opened in seventh spot with receipts of 245,000 pounds. ``The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas'' made its debut at No. 8, earning 228,000 pounds.

($1-.6658 Pound)