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Sheldon Mopes is an idealistic dreamer who believes in the basic goodness of everyone. He is given the opportunity to star in a children's show, and leaps at the chance. He creates Smoochy, a large, fuchsia rhinoceros, that quickly becomes very popular with the kiddies, much to the dismay of the former star of the show, fired for taking payola, and the corporate bigwigs, who can't control Sheldon and make his character, Smoochy, say what they want. And so Smoochy must die, giving us the title of the film.

This has quite the cast, including Edward Norton as Smoochy, Robin Williams as Rainbow Randolph, the disgraced star who is now Smoochy's sworn enemy, and a supporting cast that includes Jon Stewart, Harvey Fierstein and Danny DeVito. DeVito also directs the script by Adam Resnick, who might be able to redeem himself for having scripted the execrable Cabin Boy with this little gem, which looks quite amusing on paper.

Of course, the trailer will tell more, but it's hard to imagine Robin Williams playing a bitter former kiddie-show host not being funny, and early reports on some of the more over-the-top sequences involving Smoochy sound hysterical. Then again, at this stage, there's a lot of posturing and glad-handing going on, so it could all turn out to be more Club Paradise than Good Morning, Viet Nam. In addition, Edward Norton is an unknown commodity in comedy, having only done last year's blink-and-you'll-miss-it Keeping the Faith, so whether Danny DeVito can uncover heretofore hidden depths to Norton's talent is also an X factor in this film's success. Still, if the film lives up to the promise of the early buzz and the acting and directing talent involved, this could be quite the success for Warner Bros in 2002. (Calvin Trager/BOP)

January 10, 2002
Death to Smoochy has been moved yet again. It has now been scheduled for nearly every week in March at one point or another (March 22nd to the 15th to the 29th so far). (Kim Hollis/BOP)

Vital statistics for Death to Smoochy Main Cast Robin Williams, Edward Norton, Catherine Keener, Danny DeVito Supporting Cast Jon Stewart, Pam Ferris, Danny Woodburn, Michael Rispoli, Harvey Fierstein, Vincent Schiavelli Director Danny DeVito Screenwriter Adam Resnick Distributor Warner Bros. Trailer Click Here for Trailer Official Site http://www.deathtosmoochymovie.com/ Rating R Running Time 109 minutes Screen Count 2,164 Talent in red has entry in The Big Picture

Comparison films for Death to Smoochy
Title	Date	Opening	Adjusted Opening	Screens	PSA	Adj PSA	Total BO	Adjusted Total	Mult
Patch Adams	12/25/98	25.26	32.47	2712	9314.00	11518.4	135.01	173.58	5.34
Mrs. Doubtfire	11/26/93	20.47	29.81	1605	12754.00	17867.9	219.20	319.26	7.95
Keeping the Faith	4/14/00	8.08	9.03	2152	3755.00	4040.6	37.04	41.43	4.58
Lucky Numbers	10/27/00	4.54	5.07	2497	1818.00	1956.3	10.01	11.19	2.20
Cabin Boy	1/7/94	1.51	2.23	593	2546.00	3619.3	3.47	5.12	2.30