Travolta's Career Staying Alive?

Fox News/March 31, 2003
By Roger Friedman

Meanwhile, John Travolta, whom Lisa Presley cites as the guy who got her into Scientology, registered another box office bomb over the weekend.

Basic, the latest mess from the two-time Academy Award nominee (Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction), will be lucky to have hit $12 million Monday. It took in $2 million less in its opening weekend than Travolta's last stiff, Domestic Disturbance, which came out 18 months ago.

Since Travolta gets a minimum of $20 million per picture excluding perks, someone is in a lot of trouble. When they have a nut that big, producers like to make at least the star's salary back in the first weekend. Especially when the film has been panned.

We can throw this one on the same fire that also includes Swordfish, Mad City, General's Daughter, Primary Colors, Lucky Numbers and, of course, the big blowout of Battlefield Earth.

You'd have to go back to 1997 to find Travolta's last box office hit, Face/Off, which, ironically, co-starred Nicolas Cage. His next movie, Ladder 49, from the same screenwriter as Domestic Disturbance (it was such a hit, why not try it again!), started shooting this week.

This time the lucky studio is Disney. Previous short straw winners have been Paramount, Warner and Sony.

I would love to sit in a room full of accountants from all these studios and hear them swap stories about how they hid the Travolta losses from their respective stockholders. Now that would be a movie!