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American Morning

Hollywood Rumors Circulating About John Nash Are Downright Ugly

Aired March 18, 2002 - 09:24   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: He is the real life subject of the Oscar-nominated film "A Beautiful Mind," but the Hollywood rumors circulating about John Nash are downright ugly. Some say the so- called whisper campaign is aimed at derailing the film's Oscar hopes. Last night, the real John Nash responded by going on "60 Minutes," to answer the smears against him, including charges of anti-Semitism.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN NASH, NOBEL PRIZE, MATHEMATICS: I did have strange ideas during certain periods of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: John Nash says he is not anti-Semitic and never has been. As for the allegation that he abandoned his child, Nash's son answered that one himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, he wasn't around for the first 10 years of my life. When he came back at age 10, he was a very good father, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: And joining us now for more on John Nash as well as the weekend's box office best, Sam Rubin, entertainment editor for KTLA in Los Angeles.

Good morning, Sam. Thanks for being with us.

COOPER: Hey, good morning, Anderson. Sure, happy to.

We've been talking about this alleged whisper campaign for a couple of weeks now. I suppose you watched the "60 Minutes." What impact do you suppose it will have on Oscar voters, or is it already too late?

SAM RUBIN, KTLA ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR: Well, the ballots are due tomorrow, Anderson, so I think voters from the east coast have already submitted their ballots. Maybe a few west coast stragglers were watching the "60 Minutes" piece before sending in their ballots late last night or this morning.

I would assume that it's a little bit of personal damage control more than anything else. All the major news magazines this morning, "Los Angeles Times," "New York Times" on Saturday, have written about now what we've been talking about for a couple of weeks, this huge whispering campaign directed at what I think is still the front- runner, "A Beautiful Mind," John Nash himself involved, saying it is unfair to tar and feather me because people are attacking the movie in terms of getting an Oscar.

COOPER: Let's switch gears a little bit. Let's take a look at the box office this weekend. We have three new movies opened up, and each of them hit the top three.

RUBIN: Yes, it's really extraordinary, the numbers. If you take a look at "Ice Age" there, $47 million in change, "Resident Evil" in second place, "Showtime" in third. We'll get to those in a moment.

But first, "Ice Age" represents an extraordinary triumph for the folks at 20th Century Fox who have been trying to catch Disney in animation forever. They've had no success with traditional animation. In fact, they opened a huge animation studio and then closed it. But now this CGI, the computer-generated animation is -- this is there "Toy Story." I mean, the opening is much bigger than anybody expected.

COOPER: Sam, it's traditionally been Dreamworks and Disney. And I think 20th Century, they tried with "Titan A.E." I think they had "Anastasia." But as you said, they really haven't hit the mark until perhaps now, right?

RUBIN: They've had absolutely no luck at all, and you know what studio do, Anderson, here in Hollywood, is they track what they think a movie will make, and this was estimated to make about $30 million. They're crediting the extra money with two things, a, a very savvy marketing campaign, and the fact the new "Star Wars" trailer was featured. So many of the people who went to movie, the feeling is, did not bring children with them. They went because they really wanted to see this preview of the next "Star Wars," and the extra bonus, they got to see "Ice Age" as well.

But the other thing is, the movie really delivered. It's a big- hearted, good movie for all ages, so I think hold up. This horror movie "Resident Evil" did much better than I thought it would do.

COOPER: Yes, I think $18.2 million. No one's even in this movie. I actually even considered going, and I looked at the ad this morning, and there was no one -- no one's in it. How did it do so well?

RUBIN: Well, the former supermodel, I can't even say her -- Jovovich. Yes, I guess there is this market for horror movies, and they always consider this -- quote, unquote -- "teenaged audience." Is there any place for them to go. And as you look at movies that opened this weekend, this was sort of the default choice I suppose. And people went and saw it. But again, as we talked about "Queen of the Damned" a few weeks ago, I think this movie will take precipitous drop week to week, because the buzz of people walking out of the theaters, the opposite of "Ice Age," what people are really saying about "Ice Age," people saw this movie didn't hate it, but nobody is really raving about it.

And then I think the big box office story is this "Showtime" with Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy movie that really didn't open, and the fact of the matter is, it may be politically incorrect to say. De Niro obviously was a terrific star, doesn't really open movies. I think people were not necessarily sure this was comedy. And also, Renee Russo, who I think a big draw, wasn't featured in the marketing at all. Many didn't know she was in the movie.

So what often happens, the Monday-morning quarterbacking are not the filmmakers so much as the marketing department, what did we do right? What did we do wrong? And in this instance, I don't think they played up the laughs. The fact of the matter is, the laughs are sort of few and far between in this. So I think this was the big mistake of the weekend.

COOPER: Marketing mistake.

You know, we actually had -- Sam, we had William Shatner on the other week, last week, and I must admit it was not the funniest interview I've ever done. It was not particularly pleasant on my end.

RUBIN: He is very prickly sort of guy, and the thing about William Shatner, depends sort of the mood that he's in, but also film fans didn't Shatner was in the movie either.

COOPER: Well, he certainly is, and he's out there plugging.

Thanks a lot, Sam, Sam Rubin, KTLE entertainment editor, appreciate it, as always.

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