The thrust of this N.Y. Times David Halbfinger story about World Trade Center ‘s first few days of commercial release is…uhm…that it’s doing well for a 9/11 film? I guess. It’s done much better so far than United 93 did, primarily because word has circulated that it’s a warmer, more conservative-minded, hooray-for-the-regular-guys film. And that it did better in the New York area that in Los Angeles. And that Snakes on a Plane (opening this Friday) poses no challenge. And the word-of-mouth is primed to take flight.
“Everything that we hoped about the movie has started to happen,” Paramount marketing chief Rob Moore tells Halbfinger, “and now it√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s about ‘Can you still in this day and age have a movie that can be propelled by word of mouth? You take the movie Oliver made, the initial turnout, the response of the audience and critics, and all of that feels, to us, that we should be able to play and not have a movie that falls 65 percent from Week 1 to 2 and then does all of its business in two weekends. This to us was always a movie that should have exceptional hold. We think it should play for a very long time.”