Bar Wars: It's Getting (Coyote) Ugly
An invisible scientist in Hollow Man slipped past the portly Professor Klump at movie theaters this weekend. CBS News Early Show Contributor Laurie Hibberd has more in her Box Office Plus report.
It looks like the old Invisible Man story line proved irresistible to audiences. Hollow Man had the best August opening ever, taking in more than $26 million. That's also a personal best for Kevin Bacon, the star of the movie.
Hollow Man knocked Eddie Murphy and The Klumps into second place with $18 million, a 58 percent drop-off for that film.
Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys debuted in third place with more than $17 million, the best opening ever for an Eastwood film.
Here are the top five, according to Hollywood.com:
- Hollow Man…………........…………… $26.8 million
- Nutty Professor II: The Klumps……...$18 million
- Space Cowboys……………………….$17.6 million
- Coyote Ugly……………………………$17 million
- What Lies Beneath…………………….$13.9 million
"Credit has not been given where credit is due," says Michelle Dell, owner of Hogs and Heifers, one of the most famous bars in Manhattan. Its competition is Coyote Ugly, the same New York night spot featured in the movie.
"My issue is not with Coyote Ugly. My issue is with Hollywood," explains Dell.
She says the filmmakers wanted to shoot in her bar but named the movie after her competitor.
She recalls, "I said, 'I don't understand. Why don't you shoot at Coyote Ugly?' They said, 'We don't like the way it looks. We don't like it. We want to shoot here.' I said, 'Well, then, change the name of the movie.'"
When Dell refused them access, she claims, they took the look of her bar anyway.
"There was a man in this bar in a white painter's outfit, head to toe, with a pen and paper in hand, standing right here, drafting the window, literally," she says. "They would walk from the door of the set they were building, to the front door of the bar, back to the door of the set they were building, back to the door of the bar."
Over at Coyote Ugly, owner Liliana Lovell (who is played by Maria Bello in the movie) says the Hogs and Heifers camp is losing sight of a key factor.
"The movie was based on a GQ (magazine) article that was written about me and about her - you know, everything that happened at the bar."
At Hogs and Heifers, the bartenders are famous for dancing on the bar, just like in the movie. And the similarities don't stop there.
In the movie, and at both waterin holes, the staff sprays water at customers and hassles them for ordering anything but beer or a shot. Both places also have sassy, fire-spitting bar tenders, dressed to kill. But over at Hogs and Heifers, they do set the bar on fire, just like in the movie. At Coyote Ugly, they don't.
"The difference is that when we opened this place, there are a lot things that began here, and carried on here and grew here and were created here," says Dell.
That includes the megaphone Lil uses to calm unruly patrons in the movie. Dell says it is all hers.
"One of my employees - I was losing my voice yelling behind the bar all the time - bought me a megaphone and ever since then, there's been a megaphone behind the bar," she says.
Still, despite her disappointment, Dell doesn't intend to sue.
"I've worked too hard," she says. "And I'm not going to give this film this much credit, and I'm not going to justify it. It's a movie. It's going to be on video in a couple of weeks."
One thing Dell and Lovell agree on is that both Coyote Ugly and Hogs and Heifers got their inspiration from a New York landmark, a bar called The Village Idiot, which specializes in rude bartenders.
And what does Disney have to say about Dell's accusations? The work from the House of the Mouse: "No comment."