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CNN Live Sunday
Interview With Andy Seiler
Aired September 01, 2002 - 17:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: This Labor Day weekend wraps up a summer movie season and it's breaking records for box office revenue. Andy Seiler covers movies for "USA Today" newspaper and he's with us from our Washington bureau to clue us in on the summer movies. Well, good to see you, Andy.
ANDY SEILER, USA TODAY: It's great to be here.
WHITFIELD: All right, so it looks as though summer movies took in about nine percent more viewership. What seems to be the explanation for that? Were there that many good summer movies?
SEILER: Well, actually I think that that is. I don't want to sound too much like a cheerleader but what basically happened was if you look at the reviews, the reviews were better than they usually are for summer movies. Summer movies usually do a lot better with the average person out there than they do with critics. But this year they were good.
Any number of individual films broke a variety of different records. A lot of people probably wanted to get out of the heat when it was really hot and the air-conditioning is not the only nice thing about theaters nowadays. You put it all together, that's right nine percent.
And, people will say well ticket prices may have gone up. Well maybe, they don't really have that factored in, but I'll tell you something, they didn't go up nine percent. So you can bet that in Hollywood and at theaters around the country, they just are - one guy I was talking to who operates a theater was laughing as he went over the figures with me. He was very happy.
WHITFIELD: It would have seemed that with the advent and the accessibility of DVDs and flat screen TVs that folks would be taking advantage of that and they wouldn't be going to the movies as much.
SEILER: That's a great point and I've been talking to readers about this and a funny thing happens. Of course, they said that when cable TV happened, when videos came out. You know they were saying it when TV came out.
The funny thing about it is, it seems that the more people get into movies or the more speakers they put in their living rooms and the more comfort they have, the flatter the screen, the bigger the screen, these are the same people who say but you know you can't really recreate the experience of seeing it with a big audience and hearing everyone laughing at the comedy and everything. It's just a fun thing to do.
WHITFIELD: It's kind of contagious. All right so, Andy, you said that there really was a plethora of good movies out there. We just saw a clip from "Austin Powers." Was that one of your big hits of the summer?
SEILER: Yes, absolutely. I mean there were a couple - there were - I'm not going to say all the movies were hits. There were some real bombs out there and sequels where people were disappointed.
WHITFIELD: Appealing we should say.
SEILER: People didn't want to go see that everyone would have thought. This third "Austin Powers" movie is going to make more than the second "Austin Powers" movie.
WHITFIELD: Wow.
SEILER: And the second "Austin Powers" movie made more in its first weekend than the first one did during its entire run. So that's not what sequels are supposed to do but that's what - especially when they're the third in a series but it's the biggest comedy of the summer, no doubt.
WHITFIELD: And surprisingly, another good sleeper out there "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." That's turned out to be a pretty good hit.
SEILER: Well that is the most astonishing story of the summer. That movie, I saw it way back in March myself. It came out in April. It is going to play all fall. This weekend it might even be the number two weekend.
WHITFIELD: Wow.
SEILER: No stars, tiny budget, it plays and it plays and it plays, and by the way there is a very careful, very smart release pattern on that. They keep the theaters full. They keep them sold out and all you hear are people laughing.
People just love this movie and it breaks every rule about - you know they wanted to make it Italian or Jewish, something people had seen before. They wanted to put in an actress who people knew rather than the woman the movie was really about. It's a true story. They did, they broke all the rules. Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson were the producers on this.
WHITFIELD: Yes, I know. That's great.
SEILER: They went with it and it's just amazing. Sleeper hits like this aren't supposed to happen anymore but this one really is happening.
WHITFIELD: All right, Andy Seiler, USA Today, we all needed a little comic relief then. I guess that's the good explanation for the summer movie hits.
SEILER: And "Spider-Man."
WHITFIELD: Oh yes, that's right, and "Spider-Man." I actually liked that. All right, thanks a lot Andy, good to see you.
SEILER: Good to see you.
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