Lawrence.com

Did film critics score a hit on "Pearl Harbor"? Was the film a victim of unrealistic expectations? Did its long running time hurt it at the box office? Those were the topics in Hollywood earlier this week, after the holiday-weekend gross for the summer's most eagerly awaited movie � though the second-largest in history � fell short of expectations.

The movie's official four-day gross was $75 million, second only to "The Lost World: Jurassic Park's" Memorial Day weekend take of $90.2 million in 1997. But the "Pearl Harbor" total fell far short of the $100 million many industry analysts had predicted.

That raised questions whether heavily marketed blockbusters like "Pearl Harbor" are, as is commonly assumed, "critic-proof."

"'Pearl Harbor' skewed older in exit polls, and older people rely more on reviews than teen-agers, so that may have been a factor," says Gitesh Pandya, who analyzes box-office performance for his Web site, www.boxofficeguru.com, and the media business site www.inside.com.

"(Producer) Jerry Bruckheimer and (director) Michael Bay make their films for one critic, and that's the critic who plunks down his money for a ticket and makes a film a hit," says Chuck Viane, president of distribution at Disney. "When we have 73 percent of people coming out of a movie telling us they thought it was great, we're a hit with the critics that matter."

Viane attributes the lower-than-expected numbers to the movie's nearly three-hour running length, which he says means most theaters can show the film only three times per day. And he disputes the perception that critical reaction to "Pearl Harbor" was overwhelmingly negative, pointing out that it received positive reviews in the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times.

David Poland, who analyzes the movie business in his Internet "Hot Button" column (www.davidpoland.com), says the perception is that only one critic can truly influence box office, and that's Roger Ebert, through his nationally syndicated television show "Ebert & Roeper and the Movies." Ebert reviewed "Pearl Harbor" negatively in the Chicago Sun-Times, but it was not reviewed on this weekend's edition of his television show.