RIGHT CALL IN `PHONE BOOTH' NO WRONG NUMBERS AS STUDIO BEATS JINX ON 11TH-HOUR DELAYS IN MOVIE RELEASES.

Byline: Greg Hernandez Staff Writer

Back in October, ``Phone Booth'' could not have been more ill-timed.

The 20th Century Fox thriller about a man trapped inside a Manhattan phone booth by a sniper was set to hit the nation's theaters when two real- life snipers began terrorizing the Washington, D.C., area. They shot 20 people, killing 13, over a three-week period before two suspects were caught.

Fox quickly postponed the film's release and stopped its marketing cold.

Fast-forward to last weekend. Despite the nation being at war with Iraq, ``Phone Booth,'' starring Colin Farrell and directed by Joel Schumacher, finished atop the box office heap with an opening gross of $15 million. The successful debut was a rare example of a film thriving despite a last-minute change in the release date.

``Usually when you move pictures due to tragic circumstances, they never seem to recover, but for whatever reason, this one did,'' said Bruce Snyder, president of distribution at Fox. ``We could not release the picture at the time people were being shot by a sniper or even after the suspects were caught. Out of respect, we had to take it out.''

The war with Iraq, the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, the Columbine shootings, high-profile kidnapping cases and other events in recent years have forced studio executives to make last-minute judgment calls on whether to continue to market and release a film with subject matter uncomfortably close to real-life tragedies.

``They don't want to offend,'' said Robert Bucksbaum, president of Reel Source Inc., a box office analysis firm. ``In a lot of instances where they could have easily have capitalized on events, they didn't.''

Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracker Exhibitor Relations Co., said that while release date changes happen ``all the time'' in the movie industry, it is usually far in advance and typically attributed to scheduling strategy. But when a film is pulled just weeks before the actual release date, it's problematic.

``Studios revolve marketing around a specific date a film is going to open, and any time you mess with that formula, especially for an unforeseen reason like the sniper shootings, it's usually not a good thing,'' Dergarabedian said.

There are numerous examples of movies stuck with a release date dilemma, almost always resulting in box office doom:

--After a summer of disturbing kidnappings, including the Elizabeth Smart case in Utah, Sony Pictures Entertainment executives felt it was too late to pull their kidnapping thriller ``Trapped,'' starring Kevin Bacon and Charlize Theron, from the release schedule. The studio opened the film as scheduled, but with virtually no marketing. It managed to eke out a mere $6.9 million at the box office.

--Miramax Films' airline comedy ``A View From the Top'' features a scene with an airplane lurching from turbulence, which gave the studio pause after Sept. 11, 2002. The film, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Mike Myers, sat on the shelf for two years. It was finally released last month but has grossed just over $14 million over three weekends.

--Arnold Schwarzenegger's ``Collateral Damage,'' an action film about a terrorist bombing, was held back from its fall 2001 release date after 9-11. Warner Bros. opened the film in February 2002. Despite opening at No. 1, the film quickly faded and grossed a lackluster $40 million overall.

--Disney's ``Big Trouble'' starring Tim Allen was also held after 9-11 because the comedy featured a scene with a nuclear bomb aboard an airliner. The movie came out the next spring and was a big bomb, grossing just over $7 million during its brief run.

--The Lion's Gate release ``O'' was pushed back after the campus shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. The modern retelling of Shakespeare's Othello gathered dust for more than a year but may have benefited by the delay since two of its then-unknown leads, Josh Hartnett and Julia Stiles, made names for themselves in ``Pearl Harbor'' and ``Save the Last Dance'' in the meantime. ``O'' was finally released on Aug. 31, 2001, and had a $6.9 million opening weekend.

But it wasn't just recently that unforeseen tragedies affected release dates. Way back in 1986, ``Space Camp'' which was due to hit theaters just as the space shuttle Challenger exploded.

About a group of high school students accidentally launched into space from a National Aeronautics and Space Administration camp, the film featured a scene in which a malfunction involved a solid rocket booster - similar to what happened in the Challenger explosion. ``Space Camp'' was finally released later that year, but audiences weren't interested. It grossed just under $10 million domestically during its belated theatrical run.

But 17 years later, Fox was more fortunate with ``Phone Booth.'' Not only have the real-life sniper shootings faded from the front pages, but Farrell's star has risen considerably since last fall with the box office hits ``Daredevil'' and ``The Recruit.''

With ``Phone Booth,'' Farrell has had three films open at No. 1 so far this year, more than any other performer.

``They opened up with a No. 1 film because of a good marketing campaign and decent reviews,'' Dergarabedian said. ``I don't think people focused on the date change from a quality standpoint. They knew it was moved out of respect for the tragic events in D.C. It was like they really had to move that film. Fox made the perfect move.''

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(color) Colin Farrell plays a man trapped in a phone booth by a sniper. The film opened No. 1 at the box office, though its release was delayed because of real sniper shootings near Washington, D.C.