Word: boxes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Just 41/2 years after a little matter of embezzlement cost him the top job at Columbia Pictures, David Begelman, 60, is out of a job again, fired as chairman of United Artists. Of the 24 films he initiated, eleven have been released. Only one, Poltergeist, is a major hit (box office grosses of $48 million to date). Meanwhile, there is the imminent publication of Indecent Exposure, a meticulous recounting of the embezzlement scandal. But Author David McCintick, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, does not think his book had much to do with Begelman's latest downfall. "There...
Yankee Mickey Mantle tells of leaving home in Dallas for the 1967 All-Star Game in Anaheim, Calif., barely arriving in time to run for the batter's box and strike out. He jokes that he was back in Dallas to watch the end of the game on television, to see Perez win it for the National League with a home run in the 15th inning. Mantle starts the story mirthfully but finishes it regretfully. The American League had enough good players, just not enough Pete Roses, hunkered down cheering on the dugout steps even after they were...
...Memorial Day and Labor Day, and so Hollywood serves up its big youth-oriented movies in that period. Says Frank Price, president of Columbia Pictures: "Kid pictures always do well in the summer. By fall everyone will wonder, 'What happened to the boom?'' Even in the box-office heat wave, Price must be wondering; his studio's Annie, released May 21, keeps waiting for tomorrow (and tomorrow and tomorrow) to recoup its $50 million investment...
...flop, the news travels fast these days. "With most Hollywood movies opening in 500 to 1,500 theaters," notes Industry Analyst Lee Beaupre, "their commercial fates are generally determined in the first week." Art Murphy, Variety's box-office expert, explains: "Because it costs so much to advertise in the newspapers and on television-and because of sky-high interest rates-an expensive picture has to strike big and fast. A movie in 1,500 theaters will make its money quickly and then drop off. Even a hit can use up its audience in 25 days. These movies...
...Brian De Palma might. The stray adventurous mogul might be persuaded to finance their ventures into the adult world. And the baby-boom audience, just now approaching early middle age, might follow them. All this could happen tomorrow, and nobody could guarantee that the movie industry would break another box-office record. But the eager faces in those long summer lines would surely have pleasures worth waiting for. -By Richard Corliss. Reported by Elaine Dutka/New York and Martha Smilgis/Los Angeles