“Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” has no sex and not much of a city.
But this G-rated movie adventure is shaping up as Hollywood’s next serious bid for female viewers, some of whom showed their power by pushing the R-rated comedy “Sex and the City” to surprisingly strong first-weekend ticket sales of more than $57 million two weeks ago.
At first glance, the films have little in common, apart from their skew toward the female.
“Sex” runs hot, while “Kit” — scheduled for wide release on July 2, the same day as “Hancock,” starring Will Smith — does not. Fans of the fictional Manhattan writer Carrie Bradshaw, the heroine of “Sex and the City,” are often over 40. Ms. Kittredge, an aspiring reporter based on Mattel’s incredibly popular American Girl doll of the same name, mostly appeals to girls between 7 and 12.
Yet the films have a certain kinship. Each was made by a studio — “Kit” by Picturehouse, “Sex” by New Line Cinema — that was only weeks ago marked for elimination by the same corporate parent, Time Warner Inc.
And “Kit” has a shot at attracting an intense niche audience of the sort that boosted “Sex” at a time of year that has become better known for fantasies like the “Spider-Man” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, with their broad demographic appeal.
“I’m scared out of my mind,” said Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, a producer of “Kit Kittredge,” speaking by telephone last week. She was referring to an unconventional decision by Picturehouse executives to open this relatively small film in around 1,800 theaters, putting it in competition with potential blockbusters like “Hancock,” from Sony Pictures, and “Wall-E,” from the Walt Disney Company’s Pixar Animation Studios.
“Kit,” which cost about $10 million to produce, stars Abigail Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) and features an ensemble that mingles unknown child actors with adult pros like Julia Ormond, Stanley Tucci, Chris O’Donnell and Joan Cusack. Set in 1934, it tells the story of a Cincinnati girl who is trying to get the local newspaper to take her seriously as a reporter, even as her family and just about everyone else struggles with the Great Depression.
(Julia Roberts, a client of Ms. Goldsmith-Thomas when she was a talent agent, is an executive producer of “Kit.” The two were among those with producing credits on earlier television movies based on three other American Girls: Molly, Felicity and Samantha.)
That quite so innocent an enterprise should be in a position to challenge much racier movies with much higher budgets has much to do with the promotional power of American Girl, which, like HBO’s long-running “Sex and the City” series, is helping to prime loyal fans for a first film based on the brand.
In the toy world, American Girl’s characters — “they never refer to them as ‘dolls,’ ” Bob Berney, the president of Picturehouse, said in an interview last week — are unusual in that they come with detailed story lines, from various eras, delivered in books that accompany each figure.
Kit Kittredge, spunky and a bit confused by the economic crunch around her, has been the central character in a half-dozen titles that have contributed to the sale of some 120 million books since the company was founded in 1986, said Ellen Brothers, American Girl’s president and a producer of the film.
“We approve all the marketing,” Ms. Brothers said, describing her company’s close involvement with the making and selling of the movie. And American Girl has been using its considerable reach to promote what it is calling “Kit’s Big-Screen Debut.”
The company’s mail-order catalog, a primary engine for sales, has a blurb promoting the movie on its May cover. Cities with American Girl retail outlets — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and suburban Atlanta — will get to see the movie early, beginning on June 20. That first round is being helped along on the Web with Kit’s movie blog and, at the Grove shopping mall in Los Angeles, with the giveaway of “Kit’s Home on Abbott Place,” an elaborate playhouse built by Pardee Homes as part of a benefit for the homeless.
Last Saturday mothers and daughters trooped through the siding- and stone-veneered structure to admire it, and to donate $5 for “opportunity tickets” — never say “raffle” — that buy a shot at taking it home. “ ‘Win Me?’ ” one mother gasped, reading a sign outside, “Oh, my God!”
Other plans include movie-night dinners at the in-store American Girl cafes, which begin to sound, at least a little, like the viewing parties that pushed “Sex and the City” over the top during its May 30 opening weekend.
Allie Mayer, a publicist for movietickets.com, said the service had seen “steady activity” since it began selling tickets for the early engagement last month.
Mr. Berney said a box-office success would be “a little bittersweet”: His company will remain intact only long enough to release its existing films, including “Kit,” “Mongol” and “The Women” (scheduled for fall). To date, the studio’s biggest box-office hit has been “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which took in $37.6 million at the domestic box office in 2006.
If “Kit” works, its success would owe something not just to the promotions, but also to the straight-shooting approach of a director, Patricia Rozema, whose earlier work includes “Mansfield Park” (1999) for Miramax.
“I don’t think you talk down to children when you make a movie for them,” Ms. Rozema said. She spoke in a telephone interview about Kit’s rather intricate on-screen problem, which include doubts about a father, played by Mr. O’Donnell, who leaves home in search of work, and no small difficulties with a newspaper editor played by Wallace Shawn.
Still, Kit preserves her G-rated innocence, something Ms. Rozema said had become too rare, even in films aimed at the young. (“Bratz: The Movie,” which was based on a doll line and took in about $10 million for Lionsgate last summer, was rated PG.)
“They don’t need to be rattled,” she said. “They’re rattled enough.”
Is there anything sexier than food?
