'THE REAL CANCUN' WAS A REAL DUD, FORCING HOLLYWOOD TO TAKE A ... REALITY CHECK.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

Television audiences may eat reality shows up, but when it comes to the big screen, so far, reality bites.

New Line Cinema's ``The Real Cancun'' debuted with a resounding thud last weekend, earning an astonishingly low $933 per screen, well below industry expectations. The quickly produced and unscripted film about a raucous group of college kids on spring break in Mexico barely managed to land in the top 10.

The question on many minds is whether the reality genre, red-hot on television, will ever be able to catch fire in the theatrical arena. Studios would be ecstatic if it did, since the films are far cheaper to produce than movies with big stars and big budgets attached.

Last fall, Paramount Pictures enjoyed tremendous success with ``Jackass: The Movie,'' a big-screen version of the popular MTV show. The film cost only $5 million to make and grossed $64.3 million at the box office. While the first weekend take for ``Cancun'' was only $2.3 million, the project has an estimated negative cost of just $7.5 million for New Line and is expected to have a life on DVD.

``'Jackass' was based on a successful television show with a huge fan base, while 'Cancun' was created out of thin air,'' said Robert Bucksbaum, president of ReelSource Inc., a box office tracking firm. ``But it's definitely worth a try, since these shows have been so successful on television and they hardly spent anything on it.''

On June 13, 20th Century Fox will release ``From Justin to Kelly,'' a far different style of spring break movie than the R-rated ``Cancun.'' Fox Distribution President Bruce Snyder said Tuesday that there is a major difference between ``Cancun'' and the ``Justin to Kelly'' film: ``It's an actual movie with first, second and third acts. Nothing is unscripted or winged.''

``From Justin to Kelly'' is said to be in the vein of the old Annette Funicello-Frankie Avalon beach party movies and stars last season's ``American Idol'' winner Kelly Clarkson and runner-up Justin Guarini.

``But it really has nothing to do with 'American Idol,''' Snyder said.

That film could benefit from the popularity of Clarkson's new CD, which debuted last week at No. 1 on the Billboard sales chart. Bucksbaum believes the tremendous fan base for ``American Idol,'' last week's top-rated show, also bodes well.

Experts still believe the reality genre could work theatrically, despite the rejection of ``Cancun.''

``The reality concept could be done in movies and could be done really well, if they figure out what kind of things need to be done for the movies to be different from television,'' said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University.

Bucksbaum agreed.

``Maybe the reality shows are best served for television, but you never know: They could strike gold,'' he said. ``It's not a tried-and-tested formula.''

Thompson points to 1998's ``The Truman Show,'' starring Jim Carrey, and ``EdTV,'' a 1999 release featuring Matthew McConaughey, as two well-regarded scripted films about the reality-show genre which proved that there is some audience fascination with the genre at the feature-film level.

He said those movies provided really prescient looks into what it would be really like to have your life recorded 24 hours a day for public consumption.

``So far, the movies have been best at talking about the reality TV rather than doing it,'' Thompson said. ``Making it a little more raunchy with more sex and language, in the end, is not why people watch a show like 'The Real World.' They watch because of the ongoing development of these people's relationships.''

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(1 -- 3 -- color) ``The Real Cancun,'' far left, fared poorly at the box office, while another ``reality'' project, ``Jackass: The Movie,'' left, scored big numbers. Few industry insiders can guess what this will mean for a similar - but scripted - film, ``From Justin to Kelly,'' above.