Hollywood&#39;s hope for record summer fades
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April&#39;s rosy forecast that  Hollywood would reap a record $4 billion at the box office this  summer has been replaced by hopes of merely keeping pace with  2006 as Friday&#39;s midpoint of the season nears.
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Hollywood&#039;s love affair with video  games has blossomed again this summer with tie-ins to &quot;Cars,&quot;  &quot;The DaVinci Code&quot; and other movies, but as in past years, the  union has not always been fruitful.
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With movie makers wrapping up a  record $4 billion summer on Friday, Hollywood turned to fall  films and the Oscar hopefuls it hopes will push the annual box  office beyond last year's $9.5 billion.
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Hollywood attempted to  squeeze a few more dollars out of a record summer by launching  a handful of midrange movies that mostly came up short at the  North American box office during the weekend.
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The Oscar race appears to be off to a slow start this year as many early hopefuls have met only limited success at film festivals and in wide release, leaving award watchers hoping the best films are yet to come.
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LOS ANGELES  - Like carnival barkers whipping the crowd into a frenzy in order to lure them into the big top, Hollywood pulled out all the superlatives this summer.
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After a month of  high-octane, A-list tent poles, the North American box office  gets a breather of sorts this weekend as not one sequel enters  the marketplace. It will be a brief respite, however, as  &quot;Ocean&#39;s Thirteen&quot; hits theaters June 8.
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The competition got a  little stiffer at the weekend box office as three wide releases  entered the fray, led by new champ &quot;Ocean&#39;s Thirteen.&quot;
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The summer box office season in  North America ended on an "Invincible" note during the U.S.  Labor Day holiday weekend as the Mark Wahlberg football movie  scored a second week at No. 1.
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Get out the Oscar scorecards  because next week Hollywood launches its new movie season, with  a typical fall mix of adult dramas dealing with more serious  topics than this past summer&#39;s popcorn flicks.
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LOS ANGELES  - The summer box office   season officially wraps this Labor Day holiday weekend, during   which three wide releases will open in theaters. None is likely   to cross the $20 million mark for the four-day period.
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So abandon hope, all ye who enter &quot;Open Water&quot; with expectations of another &quot;Jaws,&quot; the 1975 Steven Spielberg beach blast that became -- for better and worse -- Hollywood&#39;s model summer blockbuster.
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Summertime in Hollywood is not as hot as it looked at the beginning.
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In a summer when many of the studios' biggest bets failed to pay off, it was familiarity in the form of sequels and low-budget comedies that resonated with movie audiences.
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Summer wound down with a yawn this weekend at the movie box office, where the Jet Li warrior epic &quot;Hero&quot; took the top spot over the scary-snake drama &quot;Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid.
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The record-breaking summer of 2004 was at once predictable and confounding. Most of the big franchises delivered up to their expectations -- and in a couple of cases, well beyond.
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In the late days of summer, while still mostly unencumbered by any actual experience of the fall releases, The Times's chief film critics chatted about the season to come.