MOVIE AFTER MOVIE FLICKERING OUT HORROR, CARTOON SHARKS BRING SEASON'S SOLE HITS.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

If not for a new horror hit from TV's Buffy and an animated tale featuring some charismatic sharks, October would be a really scary month at the box office.

Audience indifference has resulted in a post-Labor Day weekend slump that has movie attendance lagging 14.2 percent behind business during the same period last year with revenue down 11.1 percent.

DreamWorks ``Shark Tale'' is the fall's only bona fide smash ($136.9 million to date) while Sony Pictures Entertainment's ``The Grudge,'' starring Sarah Michelle Gellar of ``Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' fame, had a stellar $39.1 million opening over the weekend.

But that's about it as far as bright spots go.

``The marketplace is depressed,'' said box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co. ``It really tells you something when you have a close to $40 million opener and it's still not good enough to turn this marketplace around.''

While ``The Grudge'' nearly doubled most box office predictions, the tepid response to many major studio releases in recent months has been stunning. When taking into consideration its budget, Paramount Pictures' ambitious ``Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow'' starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie is among the bigger bombs, taking in a paltry $36.8 million in six weeks.

``There were high hopes for that movie and it crash-landed pretty quickly,'' said Brandon Gray, president of BoxOfficeMojo.com.

Gray blames much of the post-Labor Day slump on a slew of September releases he said dragged the numbers way down. Among them were Focus Features' ``Vanity Fair,'' Universal Pictures' ``Wimbledon,'' 20th Century Fox's ``Paparazzi'' and MGM's ``Wicker Park.'' All failed to gross even $20 million domestically.

Just barely cracking $20 million was the Disney comedy ``Mr. 3000,'' starring Bernie Mac, which peaked at just under $22 million.

Post-Labor Day releases that have failed to gross $10 million or more include the Hillary Duff vehicle ``Raise Your Voice'' from New Line Features ($9.6 million over two weeks) and Fox's ``First Daughter,'' starring Katie Holmes, which stalled at $8.8 million.

Adding to the pile of flops last weekend was the Ben Affleck comedy ``Surviving Christmas'' from DreamWorks, which suffered from savage reviews and an anemic opening of just $4.5 million - nearly as bad as Affleck's notorious 2003 bomb, ``Gigli.''

``Audiences have been rejecting many of the pictures that have opened this year,'' Gray said. ``The bottom line is these movies weren't that appealing and that's why overall business was down.''

Even Paramount Pictures' ``Team America: World Police,'' which had been considered a potential breakout hit from ``South Park'' creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, has had a lukewarm box office reception, earning just $22.3 million in two weeks.

In addition to ``Shark Tale'' and now ``The Grudge,'' what has helped business from falling even further behind 2003's totals have been such midlevel hits as Disney's ``Ladder 49'' ($61.4 million), Universal's ``Friday Night Lights'' ($47.3 million), and Miramax Films' ``Shall We Dance?'' which moved up from fourth place to third over the weekend and has grossed $24.4 million in two weeks.

``Every week we are waiting for the next big movie to turn things around,'' Dergarabedian said. ``There's not a lot of time left in the year to get us back on track.''

Greg Hernandez, [phone]

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

(color) no caption (characters from ``Shark Tale'')

Box:

BOX OFFICE BLUES

Source: Exhibitor Relations Co.

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist