The
Big Chart
The
Boxoffice
The
Buzz
Profitability
Quality
..Gary
Dretzka
..Noah
Forrest
..Leonard
Klady
..R.J.
Matson
..David
Poland
..Douglas
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
..Michael
Wilmington
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Week Seven
The Show Me State
“We have created an environment of "Show Me," rather than "I Can't Wait."
A friend said that to me earlier this week… and it got me thinking. “I Can’t Wait” is, of course, that of which studio marketeers dream. But I don’t think that “must see” is what this person was talking about. It was about the joy of it all. Even the most openly fanatical fans now seem to have a creepy cynicism just waiting to emerge and to turn that smile to a frown. What ever happened to waiting to love something rather than waiting to be disappointed?
Remember? I do. I remember the stupid joy of Ghostbusters… playing hooky from work to see Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom… paying some kids to wait in line in Westwood for Batman… and on and on…
Sure there were disappointments. But even Streets of Fire had a kick ass song and Willem Dafoe fighting Michael Pare with a sledgehammer.
Maybe it was Spielberg apologizing for Last Crusade. Maybe it was the desecrated Batman franchise. Maybe it was Emmerich’s Godzilla. Maybe it was Lucas’ return with Episode One. But something happened and the media became more interested in what was failing than what was winning.
Perhaps the simple truth is that going negative is more fun than trying to find the value in uneven work. Perhaps negativity just has a longer shelf life. Or perhaps the most obvious answer is the truest… the odds are better when you go negative and there is no one to call you out two years from now when your opinion mysteriously shifts with the tide of culture.
Let’s take a look at this summer’s potential joys/disappointments -
Well… no one really expected much from X2. They got a better than expected film. And they drooled for weeks.
Eddie Murphy had a disastrous 2002 and when his mediocre but family effective comedy came out, he got slammed like an empty can in a dryer.
The Matrix Reloaded was a pop icon, turning the heads of even some critics who didn’t like the original very much until the world told them to rethink their position. The clean box of the original - which, like American Beauty, allowed people to think they were as smart as the filmmakers - became a complex maze in the sequel, and the slamming became the story. In spite of huge box office success and a bigger majority of positive reviews than there were for the original film.
Bruce Almighty became the shock story of the summer when Jim Carrey’s audience returned to theaters to see a PG-13 Carrey comedy… the first in years.
Why was anyone surprised that Finding Nemo was an opening weekend smash? The only movies ever to have non-summer opening weekend grosses as high as Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story 2 were the two Harry Potters, the second Lord of the Rings and Hannibal. So having the seventh best summer opening in history seems to fit the pattern, no? But it wasn’t predicted, so it is some amazing shocker.
So what comes next? Is Hollywood Homicide a viable dark horse hit because no one seems to believe that it’s going to do any business at all? Does it matter whether The Hulk is a great movie if it doesn’t challenge the opening weekend number of X2 or The Matrix Reloaded? Can Charlie’s Angels be seen as a huge success if it simply delivers a lot of explosions and some mindless T&A?
Is Reese Witherspoon being ser up for a fall? (Will movie “journalists” have the guts to bet against her?) How big does Terminator 3 have to be in order to be a surprise smash instead of “not a Jim Cameron film?” Is a Will Smith/Michael Bay movie a hit before it grosses $200 million domestic? Will $150 million domestic for Pirates of the Caribbean qualify that film as one of the great surprises of the summer?
American Pie 2 grossed $145 million. Did anyone you read write about it? Would it surprise you to know that it outgrossed Tomb Raider, The Fast & The Furious, Legally Blonde and The Others? Would it surprise you to know that it doubled the domestic gross of Bridget Jones’ Diary, Scary Movie 2, Swordfish, The Wedding Planner, The Animal and Moulin Rouge!? What will make American Pie 3 a success? Will anyone notice?
The irony of Summer 2003 for me is that I have really enjoyed myself so far. From X2 to 2 Fast 2 Furious, I haven’t walked out of a studio screening feeling ripped off of two hours of my life yet.
But where would you rather be, selling the overdog Hulk or the underdog Bad Boys II? (Never mind that there is no logic in the status of over and under.)
Of course, none of this has anything to do with the movies themselves. Talking money is a crutch when people don’t like a movie. Box office popularity is confirmation that people do like certain movies. Reality lives somewhere in the middle. Certainly, the opening weekend of a movie means absolutely nothing when it comes to quality. Yet by weekend three, civilians are not much paying attention to the numbers.
What will people make of 2 Fast 2 Furious? Will critics act like critics and hate it? Will they take it as the summer fluff that it, like the more underdoggy The Italian Job? Or can people go to the movies and just enjoy their soda and popcorn and take away from the movies what a warm summer night is supposed to offer?
We’ll know soon enough…
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