Box Office Column

Perhaps Holy Man is as bad as it looks, and Disney realizes this. The Eddie Murphy vehicle rolls out today on only 2,013 screens. The standard screen count for a movie this big is generally 2,500+. If this thing opens with more than $12 million, it will be a testament to Murphy's star power. After all, the most prominent gag in the ad campaign is when Murphy "psyches out" Jeff Goldblum over the herbal tea. I will definitely not see this one.

On another note, it was just a couple of years ago that 2,000 screens was considered to be a very wide release. Nowadays, if a movie doesn't open absolutely everywhere, its practically considered a dumping or, at best, "word-of-mouth."