Tom Long

With studios scared of Halloween, Jackson, it's a weak movie weekend

Here's how many major Hollywood films will be opening at theaters across the country tomorrow: zero, zip, nada, zilch.

Why?

Well, one reason is that Hollywood is scared of Halloween.

Another reason, though, is Hollywood is scared of Michael Jackson.

The concert film "This Is It!," made up of Michael Jackson rehearsal footage, was released Wednesday, and although it is far from your standard movie -- it was cobbled together in the scant few months since Jackson's death -- it is the only major film this week being released, as they say, "wide."

Beyond that, the film comes with an expiration date of two weeks, with distributors vowing it will disappear from theaters after that time.

We'll see.

The "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds" concert film in February 2008 was pre-sold as a one-week limited engagement and ended up hanging around on screens until May.

Still, even if the Gloved One wasn't moonwalking across America's movie screens right now, and his film's handlers weren't pressing everyone to go to the theaters right now, it's doubtful Hollywood would be offering anything major at the multiplex this weekend.

And that's just a matter of where things fall on the calendar. This year, Halloween falls on a Saturday. Good news for frat boys who want to wear their leftover "Cloverfield" costumes, bad news at the box office.

Because those same frat boys will likely be partying rather than going to a movie Saturday night. And all those tens of millions of little kids who go out trick-or-treating Saturday night probably won't have time to squeeze in a matinee Saturday.

And all the parents who would usually escort those kids to the movies on Saturday afternoon won't be buying tickets either.

As a result, this year's annual crop of scary flicks -- or supposedly scary flicks -- has arrived a bit earlier than usual. "Zombieland" hit theaters on Oct. 2, the cooked-up "Paranormal Activity" phenomenon was served up two weeks back, and even the annual bloodletting exercise that is "Saw VI" came out eight days before Halloween.

Aside from hardcore Michael Jackson fans, movie theaters could well resemble ghost houses this weekend.

Perhaps that's a good thing because during the next two months Hollywood will be firing all cannons, bring out potential blockbusters such as "Twilight: New Dawn," "2012" and "Avatar." Included with those will be prestige Oscar hopefuls such as "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire," "The Lovely Bones," "The Road" and "Nine."

This weekend just might be a good time to take a movie break, gobble down some candy corn and prepare for the coming onslaught.

tlong@detnews.com (313) 222-8879