Cruel Summer: Big Box Office, Last Licks Stragglers

Hollywood was shocked that audiences were interested in seeing good movies, such as The Dark Knight. 

It’s Labor Day weekend, and Hollywood is trying to squeeze a last few dollars out of what was largely a successful summer. Five new movies are being released for the long holiday weekend and…well, none of them look very good.

But before we get to that, Variety notes that this summer’s total box office is at $3.99 billion so far, with this weekend’s total expected to boost that number to somewhere around $4.16 billion. Compared to last year, attendance will be slightly down due to a small increase in ticket prices–$7.16 vs. ’07’s $6.88….good lord, where are those places? Tickets cost $11.75 in my neighborhood–but the overall total could be a record.

This is a surprise to many in Hollywood, where expectations  for this summer were low due to few films from established franchises, unlike last year’s sequel (or threequel) festival. Here are a few things that shocked Hollywood this summer:

- People like to see good movies! Iron Man wasn’t a household brand name and The Dark Knight, following the only moderately successful Batman Begins was seen as too dark. Yet, oddly enough, if a movie comes out and it is said to be good, people actually will go to see it. This is big news in Hollywood. Perhaps they can build on it.

- People won’t see bad movies! You can market junk like Speed Racer and The Love Guru all you want, but people still won’t see them if they open and word is that they suck. So to reiterate the above point–try to make good movies.

- Women go to movies! Sex and the City, Mamma Mia, The House Bunny and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 were movies aimed at women that opened strong. So if you give these “women” creatures movies that appeal to them, they will actually go. And btw, all those Iron Man and The Dark Knight tickets weren’t bought by boys–strange as it may sound, you can include women in that group of people that likes good movies.

- Oh, and also–when there’s a fuel crisis and a poor economy, people skip long distance vacations and stay at home, left to do things like go to the movies, play video games, do lawn work, whittle on the front porch, etc.

As for this weekend–we have College, Disaster Movie, Babylon AD aimed at young men, Traitor aimed at fans of, well, decent attempts at political thrillers, and Hamlet 2 opening wide for mild-mannered satire fans. There is nothing here that you will not regret watching on video insted of the big screen.