That thundering sound you hear isn’t the din of bats traumatizing young Bruce Waynemask and became a sentinel above Gotham.
It’s the stampede of Hollywood suits clearing the way for the Caped Crusader and “Batman Begins,” which opened Wednesday, to have their day – and their weekend grosses.
While two exceedingly fine indie features open today in Denver – “Mysterious Skin” and “My Summer of Love” – you won’t find a new studio pic released into the multiplexes until Wednesday. That’s when “Herbie: Fully Loaded,” Disney’s revamp of its “The Love Bug” franchise, opens.
Studios have been getting out of the way of each other’s behemoths for some time now, but when the final installment of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” saga broke records with its four-day take ($158.5 million) and still didn’t break the drought in summer ticket sales, you would have thought the sky had fallen on all of us.
Yes, all of us.
Not since before the Nasdaq bubble burst have Americans – and media outlets – seemed quite so focused on the weekly fortunes and failings of an industry. And that is a shame. Unlike that fiscal disaster, most moviegoers’ pensions aren’t tied to the successes or failures of the entertainment industry, which is doing quite well, thank you very much.
A similar Hollywood retreat occurred last month when “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith”cq opened. It will happen again Wednesday, June 29cq when Steven Spielbergcq invades thousands of theaters with “War of the Worldscq,” his version of H.G. Wellscq’ chilling 19th centurycq novel. (OK, there is that Martin Lawrencecq comedy, “Reboundcq”)
Of course, studios have been getting out of the way of each other’s behemoths for some time now. But when the final installment of George Lucascq’ “Star Wars” saga broke records with its four-day take ($158.5 million), but failed to break the drought in summer ticket sales, you’d have thought the sky had fallen on all of us.
Sure, the Chicken Littles greenlighting movies fewer of us are compelled to see may have something to worry about. But keep in mind that the DVD market is a veritable money tree for the entertainment industry, and the time between opening a movie theatrically and shaking that tree has become as short as four months.
This year’s box office take is reported to be 5 percent below last year’s. As USA Today put it, “Even the beauty of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie couldn’t conquer the beast of a slump that still throttles Hollywood.” is how USA Today began its piece on the past weekend’s box office.
Nasdaq bubble burst have Americans – and media outlets – seemed quite so focused on the weekly fortunes and failings of an industry. And that is a shame. Unlike that fiscal disaster, most moviegoers’ pensions aren’t tied to the successes or failures of the entertainment industry, which is doing quite well, thank you very much.ES HERE YOU GOBut for those of us who love movies, this is largely a red herring. Over the years, the relationship of healthy box office to a quality film – or even a truly popular flick – has become murky.
“Say what you want about box office, but originally it was a pretty reliable line of communication between the filmmaker and the audience,” said Tom Shone author of “Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer.”
“But somehow the boundaries between a hit and a flop have sort of collapsed into one another. Nobody can work out whether these films are one or the other.”
So before the next Monday morning box office results have execs either dancing in the streets or rending their Armani suits and gnashing their cosmetically whitened teeth, let’s make a vow: To love the movies we love. To blow off the movies we’re underwhelmed by. To take ownership of our pleasure and not have it dictated by the movie industry equivalent of election-cycle polls.
“If I could say one thing to moviegoers on the subject of box office, it would be don’t make your moviegoing decisions based on the top five or the top 10 films that you read in the paper each week,” says Tom Ortenberg president of Lions Gate, the distributor of one of the sweeter success stories of the summer season, “Crash,” which stars Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, and Sandra Bullock, among others.
With a reported production budget of $6.5 million, it opened well at $9,107,071. The real story for Lions Gate, said Ortenberg by phone Monday is “how well it’s hung in there from week to week. It’s just finished its sixth week in the top 10 and that’s been very gratifying for us. We’re now headed for a $50 million.”
According to Ortenberg, the average film is expected to make 2.8 times its opening weekend. “Crash,” which Lions Gate wants to keep in theaters through July 4, is likely to make five to six times its opening take.
But all of this should be at most a tasty condiment for moviegoers. The meal is that Paul Haggis’ feature debut about a collection of Angelenos who collide is an astonishingly relevant take on our national issues. “Crash” has become one of those rare films that friends insist their friends see, taking ownership of what feels like a personal discovery.
In a recent New York Times piece, Amy Pascal, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Motion Pictures Group, told the reporter that if the company’s romantic comedy “Bewitched” “was a straight-ahead remake of the television show, we would have been guilty of doing the ordinary.”
Now “Bewitched,” directed by Nora Ephron and starring Nicole Kidman and Will Farrell, may turn out to be a sweet bit of postmodern magic. But trading on a TV show hardly seems like out-of-the-box-office thinking in a summer with “The Honeymooners” and “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
“People should go see movies that appeal to them and their sensibilities, ones that their friends are telling are must-sees,” advises Lions Gate’s Ortenberg. “They shouldn’t just go see movies because it seems like everyone else is seeing them.”
OPTIONAL TRIM STARTS HERETurns out what my eye doctor thinks about the current crop of movies is more chastening than all the handwringing of execs who know the home video market is there as a fat insurance policy. She and her husband go the movies, big and indie, nearly as much as I do.
“There hasn’t been much to see,” she said the other day. Somehow the mournful words of a movie-lover say something far more chilling than all the precipitous second-week declines we read about come Monday morning.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-820-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
