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Showbuzz
Web posted on:
Tuesday, December 29, 1998 4:09:48 PM EST
Today's buzz stories:
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"The Thin Red Line"
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NEW YORK (CNN) -- "The Thin Red Line," Terrence Malick's much-anticipated World War II story, showed record-breaking promise in limited release as it debuted to a whopping $182,639 in a total of just three theaters in New York and Los Angeles. It's the best limited-release debut ever for a film. The second most popular limited release was fellow newcomer "Hurlyburly," which took in $105,096 in six locations in New York and L.A. The Christmas weekend saw many specialized releases reporting box office gains, including the New York runs of "Dancing at Lughnasa," "Central Station," "Gods and Monsters," "Little Voice" and "Life is Beautiful."
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Burns
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HARTFORD, Connecticut (CNN) -- Hoping for an eventual payoff in the form of tourism dollars, the state of Connecticut donated $530,000 to filmmaker Ken Burns for a planned documentary on famed American author and former state resident Mark Twain, the Hartford Courant newspaper said Monday.
Filming of the documentary starts in 1999; it's slated to be aired on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television in 2001. Other states including Montana, Illinois, New York and
Louisiana have contributed to documentaries by Burns in the past. Virginia officials said tourism increased sharply after Burns' 1990 Civil War miniseries, filmed largely in the state, became the biggest hit in the history of U.S. public television.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who went by the pen name of Mark Twain, lived in a Victorian mansion in Hartford from 1874 to 1891, where he wrote his most famous books, including "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) and "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884).
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Steven Spielberg's "E.T." will be asking folks to practice safe driving
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HOLLYWOOD (CNN) -- E.T. wants you to buckle up. The extra-terrestrial star of Steven Spielberg's blockbuster 1982 film will be the mascot of a national campaign to emphasize the importance of safe driving.
E.T.'s new role in the federal government's Buckle-Up America campaign was announced Monday by Universal Studios, director Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and Progressive Insurance in response to President Clinton's initiative to improve safety on the country's roads. "E.T. holds a special place in so many hearts," said Spielberg. "I'm extremely pleased that the values symbolized by E.T. will be used to aid and address the issues of safe driving."
The Buckle-Up program's television campaign is scheduled to include the Super Bowl XXXIII broadcast, and will feature a new E.T graphic designed by the Arnell Group. "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" ranks among the top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time, with worldwide box office receipts of $700 million.
SPARTANBURG, South Carolina (CNN) -- A South Carolina theater owner says he's backing off his stern refusal to show R-rated movies. David Crenshaw says he was losing too much money to continue his moral stand against sex and violence on the big screen. After the first month of Crenshaw's ban on R-rated films, attendance dropped to 1,200 customers a week from 2,000. Profits were off 50 percent in November and 32 percent in December from last year.
"I thought people cared more. Apparently they don't much care," said Crenshaw, who estimated he has lost $20,000 at his seven-screen, second-run theater since the ban began in August. "We had vocal support, but people were just not showing up to see the movies. If the public doesn't want it, who am I doing it for? I don't want to sit here and go broke."
When Crenshaw first made his stand, he vowed to reject R-rated movies even if he went bankrupt in the process. "I did say that," he said Monday. "But I changed my mind. I enjoy the business too much. I probably would have to go bankrupt if I continued the ban. You can't make people want something they don't want."
Reuters contributed to this report.
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