It had everything: Oscar-winning stars, a proven director-actor combination, an indie hero turned mass-market favorite, a gripping historical setting.
It had a precedent (Seabiscuit had done it, hadn’t it?). It had a pedigree. It had the critics in its pockets—and everything but the audience to fill its seats.
One week after Cinderella Man’s release, it didn’t look good. But hey, films have had slow starts before. Two weeks after it came out, it was official: The widely praised, Oscar-bait, can’t-go-wrong Crowe-Zellweger combination, under the directorship of Hollywood’s golden boy Ron Howard, had gone wrong. Cinderella Man was a flop.
The movie’s failure was attributed to everything from Crowe’s bad behavior (telephone, anyone?) to the distributor’s bad timing (drama in summer?). More sinisterly, it pointed to an ominous trend: a box office recession.
Citing a reduction in ticket sales since last year, industry insiders began to grumble of a box office slump. This excuse for dwindling returns picked up speed until a few clever observers pointed out that last year’s Passion of the Christ, which lured in a glut of atypical movie-goers, made 2004 a poor standard of comparison.
And besides, it’s not as though summer ‘05 has been free of hits. Revenge of the Sith did predictably well—but perhaps surprisingly it surpassed all but two of the series’ other installments, climbing into the top ten while still in theaters. Its current gross is over $360 million. Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Madagascar and The Longest Yard are all posting current grosses over $100 million.
Of course, like every year, there were some disappointments. Cinderella Man stands at a little over $55 million after 6 weeks on the market, and both Herbie: Fully Loaded and Bewitched underperformed in the family-friendly category.
Another disappointment arrived in gilded paper. Batman Begins made nearly $73 million in its five-day opening and is quickly climbing toward a likely $200 million total. But studio execs who were expecting the dark superhero story to be this summer’s Spider Man (or even Spider Man 2, as both films grossed over $350 million domestically) found themselves looking to War of the Worlds for the hit of the summer.
Worlds has, of course, done decently—as do all disaster flicks that open on the July 4 weekend—but some speculate that the film’s $64.9-million holiday weekend gross could have been higher had its star refrained from loopy antics.
With totals from Stealth, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Island, Fantastic 4 and Wedding Crashers still to be counted, 2005 has some wild cards yet—though none of those films promise a hit of Star Wars magnitude.
Summer 2005 will not likely be remembered as the summer of little movies that could, with smaller flicks such as My Summer of Love and Rize posting disappointing returns considering their stellar reviews. Only Crash stepped into the league with the big boys, deservedly earning $50 million. And with Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle languishing in limited release, one wonders what happened to the magic ingredient that sparked Miyazaki’s hit Spirited Away.
In the end, though, don’t cry too hard for Hollywood. Domestic box office receipts for the summer are still well into the billions, and marketing partnerships plus foreign grosses raked in a healthy supplemental income. No matter how cheap DVDs or absurdly expensive theater ticket prices become, no matter how closely home sound systems begin to resemble those of auditoriums, America will continue to flock to the big screens. There’s something about that crowded opening night buzz, the collective gasps and amplified laughter, the stars’ heads as big as dining room tables, the movie theater—not theater-quality—sound effects and, yes, even the line, the ticket and the popcorn, that will keep us coming back. Summer blockbusters are far from a dying breed.
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