‘DIVINE Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” is girl-powering into theaters Friday, and all of Hollywood will be watching.
The fate of an entire genre could hang on the success of this movie, an old-fashioned, Southern tale of female bonding starring Sandra Bullock, Ashley Judd, Ellen Burstyn and Maggie Smith.
“Ya-Ya” could revive the ailing movie-house relic known as the “chick flick” – or send it into extinction.
“If this film doesn’t work, it signals a pretty dismal future for the chick-flick industry – studios won’t ever tackle a project like this again,” says Robert Bucksbaum, president of box-office tracking firm ReelSource.
Today, the phrase “chick flick” is often uttered with the kind of snarling contempt usually reserved for Jar Jar Binks.
Hollywood studios are reluctant to green-light anything that might be considered a three-hanky weeper – but it wasn’t always that way.
Remember movies like “Steel Magnolias,” “Beaches,” “Terms of Endearment” and “Fried Green Tomatoes”?
They made women cry, men cringe and studio execs laugh all the way to the bank.
But the event movie has steam-rollered all before it.
This year’s two biggest films – “Spider-Man” and “”Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones” – have wooed the female audience by weaving romantic plot lines into the action sequences.
“Chick flicks so far this year have been non-existent at the top of the box office,” Bucksbaum says.
And now along comes “Ya-Ya.”
The film’s producer, Bonnie Bruckheimer, revealed recently just how much of a battle she had bringing Rebecca Wells’ best-selling book to the screen.
“It had been around all the studios when it was in galley form, and they all turned it down,” she told the L.A. Times.
“And then they all turned it down when I brought it to them.
“In the end, Warner Bros. just saw the light, thanks to a lot of wives and females on the staff.”
Bruckheimer’s account jibes with a survey released yesterday that found the number of women working in Hollywood fell sharply last year – the representation of female directors dropped from 11 percent to 6 percent, and female writers dropped four points to 10 percent.
“And you have to remember that the studio execs making the decisions tend to be affluent, white males,” added Martha Lauzen, a professor at the San Diego State University School of Communications, who conducted the survey.
Tinseltown’s male honchos may have balked, but “Ya-Ya” writer/director, Callie Khouri, the Oscar-winning screenplay writer of “Thelma and Louise,” is confident of a crossover audience.
“When the men in the focus groups we tested were confronted with the phrase ‘chick flick,’ they seemed to take exception to it because they’d really enjoyed the movie,” Khouri told The Post.
“There are plenty of people out there making guy movies, and women are certainly a huge section of the movie-going public.
“I don’t see ‘chick flick’ as a derogatory term, and it certainly doesn’t take away from the movie.”
Bucksbaum says “Ya-Ya” is projected to bring in about $14 million at the box office this weekend.
“That’s not terrible, and most chick flicks have strong legs as opposed to blockbusters, which drop off sharply after opening,” he said.
“If it does $60 million to $70 million-plus in total, it would be worthwhile to release a movie like this. If it does $30 million or less, studios will think twice about doing them in the future.”
