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A psychological thriller about a young woman whose boyfriend has died in a car accident and is haunted by him. Teetering between the edge of horror and teen drama, the movie has a young cast, including American Beauty's Wes Bentley. Steve Carpenter directs from his script. Starring Casey Affleck, Melissa Sagemiller, Wes Bentley, and Eliza Dushku.

Finally finding a seemingly-solid release date, this movie was originally tapped to debut in September 2000. Having been pushed back numerous times, it is now set for release on September 7th. Obviously, the push-backs are not a very positive sign, and for a movie with no star power and what could easily be described as the worst teaser trailer of the last dozen years, the movie doesn't look to survive at the box office at all. The only positive spin you can put on this movie is to compare it to the similarly often-pushed-back Winona Ryder starrer "Lost Souls", which debuted at a reasonable, if not surprising, $7.95 million on only 1,970 screens. Early buzz on this film is almost non-existent and it will mostly likely be buried upon release.

The movie does, however, promise to be a step beyond the run-of-the-mill slasher horror film and apparently skews more towards a Sixth Sense feel. But no matter how it is spun, the movie still reeks of trouble and it wouldn't be too improper to even guess what kind of marketing push this film get. It might be better for the studio to just let it get lost in the fall. (Walid Habboub/BOP)



Box Office Autopsy
The perfect example of a film that was quietly pushed off a cliff is Soul Survivors. Soul Survivors was in the can for a long time before it ever saw the light of day, and when Artisan did get around to releasing it, there certainly wasn’t much effort.

After garnering only 2 positive reviews out of a possible 43 at RottenTomatoes, Artisan opened Soul Survivors at only 601 venues, as they obviously knew what they were getting into. The film flopped wildly, grossing out of the top ten, finding only $1.1 million in opening weekend revenue. Its hard to believe that it had a cast that included Casey Affleck, Wes Bentley, Eliza Dushku, Angela Featherstone, and Luke Wilson.

The film disappeared quickly, grossing only $3.1 million, against a bigger-than-needed production budget of $14 million.

Vital statistics for Soul Survivors Main Cast Melissa Sagemiller, Casey Affleck, Wes Bentley, Eliza Dushku, Angela Featherstone, Luke Wilson Director Stephen Carpenter Screenwriter Stephen Carpenter Distributor Artisan Entertainment Trailer Click Here for Trailer Rating PG-13 Running Time 84 minutes Screen Count 601 Also see Trailer review by Stephanie Star Smith Talent in red has entry in The Big Picture

Comparison films for Soul Survivors
Title	Date	Opening	Adjusted Opening	Screens	PSA	Adj PSA	Total BO	Adjusted Total	Mult
Blair Witch Project, The	7/30/99	29.21	34.80	1101	26530.00	30290.2	140.53	167.46	4.57
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer	11/13/98	16.50	21.21	2443	6754.00	8352.5	40.00	51.42	2.42
I Know What You Did Last Summer	10/17/97	15.82	20.78	2524	6268.00	7920.3	72.22	94.87	4.57
Blair Witch 2:Book of Shadows	10/27/00	13.22	14.78	3317	3986.00	4289.2	26.42	29.55	2.00
Urban Legend	9/25/98	10.52	13.52	2257	4661.00	5764.1	38.08	48.95	3.62
Urban Legend: The Final Cut	9/22/00	8.51	9.52	2539	3352.00	3607.0	21.47	24.01	2.52
Lost Souls	10/13/00	7.95	8.89	1970	4036.00	4343.0	16.71	18.69	2.10
Scream	12/20/96	6.35	8.66	1413	4494.00	5897.1	103.03	140.56	16.23