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[Excerpted from "Sight unseen, some likely hits on deck for '05" by Martin A. Grove in The Hollywood Reporter]

Most years look good on paper before they get underway since Hollywood always fields enough high profile movies to make any year sound promising.

Of course, there's no way to know sight unseen which films will prove to be boxoffice winners. Nonetheless, looking ahead at 2005 suggests there are enough high profile films in the pipeline to keep Hollywood in good spirits.

Mike Newell's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (Warner Bros.): As franchises go, "Harry Potter" is as classic a success story as any studio could wish for. The first in the series, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," opened Nov. 16, 2001 to $90 million-plus and wound up grossing nearly $318 million domestically. It was followed by "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," which arrived Nov. 15, 2002 to over $88 million and ended up with about $262 million. For the third in the series, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," Warner opted for a summer release. "Azkaban" kicked off last June 4 to almost $94 million and got to $249.5 million.

For the franchise's fourth episode, "Goblet of Fire," Warner is going back to the series' fall release roots. A Nov. 18 opening will position the "Fire" perfectly in the increasingly lucrative family film holiday season. With somewhat less competition to deal with than in the hot-and-heavy summer and with family fare being precisely what plays best in the pre-Thanksgiving through Christmas weeks, "Fire" should generate some true boxoffice heat.

Published January 4, 2005

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