Never an Absolution: 15 years later, a look at the 5 best films murdered during Titanic's 4-month reign of box office terror.

This winter will of course mark the fifteenth anniversary of the momentous box office run of Titanic.  For over three months, the James Cameron epic dominated the box office in a fashion unseen since E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial during its initial 1982 release.  The film sat atop the box office for an unprecedented fifteen weekends, a record for unbroken domination and the second most weekends at number one on history (E.T. had sixteen weekends atop, but only six of them were in a row).  From December 19th, 1997 until April 3rd, 1998, it caused crushed pretty much everything in its path.  Aside from a few offhand Fridays were a new film temporarily took the top spot (US Marshals, The Man With the Iron Mask and the re-release of Grease during its March run), but the first three months of 1998 were all about Titanic.  But while we must remember this astonishing run of utter and complete domination, which was the last of its kind, we must also take a moment to remember the many many films laid to waste in its path.  Oh there were a few survivors, such as the aforementioned Fugitive spin-off and the Three Musketeers sequel that happened to also star Leonardo DiCaprio, along with Adam Sandler's break-out smash The Wedding Singer (as well as um, Everest IMAX which slowly earned $87 million after opening on March 6th). But otherwise Winter 1998 was merely mass grave.  Ironically, there were actually at least several worthwhile films, now mostly forgotten in the dustbin of history, that bombed during those cold winter months.  So this is a place to remember five worthwhile pictures that were flattened by the mighty ship.  All deserved their moment in the spotlight, some have become cult favorites while others are barely remembered at all.    

As Gary Ross leaves The Hunger Games franchise, nine female directors who could/should replace him on Catching Fire and/or Mockingjay.

The Playlist doesn't break news all that often, merely seeing fit to be a one-stop shop for the movie news that everyone else breaks during the day (I don't mean that as an insult, The Playlist is the site I go to if I only have time to surf one movie news site in a given day),  So it's somewhat of a big deal that The Playlist has broken a pretty major story, confirming that director Gary Ross will not be back to helm the second and/or third films in the Hunger Games franchise.  There have been rumblings all week about contract negotiations, and Ross has now politely passed.  The site chalks it up to both Ross's lack of desire to stay in the same universe for the next several years combined with a somewhat low-ball offer from Lionsgate.  Whatever the case, Ross is gone and the hunt for a new director is now on.  While editing my John Carter obituary a few weeks ago, I removed a large paragraph dealing with the trend of giving young white-male filmmakers with barely a feature credit to their name the keys to $100-300 million franchise films while seasoned pros and/or minorities remain noticeably absent from the 'wish-list' (yes, I was glad to see F. Gary Gray on the Marvel wish-list for Captain America 2).  And while I wouldn't consider The Hunger Games a 'female film', it would be a great opportunity to make a point that female directors can indeed handle the kind of big-scale filmmaking that studios are all-too willing to offer to mostly untested male directors as a matter of course.  So, perhaps arbitrarily, perhaps to prove a point about how inaccessible the 'wish list' is for female directors, here are nine directors who happen to be women who also belong on 'the wish-list' as Lionsgate hunts for a second director.  These are in alphabetical order, with the exception of the final entry, who would be my 'top choice'.

Question of the day: Why *isn't* Twilight's Bella Swan a feminist creation?

In a classical sense, FEMINISM is defined as believing that women should have the same rights, freedoms, choices, privileges, and benefits as men in a civilized society.  Under that relatively general definition, I would argue most rational people, men and women, would classify themselves as 'feminist'.  In my eye, the feminist ideal is not one where women constantly make the 'correct' moral and/or professional decisions or choices that further their own independence, but merely that they have the freedom to do so if they so desire.  So I ask the question, why exactly is the Twilight Saga inherently anti-feminist?  I'm speaking merely to the movies and not the books, but as the series has unfolded, it's primarily been about one thing: Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) relentlessly pursuing a singular goal, to be in a long-term relationship with Edward Cullen, no matter what obstacle or constructive criticism is hurled her way.  We may not agree with Bella's choice in men, but as I've written before (HERE), I'm not entirely sure the films agree with her either.  Moreover, if feminism is about having the choice to, as a woman, live your life as you see fit, isn't her dogged pursuit of Mr. Cullen inherently feminist by virtue of it being absolutely Bella's choice?

Midnight Box Office (03/23/12): Hunger Games scores $19.75m at 12:01am.

First and foremost, The Hunger Games earned a robust $19.75 million at midnight screenings alone, besting a record for a non-sequel and the seventh-biggest midnight haul of all-time.  It earned more than the $18 million midnight gross of The Dark Knight back in 2008 and the $17 million midnight haul of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith back in 2005. It is the biggest midnight gross for any movie not called Harry Potter or Twilight (Harry Potter 6: $22m, Harry Potter 7.1: $24m, Twilight: New Moon: $26m, Twilight: Eclipse and Breaking Dawn I: $30m, Harry Potter 7.2: $43m).  If this film were like any normal picture (between 4.5% and 6.5% of its weekend at midnight), we'd be looking at a $300-$400million+ opening weekend.  So let's presume that it's a bit front-loaded, but the question is how much so?  The last two Paranormal Activity films earned about 15% of their respective opening weekends at midnight ($6.3m and $8m respectively), while The Dark Knight earned just 11% of its then-record $158 million opening at 12:01am.  The difference between those two figures is the difference between a massive $132 million debut and a record $179 million opening weekend.  On the other hand, if the film really does play like a Harry Potter or Twilight sequel (which would seem to be the likely case), then we should compare it to those openings.

One to represent all? How The Help is being punished for a lack of minority-driven films, rather than its own merits as a movie.

I'm not going to get into a point-by-point rundown of why I think many of the criticisms being hurled at The Help are just-plain wrong.  First of all, Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman already did just that, so I'll merely link to his piece.  Second of all, much of the outcry over The Help comes not from what is in the movie itself, but rather what isn't in the film, and (more importantly) what isn't in the marketplace.  It is a clear case of film critics (and social commentators) reviewing not the movie itself, but everything outside the film.  As a stand-alone film, it works as a solid, if not awe-inspiring character piece involving a number of women (black and white) who exist in an employer/employee relationship during the middle of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.  If the picture were one of a dozen films being released by a major studio that centered around African-America actors, its flaws would be less of an issue, merely reasons for calling the film good rather than great.  There may be a dearth of African-American-centered major studio releases.  But it is silly to condemn the one 'shining' example and punish it for the non-existence of other pictures like it.

Not sloppy seconds or hand-me-downs, but a new myth for the current generation. Why The Hunger Games film franchise matters...

Arguably the most surprising bit of news dropped yesterday was the admission that Steven Soderbergh would be performing duties as the second-unit director for Gary Ross's The Hunger Games.  Even with the friendship that the two of them apparently share (The Playlist goes into details), it is a little unexpected for someone of Soderbergh's stature to agree to do second-unit work, on someone else's big-budget young-adult literature adaptation no less.  But that news is merely a segue-way into why the series is indeed far more important than we realize to the long-term health of the industry.  The film, due to be released on March 23rd of next year, is an adaptation of the first of three books detailing a futuristic wasteland where teenagers are forced to fight to the death on a reality TV show as a form of tribune to the society overlords.  Yes, this is not unlike Battle Royale, which is an absolutely terrific action film/social satire from Japan that basically has the same general premise (it's based on a book and a comic book as well).  Having said that, I'll give author Suzanne Collins the benefit of the doubt that she's never seen the 2000 release, as it's never been officially released in theaters or DVD in America.  But the film being released in March, which will theoretically spawn two more in the next several years, is indeed a vital and important one for reasons unrelated to its premise.

Weekend Box Office (07/18/11): Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II dethrones The Dark Knight, earning $169.1 million in its opening weekend.

The Harry Potter series finished where it started, at the top of the box office with a record breaking opening weekend. Nine-and-a-half years ago, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone opened the series with a $90.2 million, breaking the 4.5 year old opening weekend record set by The Lost World: Jurassic Park ($72 million).  Over the next 9.5 years, said record was broken four more times, with the last such toppling this very weekend three years ago with The Dark Knight's $158 million Fri-Sun take.  With nearly ten years of anticipation, The Boy Who Lived has returned to the top of the opening weekend charts with a massive $169.1 million Friday-Sunday gross.  That includes a record $91 Friday (best single day, best opening day, best Friday) which in turn included a record $43.5 million at 12:01am alone.  As expected, the picture was massively front-loaded, ending the weekend with the second-smallest weekend multiplier on record, 1.85x (for newbies, weekend multiplier is the final weekend total divided by the first day).  It also set another 'negative' record, earning 25.7% of its weekend total in those Thursday at 12:01am showings alone (the previous such record was set by the last Harry Potter film, which grossed 19% of its $125 million Fri-Sun haul at midnight).

Credit where credit is due: Summit chooses not to bleed Twilight fans dry. Breaking Dawn still set to forgo 3D conversion.

I've seen the teaser trailer for Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part I, but I won't be posting it until I'm sure its a legit copy that won't get yanked offline.  But for the moment, I'd like to acknowledge that Summit Entertainment has taken the higher road as it seeks to close out the blockbuster Twilight Saga over the next two years.  Yes, they have indeed split up the final book into two films, so their hands are not completely clean.  But it is surprising that Summit has (thus far) decided to forgo the 3D conversion gimmick that seems to be all the rage.  And frankly, it's an act of pure artistic restraint.  Twilight fans are arguably amongst the most rabid and fanatical in all of geekdom.  So no matter how much they might dislike 3D or don't want to pay the extra upcharge, they damn-well will pay whatever they have to pay to see the next two films in theaters.  The same goes I suppose for Harry Potter fans, which is why Warner earned kudos last year for releasing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I in 2D only.  The 'Twi-Hards' are perfect prey for a pointless and needless 3D conversion, which exist only to pump an extra 33% from 45-60% of the screens over the first two weekends or so from fans who were planning on seeing it anyway.  So Summit Entertainment deserves a moment of recognition for not going that route.

Scott Mendelson

Review: Red Riding Hood (2011)

Red Riding Hood
2011
100 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood is a picture that works in spite of itself. Much of the acting is overly formal and stilted, the film looks claustrophobic and stage bound, and the narrative flirts with societal relevance but discards it at every opportunity. But the movie has its pulpy charms and a terrifically entertaining star-turn by Gary Oldman. It is not high art, and it suffers from a PG-13 that dampens the grisly violence and periodic sexuality, but it’s rarely boring and often genuinely amusing.

The 24 Hour News Cycle of Movie-News part II: Obsessing on the Unknown.

In a continuing feature of sorts on how the 24-hour news cycle hurts the world of film news (part I), we'll be briefly (I hope) discussing the weird phenomenon whereby countless column inches are spent dissecting and analyzing that which is either not-yet known or painfully obvious. Would you have guessed that Warner Bros. wanted a young male heartthrob to play Clark Kent in Zack Snyder's Superman picture? Most of us would have, yet Nikki Finke reported this obvious fact as some kind of shocking new development. I don't mean to pick on Finke (her main sins come in the realm of box office analysis... come back next week), and the real problem is that every other blogger to just repeats the rumor/speculation/lie, complete with their own personal casting list or counter-point commentary ("Why Taylor Lautner shouldn't play Spider-Man!").

Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood (with Amanda Seyfried) gets a terrible second trailer, with a stunningly stupid musical choice.

On one level, this second look at Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood is a pretty generic trailer, a plot-centric piece that basically gives away the majority of the film in chronological order. It also achieves the impossible, as it makes Gary Oldman boring, as his endless narration explicitly spells out the plot of the film in bland generalities. Two trailers in, and the film doesn't feel the least bit original or inspired behind the all-star cast and a hope for some of the self-depreciating humor that made Twilight so much more fun than its morose sequels. Sleepy Hollow had the visual brilliance of a re-energized Tim Burton, the kooky lead performance of Johnny Depp (back when that was still a bit fresh), and a cavalcade of British all-stars. The Wolfman at least had the promise of grown-up horror fare for adults with adult actors at the helm. Both prior films also had the allure of R-rated violence and gore. The film comes out in just under two months, so we'll see as always.

Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood (with Amanda Seyfried) gets a visually dynamic, but needlessly wordy poster.

I rather liked the first moody, low-key poster for this Twilight by way of Sleepy Hallow variation on Little Red Riding Hood. So while this new poster is also visually appealing, and it gives a full cast roll call (always a plus in my book), I must acknowledge that it is a poster for the unthinking masses. It has a contrived image of Amanda Seyfried running for her life, with about a paragraph worth of needless text to go with it (even more than the double-tagline first poster). I much prefer the first tagline, which merely read 'Who's afraid?'. As it is, the film actually test-screened in Woodland Hills on Sunday, so if anyone wants to chime in, feel free. This one comes out March 11th, meaning that two of the more interesting movies of the spring, Red Riding Hood and Battle: Los Angeles, open on the same day. Nice move...

Scott Mendelson

Tron: Legacy nets $3.6 million in midnight sneaks. Could open with as little as $19 million, as much as $80 million for the weekend.

Tron: Legacy has grossed $3.5 million in midnight showings. That slightly exceeds the $3.6 million earned by Avatar's midnight sneaks last year on this weekend and actually exceeds the $3 million earned by respective late-night Inception screenings. The film grossed 25% of its midnight numbers in IMAX screens, which is a record for the large-screen format. What does this mean for the opening weekend? Well, generally speaking, recent midnight screenings have accounted for about 5-6% of a film's overall weekend take, which would put a weekend estimate between and $58 million and $70 million. Think Iron Man 2 ($7.5m/$128m), Jackass 3D ($2.5m/$50m), and Inception ($3m/$62m). But more front-loaded films have seen their midnight takes make up 11-19% of their total. Examples: The Dark Knight ($18m/$158m), Paranormal Activity 2 ($6.3m/$41m), Twilight Saga: New Moon ($26m/$142m) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I ($24m/$125m).

Friday Box Office (11/19/10): Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I scores $61.2 million on first day.

It's a $61.2 million Friday for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I. That's the fifth-biggest single day of all time, behind the opening days of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($62 million), The Dark Knight ($67 million), Twilight Saga: Eclipse ($68 million), and Twilight Saga: New Moon ($72 million). It's the third biggest Friday of all, as Transformers 2 and Twilight Saga: Eclipse both opened on a Wednesday. The number surpasses the $58 million that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince earned on its first day (a Wednesday), and it clobbers the $40 million that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire earned on its first Friday in November 2005 (the last time one of these films opened on a Friday). For a bit of perspective, nine years ago this weekend, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone broke the record for a single day gross with $32 million on its first Friday (it would break that record again with $33 million the next day). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I nearly doubled that.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I scores $24 million in midnight showings.

It looks like when it comes to midnight fan frenzy, there's Harry Potter and the Twilight Saga, and then there's everyone else. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I scored $24 million in midnight shows last night, which puts it number three on the all-time midnight list. Ahead of it for 12:01am screenings sits only the last two Twilight films. New Moon pulled in $26 million for a $72 million day (still a record for a single day) while Eclipse scored $30 million towards an eventual $68 million first day (still number two for single days). Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince previously scored $22 million in its midnight showings, which means Deathly Hallows part I set a record for the series. It does appear likely that the seventh Harry Potter film (and, yes, the best one so far) will surpass the $58 million that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince grossed in its first and biggest single day. We'll know in twelve hours whether or not Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I can surpass Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and its respective $62 million single-day mark (likely) or even The Dark Knight's $67 million opening day tally (quite possibly). More as we get the word...

Scott Mendelson

Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood (with Amanda Seyfried) gets an underwhelming trailer and a snazzy poster.

While most pundits have razzed on this trailer for its similarities to the first Twilight film, the immediate comparison I got was Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. It's an ages-old fairy-tale, redone as an adult horror story with a bit of gothic romance thrown in. Alas, Catherine Hardwicke is no Tim Burton when it comes to visuals, and the initial tease lacks the knowing humor that made the Johnny Depp vehicle such a kick and a half. Still, the conventional sell is not necessarily the movie. Hardwicke has lined up an impressive cast (Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Shiloh Fernandez, Virginia Madsen, Lukas Haas, Julie Christie and Billy Burke) and even said first Twilight film had a gentle self-mockery that the sequels lacked. I do like the sparse and moody poster, along with the low-key tagline 'Who's afraid?'. Click on the poster to enlarge. This one comes out March 11th, 2011.

Scott Mendelson

Shrek: The Final Chapter opens with $71 million, while MacGruber crawls to $4.1 million. Weekend box office review (05/23/10).

By any normal standards, a movie opening with $70.8 million in three days would be a pretty big success. So, before we get into what this means for the Shrek franchise, let's talk that number in cold detail for a minute. First of all, it gives the fourth Shrek picture a pretty solid 3.4x weekend multiplier, which was superior to the 3.1x scored by Shrek the Third over its opening weekend. Second of all, in the grand scheme of animated films, it is still the fourth-biggest opening weekend for a cartoon, behind only Shrek 3 ($121 million), Shrek 2 ($108 million), and The Simpsons ($74 million). Also, for what it's worth, it's the fifth-biggest opening weekend for a 'fourth chapter' in box office history, behind Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ($102 million), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($101 million), X-Men Origins: Wolverine ($85 million), and Fast and Furious ($71 million). Of course, if you glance at the numbers posted by the previous two Shrek sequels, you start to see the reason for concern. Come what may, anytime a sequel opens with $50 million less than the prior installment, that's generally a bad thing. Shrek Forever After just made less on its opening weekend than Shrek 2 made on its second weekend ($72.1 million).

Shrek 4, MacGruber crash and burn in Friday box office (05/21/10).

It's tough to call anything grossing $20.7 million in a single day a disaster, but expectations and precedence tell the tale. The first Shrek film grossed $11.5 million on its first day, while Shrek 2 grossed $28.3 million on its first Friday (it had already grossed around $20 million on Wednesday and Thursday before exploding over the traditional weekend). Shrek the Third grossed $38.4 million on its opening day, also a Friday. So, even if we acknowledge that the Shrek franchise isn't the titan that it once once, and even if we admit that the marketing campaign for this unwanted fourth film was all over the place (is the film called Shrek Forever After or Shrek: The Final Chapter?), expectations were in order for something a bit under the three-day $121 million take of Shrek the Third. The $108 million Fri-Sun gross for Shrek 2 would have been reasonable, over even a low $90 million gross. But, as things stand now, Shrek Forever After is looking less like Shrek the Third and more like A Shark Tale.