NEW YORK — Relief from big-screen tear jerkers and video store battles with significant others may be within reach for some men thanks to the launch of a new movie magazine targeted at them.
Total Movie takes the current publishing formula of targeting a niche one step further. The 150,000-circulation magazine, which hits newsstands this week, seems to want just a subsection of the slice, vying not for movie fans in general but for movie fans who are male.
"We're all about the movies, but we like action movies and adventure movies," says publisher Steve Aaron, who has held the same post at Premiere magazine. "If the question is, 'Would you cover Titanic?' We would — but we'd probably be less interested in the love story, and more interested in the boat breaking apart."
The publisher anticipates raising circulation to 200,000 and moving to monthly frequency from bimonthly by early 2001. The magazine is backed by Future Network PLC, a British-based firm that also owns Imagine Media, publisher of Business 2.0.
As the title implies, Total Movie won't be entirely limited to exploring the Steven Seagal-Jean Claude Van Damme-action-thriller genre. Aaron says it also will focus on movie technology, with a heavy emphasis on DVDs.
The short, punchy articles suggest nothing so much as Maxim, the popular Dennis Publishing beer-and-babes title that has outpaced more established men's competitors including Esquire and GQ.
Besides a bikini-clad, boa constrictor-laden Elizabeth Hurley on the cover, Total Movie's first issue includes a "Chick Flick Cheat Sheet," which purports to offer "everything you need to seem like a Sensitive Movie Guy" and an article by horror film high priest Wes Craven on the top 20 scary movies of all time. Each issue also comes with a free DVD packed with movie previews, short films and deleted scenes from films already released.
But Total Movie already has some established competition. The newsstand certainly has its share of magazines devoted to chronicling Tinseltown.
Hachette Filipacchi's Premiere has circulation in excess of 600,000. Time Warner Inc.'s Entertainment Weekly and People, and Wenner Media Inc.'s US Weekly are also competitors, Aaron said.
Of course, Total Movie's niche play could be something of a balancing act. Targeting increasingly narrow affinity groups has only helped magazines grow, said Abe Peck, chairman of the magazine program at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Still, publishers need to be careful when frolicking in the shallow end of the consumer pool.
"The advantage is that you can precisely target people and you have the right voice, tone, information and advertising for these people." said Peck, who has yet to see a copy of Total Movie. "The danger is what I call 'The Butcher's Caution' — how thin can you slice the salami before it becomes bologna?"
But advertisers are impressed with the audience Total Movie wants to attract — men ages 21 to 34 with a median yearly income of $50,000. And besides, some of the entertainment companies supporting the new launch see the magazine as a means to push DVDs at an audience likely to adopt the new technology.
"We might make a sale or two," says Vito Mandato, vice president of media and worldwide research at Time Warner's Warner Brothers film studio. "They have identified a demographic that is probably the most interested in acquiring DVDs."
But wait, even more besides DVDs awaits those averse to so-called 'chick flicks.' A promo for Total Movie's next issue promises a report on a three-day course at Action Film Camp, and a study of what happens to a person who watches Chuck Norris movies nonstop for 48 hours.
Julia Roberts may never get another fighting chance.