Summer movie season is officially over and September is upon us - an appropriate time, I think, to look back and look forward at what has been going on in the world of movies.
Looking back, I think it is fair to say this was a summer to forget in many ways as far as bean counters are concerned in Hollywood. So many movies have flopped this summer it is a joke.
Let's see, how many more flops can we add to the list from the last time I wrote about the box office? Aug. 13 there was the Michael Cera movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which should have been titled "Scott Pilgrim vs the Entire Movie-going Public" given how few people bothered to pay money to see it. It opened to a miserable $10 million.
The next weekend, Aug. 20 to 22, saw a whole host of flops: Vampires Suck made a lousy $12 million, Lottery Ticket and Piranha 3D scared up under $11 million, Nanny McPhee Returns opened at $8.4 million, and that new Jennifer Aniston effort, The Switch, also made $8.4 million! That's terrible! For a woman who is in every tabloid and movie magazine imaginable, Aniston can't seem to find a movie to star in that can (a) make good money or (b) be any good.
It wasn't all bad, though. In fact, June and July were good for a few movies at the top of the charts. Inception, a sci-fi action thriller that starred Leo DiCaprio, was a big hit in July and has made a handsome $278 million so far domestically. As well, Pixar's Toy Story 3 has proven to be the highest grossing movie in the history of animated movies, taking in over $1 billion around the world. Its summer domestic haul in North America was $408 million.
When I said The Twilight Saga: Eclipse was going to be the summer box office champ I spoke too soon. Eclipse did a lot of business right out of the gate, but faded fast after that, probably because all the people who were going to see it rushed to theaters in the first couple of weeks. Toy Story 3 ended up doing far better business over a longer period of time, so it is the summer box office champ for 2010. In fact, Eclipse still hadn't made it to $300 million at the domestic box office the last time I checked, which I find surprising. But then it has been a surprising summer in a lot of ways at theatres.
We are now into September, usually a strange month for movie fans. It's kind of a dead zone between the "summer blockbuster season" that just ended and the "Oscar season" that picks up in the latter part of the year, as potential Academy Award contenders roll out releases.
With so many people either going back to school, or back to work, September is notorious for being one of the worst months of the year for film attendance. Just look at this weekend's figures. The number one movie at the box office in North America was George Clooney's new flick The American. Yet it made only $16.6 million over the four-day Labour Day weekend! A blockbuster this was definitely not, but these were actually pretty typical numbers for both September releases and for George Clooney movies in general.
The two most buzz-worthy movies rolling out this month are a couple of well-publicized sequels. Those include Resident Evil: Afterlife in 3D on Sept. 10 and the long-awaited Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps on Sept. 24 that will again star Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko (Greed is Good).
While things may be slowing down at your local movie theatre, things are definitely heating up at film festivals around the world . The Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 9 to 19, and it promises to be great fun for the entertainment journalists in this country who will be lining the Toronto red carpet interviewing the Hollywood stars who are bound to be there.
The festival kicks off Thursday with Score: A Hockey Musical - and I find that choice for a gala opening movie to be really odd. Quite frankly, the film festival - with its glamour, fashions, parties and high-society appeal - is about as far removed from the world of hockey as anyone can imagine. The last place I would expect to see any kind of reference to hockey is TIFF, which usually devotes itself to much more upper-crust entertainment.
Can you imagine Don Cherry attending a film festival? Neither can I.
