Fall movie season can be summarized simply: Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter.
That's it right now when it comes to Lycos searches. After a summer filled with event movies, get ready for a slow fall. While there are a lot of good movies coming out, very few of them are getting online attention.
The two that are getting searches, however, are getting a ton. Start with Lord of the Rings. The first movie of the trilogy is technically called The Fellowship of the Ring, but nobody searches for it that way. As you may remember, it was the #6 most-searched movie of 2000 despite the fact that it wasn't going to come out until December 19 of this year.
The interest hasn't faded. Each time a new trailer has been released on the Web, Lord of the Rings has re-entered the Lycos 50. Last week it was the #73 topic on Lycos, with more searches than American Pie 2. It should have a license to print money.
Of course, if Lord of the Rings has a license to print money, than Harry Potter will require the invention of new, higher denominations of money. The book series and upcoming movie have lived in the Lycos 50 for 61 weeks now and Harry Potter is currently at #13. Harry has slowly risen with the movie getting closer, and he should enter the top ten shortly. The movie comes out November 16.
As for the rest of the big movies of the next few months, nothing doing. Search traffic is dismal for such huge releases as the Tom Cruise/Penelope Cruz romance Vanilla Sky, the Scorcese-directed, DiCaprio-starring Gangs of New York, and even the Rat Pack-remake Ocean's Eleven, which stars basically every major star in Hollywood (George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, etc.)
We are getting searches for Ali, but no more searches than we normal. Muhammed Ali always is popular online. He was the #13 athlete searched by Lycos users during the year 2000. There doesn't seem to be any increase in queries based on the December biopic starring Will Smith.
Yet right now, Ali is the third-most searched movie opening between September and December. Contrast this to when we wrote our summer movie preview on May 14. At that point there were ten movies with more searches than what Ali got last week.
Despite the low movie search totals, there are a few films that are starting to emerge from the pack, very slowly. Take these predictions with a grain of salt, but here are three films to watch:
From Hell is a stylized horror film about Jack the Ripper. It is the first fall movie other than the big two to receive specific trailer searches. It stars Johnny Depp and comes out October 19.
On The Line is a romantic comedy starring two members of 'N Sync, Lance Bass and Joey Fatone. The band's fans continue to search Lycos regularly, so this movie is beginning to be noticed as well. It also opens October 19.
Not Another Teen Movie is a spoof of teen comedies from the guys who wrote Scary Movie. It spoofs all the conventions of the genre -- for example, the "ugliest girl in school" turns out not to be the hunchback or the albino but rather a really beautiful girl who happens to wear glasses. It comes out December 14.
SPECIAL MOVIE NOTE: Many Lycos 50 readers have written in saying they think the rise in Barbie searches may be related to a scene in the movie Rat Race where a family visits a Barbie museum. Possibly, but there aren't too many searches for Rat Race in the first place, and none for Barbie Rat Race, so the search for a reason continues.
WEDNESDAY: After we take off a bit for Labor Day, we return to see if the tragic death of Aaliyah takes the top spot -- or will Dragonball win again?
