From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!sf-lovers Newsgroups: fa.sf-lovers Title: SF-LOVERS Digest V6 #17 Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8042 Posted: Sat Jul 17 13:13:34 1982 Received: Sun Jul 18 04:41:19 1982 >From JPM@Mit-Ai Sat Jul 17 12:57:32 1982 SF-LOVERS Digest Saturday, 17 Jul 1982 Volume 6 : Issue 17 Today's Topics: SF Books - Bestsellers, SF Movies - Poltergeist & Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan & The Sword and the Sorcerer & The Thing & TRON & Revenues, Random Topics - Movies and Video Games ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Jul 1982 0228-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Science Fiction books which are Best Sellers (hardcover) Best Selling Books (Hardcover) c. 1982 N.Y. Times News Service The listings below are based on computer-processed sales figures from 1,600 bookstores in every region of the United States. This Last Weeks Week Week On List THE PARSIFAL MOSAIC, by Robert Ludlum. 1 1 18 (Random House, $15.95.) Through many exploits and hairbreadth escapes, Michael Havelock saves the world from nuclear extinction. THE ONE TREE, by Stephen R. Donaldson. 5 6 12 (Ballantine-Del Rey, $14.50.) Book Two in the science fiction series, ''The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.'' TWICE SHY, by Dick Francis. (Putnam's $13.95.) 7 13 14 A greedy gang at large in the world of horse racing and computer programming. FRIDAY, by Robert A. Heinlein. (Holt, 8 12 4 Rinehart & Winston, $14.95) Adventures on Earth of an artificial person, a creature of genetic engineering, in the service of a Boss in outer space. FOR SPECIAL SERVICES, by John Gardner 9 7 9 (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, $9.95) James Bond against his old enemy SPECTRE. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 1982 0227-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Science Fiction books which are Best Sellers (paperback) Best Selling Books (Paperback) c. 1982 N.Y. Times News Service MASS MARKET Mass-market paperbacks are softcover books sold at newsstands, variety stores and supermarkets, as well as in bookstores. This listing is based on computer-processed reports from bookstores and representative wholesalers with more than 40,000 outlets across the United States. 3. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, by William Kotzwinkle. (Berkley, $2.95.) Novelization of the current film. 4. STAR TREK: The Wrath of Khan, by Vonda N. McIntyre. (Pocket, $2.50.) Novelization of the current space-adventure film. 9. LICENSE RENEWED, by John Gardner. (Berkley, $2.95) James Bond against a mad nuclear physicist: fiction. 13. THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST, by Robert Heinlein. (Fawcett, $3.95) A journey through alternate universes: science fiction. TRADE Trade paperbacks are softcover book usually sold in bookstores and at an average prices higher than mass-market paperbacks. This listing is based on computer-processed reports from 1,600 bookstores in every region of the United States. 13. GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE, by Frank Herbert. (Berkley, $6.95.) Fourth novel in the series about the planet Dune. ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 1982 0125-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Capsule Reviews Poltergeist. Producer Steven Spielberg delivers the thriller that the ''Amityville Horror'' dreamed of being. It begins in a comfortable American suburb, where a happy family is subjected to a series of weird events that lead up to terrifying spirits taking total possession of their house. The special effects are impeccable and the story well done. With Craig T. Nelson, Jobeth Williams, Beatrice Straight, Dominque Dunne, Oliver Robins and Heather O'Rourke. Rated PG. 3 stars. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - The movie they should have made the first time. While it doesn't slight the special effects of the earlier edition, the emphasis is back where it belongs - on quality of character, and twists and turns of plot. The issues - love, loyalty, innocence, aging, reason and emotion - are both timely and timeless. With Ricardo Montalban, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelly, Paul Winfield and newcomer Kirstie Alley. Rated PG. 3 1/2 stars. The Sword and the Sorcerer - Another medieval swashbuckler that looks great but lacks real characters for the audience to care about. Still, Kathleen Beller makes an intelligent heroine, and the makeup is triumphantly good. Rated R. 2 1/2 stars. The Thing. John Carpenter's new thriller is about a group of scientists that sets out for the Antarctic to gather data about the region, but instead is confronted by a ''thing'' that threatens the existence of mankind. Kurt Russell stars. Rated R. 2 1/2 stars. Tron. Jeff Bridges plays Flynn, a video game virtuoso, who suspects ENCOM, a huge communications conglomerate for which he works, of stealing some of his video game programs. With Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Barnard Hughes and Cindy Morgan. Rated PG. 4 stars. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Jul 1982 1427-PDT From: Robert Amsler Subject: 11 Top-Grossing Films (week ending June 30) (source: Variety) Ranks: Last-week =>This week Film Name (Rank Change + = up 1, - = down 1) Total to Date Weeks on Chart 1 => 1. E T - The Extra-Terrestrial $17,701,678 ( 3 weeks) 5 => 2. Firefox (+++) $ 5,570,778 ( 2 weeks) 2 => 3. Rocky III (-) $21,383,598 ( 5 weeks) 4 => 4. Poltergeist $11,868,727 ( 4 weeks) 5. Blade Runner $ 2,056,200 ( 1 week) 3 => 6. Star Trek II-Wrath of Khan (---) $14,255,809 ( 4 weeks) 6 => 7. Annie (-) $ 5,755,672 ( 6 weeks) 8. The Thing $ 1,253,900 ( 1 week) 8 => 9. Author Author (-) $ 1,635,872 ( 2 weeks) 9 =>10. Bambi (-) $ 3,623,784 (14 weeks) 11. Megaforce $ 598,400 ( 1 week) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 1982 0125-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Summer Movies By ALJEAN HARMETZ c. 1982 N.Y. Times News Service HOLLYWOOD - The summer is not half-over, but it is already apparent which movie will be the summer's big box-office winner. To the accompaniment of Fourth of July firecrackers, Steven Spielberg's fantasy about a lonely visitor from outer space, ''E.T. - the Extra-Terrestrial,'' has overtaken the third installment of Sylvester Stallone's saga about a boxer, ''Rocky III.'' After 39 days in theaters, United Artists' ''Rocky III'' has earned $72.5 million. After 25 days, Universal's ''E.T.'' has earned $87 million. Of this, $17,254,946 million was taken in during the Fourth of July weekend, the largest four-day gross in Hollywood history. ''We have broken a record every day since we established the opening 10-day record against 'Superman II' two weeks ago,'' Gordon Armstrong, vice president for advertising at Universal, said. ''We'll be over $100 million by next Saturday.'' Paramount's ''Star Trek II - the Wrath of Khan'' is in third place, with nearly $58 million in 32 days. Universal's ''Conan the Barbarian,'' with $39 million, and M-G-M- U.A.'s ''Poltergeist,'' with $37.5 million, are essentially in a tie for fourth. A lot of things can happen down the backstretch, and those positions will not necessarily stay the same for the rest of the race. ''Conan,'' which opened in the middle of May, has taken in as much money as it is likely to make, and ''Poltergeist'' is still earning several million dollars a week. In the long run, what counts is what Hollywood calls ''legs'' - the ability to attract audiences week after week. Last July, Orion's ''Arthur'' opened weakly, but the movie began to build and was still playing successfully at Christmas. Columbia's ''Annie'' has seemed a disappointment because it cost $42 million and was the center of a barrage of articles predicting immediate and gigantic box-office success, which it did not have. But ''Annie'' has earned $25.5 million, its audience is not falling away, and it may well end up the summer in fourth or fifth place. Some of the losers are also obvious. ''The Thing,'' ''Grease II,'' ''Hanky Panky,'' ''Megaforce'' and ''Author! Author!'' are among them. ''The Sword and the Sorcerer'' is not. ''The Sword and the Sorcerer,'' a low-budget independent movie from Group 1 Films, has surprisingly earned nearly $28 million. Most of the movies for which the major studios had the highest hopes have already opened. If a studio expects a film to be a blockbuster, it will put it in theaters in June to give it as much summer playing time as possible. There are exceptions, and Disney's ''TRON'' is one. ''TRON,'' which takes place inside a computer and is, thus, the first movie to compete directly with the video games that have siphoned off much of Hollywood's teen-age audience, was simply not finished in time. ''TRON'' will open Friday. Universal's film version of ''The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'' also was not finished in time to open in June; it will have its premiere July 16. Neither ''TRON'' nor ''The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'' is a guaranteed success, of course - simply movies that Disney and Universal think have a chance of being blockbusters. ''When you make a commitment to release a film far far in advance, who knows what the tone of the marketplace is going to be?'' David Weitzner, executive vice president of advertising at Universal, asked. ''Who knew the audience would take a squishy little person from outer space to its heart?'' Universal is distributing ''E.T.'' and ''The Thing.'' Weitzner might have added, ''Who could have guessed the audience would recoil from the gruesome 'Thing' when it had been fascinated by the gruesome 'Alien'?'' And there is bound to be one unexpected major-studio success from among the July and August movies to match ''The Sword and the Sorcerer.'' Perhaps Randal Kleiser's ''Summer Lovers'' will equal his ''Blue Lagoon'' of two summers ago, or ''Young Doctors in Love,'' a spoof of soap operas starring soap-opera actors, will bring the immense soap-opera audience into theaters. ''But one thing is certain,'' Irv Ivers, vice president of marketing at 20th Century-Fox, said, ''there's a new wave of movies coming.'' ------------------------------ Date: 10 Jul 1982 0125-PDT From: Jim McGrath Subject: Movies and Video Games By ALJEAN HARMETZ c. 1982 N.Y. Times News Service HOLLYWOOD - Hollywood is cashing in on the video game boom. In 1981, game cartridges that can be plugged into home television sets and coin-operated arcade games were an $8 billion business, while audiences paid less than $3 billion at U.S. movie theater box offices. In the last few weeks, nearly every movie studio has announced a joint venture or new division meant to siphon off some of those impressive video game revenues. Each studio is aiming its laser guns and space ships down a different path, but all share at least one goal - replacing games titled ''Pac-Man,'' '' Defender,'' ''Berzerk'' and ''Frogger'' with games called ''Jaws,'' ''9 to 5,'' ''Star Wars'' and ''Star Trek.'' Currently, the home video games that sell best are home versions of successful arcade games. The studios believe that a presold movie title - like ''The Empire Strikes Back'' or ''King Kong'' - will be equally enticing to the consumer. All the studios will be starting a long way behind Warner Communications Inc., parent of the movie-producing Warner Bros. Inc. Revenues for Warner Communication's Atari, which has more than 75 percent of the home video game market, jumped from $238 million in 1979 to more than $1.2 billion in 1981. None of the other studios are planning to create hardware to compete with Mattel Inc.'s Intellivision or Atari's home video game. The failure of the RCA Corporation's videodisk system to appeal to large numbers of buyers has made movie studios cautious about leaping into new kinds of hardware. But most of them intend to do more than just license their movies to the new medium. In the simplest studio involvement, Lucasfilm has licensed ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' to Atari for a chase-through-the-jungle home video game and licensed ''The Empire Strikes Back'' to Parker Brothers for a home video game based on the battle on the ice planet in that movie. Walt Disney Productions has gone one step beyond and orchestrated the licensing of ''TRON,'' a movie about a deadly battle inside a computer, so that the Bally arcade game will be available when the movie is released July 9. More than 800 machines have already been shipped, and promotional contests are being held in the Bally Manufacturing Corporation's Aladdin's Castle arcades, with national finals to be held in New York early in July to coincide with the release of the movie. The home versions of ''TRON'' - ''Maze-a-TRON'' and ''TRON Deadly DISCS'' - will be marketed by Mattel's Intellivision in the fall. The Paramount Pictures Corp. is moving considerably further into the video game business. Paramount, a division of Gulf and Western Industries, owns Sega, one of the leading manufacturers of arcade games. Sega was transferred from G.&W.'s manufacturing division to Paramount last December. Through Sega, Paramount is moving into the home video game business both as a producer and a distributor. Sega is the designer and distributor of the newest No. 1 arcade game, ''Zaxxon,'' a devilishly difficult, almost three- dimensional attack game. Paramount has spent $150,000 to create a 30-second commercial for ''Zaxxon,'' the first television commercial urging audiences into an arcade to play a game. There is a second, equally important reason for the commercial. Paramount intends to build Sega into a brand name - to make a star of Sega for the home video game market. ''We're lucky we have the No. 1 arcade game to lead our introduction,'' said Barry Diller, chairman of Paramount. ''It's just like the No. 1 movie. You don't have it for a long time but it's great to have at the particular moment you are entering a field.'' Home video game cartridges, which sell from $22 to $35, have traditionally been marketed through toy stores. The 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. will be relying primarily on mass merchandisers such as the K Mart Corp., while Paramount is currently setting up distribution in the record and video stores that sell cassettes of its movies. Since it takes a minimum of six months after licensing to create the programmable chip for a home game, the first ''Star Trek'' game will not be available until 1983. In order to enter the market immediately, Sega has formed a joint venture with Coleco Industries and will begin shipping the home version of the successful arcade game ''Donkey Kong'' early in July. And 20th Century-Fox is also preparing to ship home video games this summer. According to Joseph LaBonte, president of Fox, a unit, Fox Video Games, will ship four games in late July that are compatible only with Atari game units. Unlike Paramount, Fox does not own an electronic game manufacturer and will not manufacture arcade games, although it will license its movies to arcade manufacturers. Fox has formed a joint venture with Sirius, a large manufacturer of computer games. None of the first few games will be based on movies, but later offerings are now being developed from ''Megaforce,'' ''9 to 5'' and ''Porky's.'' Lucasfilm is entering the video game field in a somewhat different fashion. In a joint venture with Atari, Lucasfilm will be using its expertise in digital sound and computer graphics to create and program both arcade and home games, which Atari will then market. Everyone agrees that the home video game market will have explosive growth. Game machines are now hooked up to television sets in just eight million American homes, less than 10 percent of the total. ------------------------------ End of SF-LOVERS Digest *********************** Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com