With the strong slate of movies coming out this summer, one of the factors being considered for the ultimate success of the big three franchies especially will be if they'll cut into each others profits, since they'll be released one after another over a three-week period.
Columbia Pictures' "Spider-Man 3" will start off first, with Dreamworks' (DWA) "Shrek the Third" starting the week after, and the next week will bring Disney's (DIS) "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."
Dreamworks' CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg acknowledges that pretty much everyone will see all three of them, but he sees the key to continued success being how many times people will watch them again.
"Everyone is going to see Shrek. Everyone is going to see Pirates. Everyone is going to see Spider-Man," Katzenberg said. "The difference is which one of those movies are going to get multiple viewings."
Katzenberg also believes that "Shrek the Third" has an advantage over its competitors based upon its only 81 minutes long, the only family film and only PG-rated film of the bunch.
With the shorter time he also feels that "Shrek" will get more viewings because it is able to show one-and-a-half to two shows for every one of theirs because they're longer films.
The deciding factor to me is whether "Shrek" will come through this time again. If they put out a strong movie, Katzenberg just may be right. If it falters at all in quality, the rest of the factors won't matter. Of course that applies to the other two offerings also.
One other variable in the mix is that while these should be the big three for a time, just about every week there will be new, strong competitors being put out that could compete and keep any or all of them from performing as strongly as in the past.
Any way you look at it, for consumers, this should be a great summer of movies.
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