Fox’s Mechanic Hopes to Repair Box Office Slump

Bill Mechanic is something of an anomaly in Hollywood.

He’s the first to admit blame when movies fail.

And, he’s the last to boast when they hit.

While Mechanic has had a generally strong run as head of Fox Filmed Entertainment and enjoyed an extraordinary 1998 with such mega-hits as “Titanic” and “There’s Something About Mary,” the last year has found him in the uncomfortable position that studio chiefs inevitably find themselves when the box office slumps.

“This is what happens when you don’t do well,” jokes Mechanic, gesturing to the bare-walled hallways under construction outside his office, where framed posters of Fox’s classic movies ordinarily hang.

Mechanic, who usually shies away from in-depth interviews, is trying hard to be good-natured about his lousy run in 1999, capped by expensive flops such as “Anna and the King” and “Fight Club.”

But Mechanic, a passionate movie buff, takes it to heart when movies he considers “so creatively satisfying” flop. “From a commercial standpoint, it’s clearly disappointing, and we, or I--however you want to look at it--didn’t do their job properly,” the plain-spoken Mechanic acknowledged in an interview. “I had more stuff on the edges than I had down the center. It was a bad mixture of pictures, and it didn’t work.”

Mechanic assures that product for the rest of this year and next will be more diverse, including comedies as broad as “Me, Myself & Irene,” starring Jim Carrey, high-profile dramas such as Robert Zemeckis’ “Cast Away,” with Tom Hanks, and smaller, quirkier films such as Philip Kaufman’s “Quills.”

In 1999, Fox’s strategy of having “different movies for different audiences just didn’t flow that way. . . . It was a much narrower slate,” Mechanic says.

Other than the Jodie Foster period drama “Anna and the King,” which Mechanic considers “mainstream entertainment,” Fox’s releases in the last half of 1999 largely consisted of dark, edgy movies that lacked broad appeal, such as David Fincher’s graphically violent “Fight Club,” Kimberly Pierce’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” and Julie Taymor’s Shakespearean tragedy “Titus.”

Other than “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace,” a colossal hit for which Fox sees a distribution fee but no profits, and the moderate successes of “Entrapment” and “Never Been Kissed,” the studio had no breakout hits, but rather a string of mostly inexpensive clunkers including “Light It Up,” “Pushing Tin,” “Brokedown Palace,” “Office Space,” “Wing Commander” and “Anywhere But Here.”

Fox’s slump prompted Mechanic’s boss Peter Chernin to refocus some attention on the movie side of the studio, which he headed for four years before becoming president and chief operating officer of Fox’s parent, News Corp., in October 1996.

“He’s going through the lineup a little bit more thoroughly,” Mechanic says. “Peter and I have worked together for 6 1/2 years. He’s my partner in the whole process, so I welcome him. What we’re doing is not a science, so if someone has the ability to see something and has the experience of doing the same job, that’s valuable.”

Chernin says that although “I have a lot on my plate, you obviously spend more time on businesses that are going through a rough period.” Chernin stressed that none of the year’s box-office duds represented big losses other than “Anna and the King,” which is expected to lose at least $40 million.

Moreover, for Fox’s fiscal year ending June 30, Mechanic says the filmed entertainment unit, which includes television production, “is on track to do in excess of $200 million in profit and will be one of the top three years in the studio’s history.”

He says only $15 million of that was from television.

It’s no secret that News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch doesn’t miss an opportunity to torture Mechanic when a movie loses money.

“The pressure is to make money,” acknowledges Mechanic. “He is, as he should be, completely intolerant of failure. And you know what? I think it’s my job to take responsibility for it, and I don’t think I should be given any tolerance.”

One reason Mechanic is so well-liked by those who work for him is that unlike some other studio heads, he doesn’t point fingers or fire executives when movies don’t work.

Fox executives are quick to add that no one is harder on Mechanic than Mechanic himself.

“Eighty percent of Bill’s pressures are brought on by Bill,” one co-worker says.

Mechanic concurs unapologetically. “People will call me if something doesn’t work and tell me to ease up on myself, and I say, ‘Why?’ It’s very debilitating when movies you’re emotionally invested in don’t fulfill expectations.”

In speaking of expectations, Mechanic says he’s pleased with last weekend’s $15.2-million opening of Fox’s latest release, “The Beach,” which the industry and the press have characterized as disappointing. He predicts the picture, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, will ultimately be profitable.

He estimates it will gross about $150 million worldwide, with two-thirds likely to come from overseas revenue based on strong openings in Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland and five Far East territories.

Because Fox’s overall investment, including marketing, is about $100 million, the film should break even with video sales and be in profit once all ancillary sales are tallied.

DiCaprio, who gained mega-star status after the success of “Titanic,” the highest grossing film ever, with $1.8 billion worldwide, gets a cut of gross revenue from “Beach.”

“Fight Club,” a $65-million film co-financed by New Regency, could lose Fox about $10 million.

Last week, News Corp. announced that write-downs on such films as “Anna and the King” and “Light It Up” contributed to a decline in quarterly operating income in filmed entertainment, to $32 million, from $164 million in the second quarter of its fiscal 1999. The results are particularly glaring because the year-ago period benefited from strong international video sales of “Titanic” and overseas theatrical receipts from “There’s Something About Mary” and “Dr. Dolittle.”

Both Mechanic and Chernin are certain that flush times lie ahead. “There’s pretty good continuity over the next 18 months--a good mix,” from big comedies to edgy dramas.

Mechanic and his team are excited about Fox’s April 28 release, “Where the Heart Is,” a modestly budgeted, heartfelt drama starring Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd and based on Billie Letts’ best-selling book about a young woman’s strength to overcome adversity.

“It’s a movie that has a full range of emotions,” Mechanic says.

Fox is also looking forward to a lucrative summer, with such comedies as “Me, Myself & Irene,” in which Carrey plays a mild-mannered cop with a split personality (June 23); “Big Momma’s House,” starring Martin Lawrence (June 2); and Harold Ramis’ “Bedazzled,” with Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley (late summer).

Among some of the studio’s most expensive bets are the animated space adventure “Titan A.E.,” which cost more than $80 million (June 16); Bryan Singer’s “X-Men,” a $75-million live-action adaptation of the popular comic book (July 14); and “Monkeybone,” a $75-million comedy from director Henry Selick that combines live-action, stop-motion animation and masks.

Fox also has some high-profile co-ventures with DreamWorks, which Fox developed, including “Cast Away” (holiday 2000) and “Minority Report,” to be directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise (2001).

For summer 2001, Fox will have a remake of “Planet of the Apes,” which Tim Burton might direct.

Edgier fare will come from the studio’s Fox Searchlight banner, including “Woman on Top,” a low-budget romantic fable that Mechanic believes is “probably the most commercial movie we’ve had [at Searchlight] since “The Full Monty,” which grossed $256 million worldwide. Also from Searchlight, Harrison Ford will star in Steven Soderbergh’s gritty drama “Traffic,” about America’s war on the drug trade.

Fox Searchlight, recently put under the leadership of Peter Rice, has been given a new mandate by Mechanic to focus more on “broad adult sophisticated” films rather than strictly art-house fare.

Mechanic is also looking for a less narrowly focused slate from Fox 2000, which is now headed by production president Elizabeth Gabler. In November, Mechanic gave his second-in-command, Tom Rothman, oversight of Fox 2000 and Fox’s main film division and promoted Hutch Parker to Rothman’s former role as production president.

Searchlight and Fox’s Phoenix-based animation studio, which is being drastically scaled back for economic reasons, continue to report to Mechanic.

Despite the obvious pitfalls of the job and the inevitability of failure, which Mechanic admits he too is “intolerant of,” the Fox chairman says, “I love movies. And in these jobs you get to make choices and have a role in what gets made, and I think that’s a privilege.”