STOCK RISING

INLAND EMPIRE (518 Media) – 12/6 (Limited)
The newest odyssey from David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me) is essentially Lynch self-distributing his own film with the help of a company called 518 Media. The picture will open exclusively in New York on 12/6 followed by exclusive engagements in Boston (on 12/8) and LA (12/15).  Lynch says, "For the first time since Eraserhead, I can start meeting the theatre owners again, the ones at the end of the chain that have played my films over the years and helped me out." It remains to be seen how many theatres will ever actually play Inland Empire. After all, the movie follows a number of plot threads, including a fictitious film project, a sitcom with characters in bunny suits and a parallel story set in Poland featuring prostitutes and menacing carnies. Not exactly the stuff of blockbusters, so this isn't an option for Box Office Moguls. If you're playing Ultimate Moguls, however, take a long hard look. Aaron Hillis from Premiere calls "Inland Empire" his favorite film from the New York Film Festival and Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers hails it for its "hallucinatory brilliance." Lynch has always been a critics' darling, and I suspect you'll get a nice review score and some solid PTA points.

BLOOD DIAMOND (Warner Bros.) – 12/2 (Sneak), 12/8 (Wide)
There's a rule in the distribution business: You don't "sneak" a bad movie. When Warner Bros. announced 700 sneak preview showings of Blood Diamond for December 2, they were sending a message. Namely, "We've got the goods." Simultaneously, the picture got a nice boost in its tracking numbers, especially among men 25-plus. My hunch is that this picture opens to $18-$22 million on opening weekend, and, with a few Golden Globe nominations on December 14 (Best Picture – Drama, Best Actor – Drama: Leonardo DiCaprio), $90-$100 million domestic is possible. (Going against it in the Globes race is that the Foreign Press are considering Leo's role in The Departed as a lead instead of supporting, as requested by Warner Bros., so Leo must compete with himself.)

THE HOLIDAY (Sony) – 12/8 (Wide)
Nancy Meyers is the queen of the chick flick. She wrote Private Benjamin, Baby Boom, Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride II before writing, producing and directing What Women Want ($182 million) and Something's Gotta Give ($124 million). The folks at Sony opened Something's Gotta Give on 12/13/03 and banked $16 million on opening weekend. The Holiday, with its younger cast -- Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and Jack Black -- is slotted for the same weekend in '06. I'm told that this one is already tracking well with both women under 25 and women 25-plus, and it has the chick flick market to itself for a week (then Charlotte's Web hits, and I think it'll play especially well with women).  I don't see $100 million-plus in the cards for The Holiday. It lacks the multi-generational appeal of Meyers's last film (which had Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton and Frances McDormand for the old folks), but it should finish a strong No. 2 to Blood Diamond and has a chance to play well through Christmas.

STOCK FALLING

TURISTAS (Fox) – 12/1 (Wide)
This is the kind of movie that can occasionally be dropped into the marketplace and score a weekend box office win. That won't be happening with Turistas. Of the three movies bowing December 1, this one has the weakest tracking. I can understand why The Nativity Story is scoring better, but any movie that trails Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj has got real problems. Additionally, the new Van Wilder film shows up strongest with men under 25, and that's a demo required for any kind of success in the horror genre. Turistas looks like it will be in the range of Focus Features's The Return, which opened on 11/10 and did $4.5 million on opening weekend.

TWO WEEKS (MGM) – 12/1 (Limited)
Sally Field stars in this bittersweet film about death and dying that is written and directed by veteran commercial director Steve Stockman. The cast also includes Ben Chaplin (The Truth About Cats & Dogs), Tom Cavanaugh (How To Eat Fried Worms), Clea Duvall (The Grudge) and Julianne Nicholson (Kinsey). It was well-received at the Hamptons International Film Festival, and I include it on the Stock Falling list, not because it's a bad movie, but because it has a convoluted release schedule. It opens at one location in Los Angeles this Friday (12/1), then gets its actual release on March 7, 2007. If you're playing Box Office Moguls or Ultimate Moguls, you may have seen Sally Field's name and MGM and thought, "Hey, I'll take a shot at this." Bad idea. I assume that it is getting a qualifying run starting Friday, and it will not help you in any category now.

THE GOOD GERMAN (Warner Bros.) – 12/15 (Limited)
The jury is out on this one. I get the distinct sense that Warner Bros. has higher hopes for Blood Diamond than it does for this Steven Soderbergh Casablanca homage. I've not yet seen the film, but I'm told that the Cate Blanchett character isn't sympathetic and so the film doesn't quite work. All is not lost. The film will open on 12/15 in NY, LA and Toronto, and as long as it receives a few Golden Globe noms on 12/14 (Best Picture – Drama, Best Actress – Drama: Cate Blanchett, Best Actor – Drama: George Clooney), it should deliver some excellent PTA numbers (it'll expand on 12/22, and again on 1/19). That makes it a very good play for Ultimate Moguls, but I'd lower expectations for Box Office Moguls. Maybe $30-$35 million in total domestic box office, which is something comparable to the last Soderbergh/Clooney black-and-white teaming, Good Night & Good Luck.

Steve Mason's columns receive an R-rating as they may include hard language, or tough violence, or nudity within sensual scenes, or drug abuse or other elements, or a combination of some of the above, so that parents are counseled, in advance, to take this advisory rating very seriously, they may contact Steve directly at Steve@FantasyMoguls.com.