What Happened to Date Night?

Lately in the zeitgeist, there has been an emphasis on the terms “chick-lit” or “chick-flick.” Back around the turn of the century when “chick-lit” became a genre, I sort of understood it. The books that got labeled this way were obviously geared towards women, and they weren’t just the latest offering from Oprah’s Book Club. These books were full of women, and the things women are interested in. If you were to write a book about make-up, dresses and tampons; that would satisfy a certain population of and it would be somewhat fair to label it chick-lit. Somewhat fair. Somehow this term has become the standard for any piece of literature whose main character is female. I am a real guy and this shit is obvious even to me!

Why does a book having a female main character mean that it is geared towards women? This labeling is… ugh. It’s ridiculous, just ridiculous. And now, thanks to so many of these “chick-lit” titles becoming successful, we get to see them all as movies that are of course geared towards women. This way of thinking has become so pervasive that it’s accepted.

WHAT HAPPENED? These pictures may have women as main characters, but there is no reason that guys shouldn’t have a good time too – in the right situation. No, I don’t expect a pack of straight men to line up to see The Devil Wears Prada, but they would have an awesome time if they were on date with their other! That’s what most of these are: DATE MOVIES. Hell, that’s even what we used to call them. Movies that are romantic and/or emotional or about actual growth as a person are perfect for embracing the one you’re interested in. That’s what they’re for!

This phenomenon is so ridiculous that even the most popular “guy’s movie” director has even figured it out. That’s right, Judd Apatow knows what actually makes guys tick. Forgetting Sarah Marshall? Date Movie. Pineapple Express? DATE MOVIE! Hell, I’d even call that movie a bro-mance, there was that many romantic dealings going on.

What’s my point? We need to reclaim our movies from marketing people. The best example from this year is what most consider to be the biggest chick-fest of all time: Sex and the City. I will go on record saying that this is a very good movie, regardless of the TV show. And, ironically because of the TV show, this movie’s audience missed the mark. Groups of women (and gay men too, let’s keep it real) went to theaters in hordes together to celebrate this event. Some theaters even put on parties with drinks inspired by the movie. Apparently the audiences enjoyed it, but I venture to that they may have missed the point. That movie, while having four female lead characters, is at heart a date movie. I won’t spill into the plot, but we know it’s about romantic relationships and for my money that’s the kind of picture that makes me want to hold my baby’s hand.

Let’s bring back the tradition.



© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.



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The Round Up : 9.14.08

Here’s this weekend’s box-office estmates!

1. Burn After Reading $19.4 million
2. The Family That Preys $18 million
3. Righteous Kill $16.5 million
4. The Women $10.1 million
5. The House Bunny $4.3 million

Alright, alright. So last week, I said that I was looking at The Women being the number one movie this weekend. Forgive me, apparently it had slipped my mind that three other movies were opening as well. At $10 million, people will inevitably say The Women’s grosses makes it a failure but it was made for $16 million so it will make it’s money back in the next week. What I am interested in is whether or not it will pick up word of mouth and grow form there. Whatever happens, it’s Picturehouse’s best opening ever! Way to go.

At $16.5, Righteous Kill is also the biggest success for Overture Films. I would have to say that I was surprised that Overture decided to release this picture so early in the fall season. Police dramas tend to do well once the weather seriously for some reason. It could easily have won the weekend sometime in October. Especially with Robert De Niro playing Al Pacino, and Pacino playing De Niro. What could be better?

Tyler Perry truly has got his eye on his audience, yet another movie of his is a hit. He also traditionally does not do screenings for critics. Generally, when a movie is not screened for critics it is because the studio doesn’t have confidence in the picture. Tyler Perry is definitely an exception to this rule. He says that he does not do critics screenings because he lets the audience be his critic. This is a brave man. Best of all, the audience is giving him raves – every single movie of his has been a hit!

Burn After Reading won the weekend with $19.4 million! I was hearing that some tracking experts were expecting the mid 20s range. I would have been surprised to see those results, but $19 mil makes it the highest grossing debut weekend for any Coen Brothers movie. Congratulations!

All in all, this was a surprising start to the fall, with the general receipts being up about 35% from last year. I think that for the first time in a while there were a lot of fresh choices with a wide array of movie stars to choose from. Clearly, people wanted to go to the movies.

And that’s the weekend!



© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.

In Titanic’s wake

It’s been over ten years since Titanic was released, and it is still the highest grossing movie of all time. Everyone knows the numbers, it cost $200 million before prints and advertising, and made about $1.8 billion worldwide. Good business model, right? I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I see that it was/still is a HUGE success that is also still a relevant pop culture phenomenon. It also established the idea of a tentpole movie. A tentpole is a property that a studio will give a much bigger budget than their other movies will come close to. The idea is that a high performing tentpole will make enough money to cover their smaller movies and financial failures. Take Warner Brothers for example, the success of The Dark Knight will completely write-off the failure of Speed Racer. It’s an understandable way of thinking when that is the idea. But for some reason since Titanic, tentpoles have been covering the costs of more tentpoles (See: Dark Knight and Speed Racer again) which has done more damage than you could imagine. It has killed the mid-level movie.

Before Titanic, most movies cost in the $20 to $40 million range. And guess what, there were more successes then, because it’s much easier to make back $30 million than $200 million. These were all kinds of movies; comedies, dramas, ensemble pieces, romantic comedies, period dramas and dark comedies. Nowadays, it is not abnormal for a studio to spend more than $50 million on a comedy (Wild Hogs, anyone?). Also, independent movies were cheap, definitely less than $5 million. (we can still make them super cheap now btw, see BRICK: $500,000 budget.)

Since Titanic, studios have mostly been interested in event movies, and independent films were left to take up the slack. And they did, and won many awards in the process. Now at this point, name actors began to realize that if they want to do meaningful work (or win an award), they better get their ass in a good indie flick. And they did.

To combat their newfound lack of award recognition, studios were forced to open their own smaller shingles so that they could again make small, intimate pictures to compete with indies. (See: Paramount Vantage, New Regency, Focus Features, etc.) Since these shingles were “independent” but attatched to a larger studio these movies’ budgets could rise a bit. This forced independent filmmaker’s hands. Luckily, this came at a time when the nouveau riche were finding it cool to invest in independent film. And it’s been this way for a while.

Now, we’ve got $20 million independent films! (see: The Women. A movie full of name actors, not one of which is male that is independently financed for $16 million?! We’ll talk about that tomorrow) I guess that’s just the way the cycle goes? Studios spend more, indie filmmakers have good stories which attracts talent, studios spend less in a different way to get actors/awards, indie peeps then spend more to get actors back, which they do. For some reason, I inherently feel that if you’re making a movie for $20 mil then you’re not really indie, no matter where the money comes from, and that’s a prejudice I know. I also know that there are still small somewhat cheap indie movies being distributed, but there are just far fewer than in the past. It raises a question: Does the next generation of independent filmmakers come from the internet? Is that the new independent distribution? Is that our only option now?



© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.

The Round Up : 9.7.08

Here’s this weekend’s box-office estimates!

1. Bangkok Dangerous $7.8 million
2. Tropic Thunder $7.5 million
3. The House Bunny $5.9 million
4. The Dark Knight $5.7 million
5. Traitor $4.6 million

This was not a good weekend for Hollywood, with the cumulative total being down by just about 30% from last weekend, not including the holiday itself. In fact, every single movie in the top 20 was down compared with the previous weekend. The number one movie didn’t even clear eight million and won the weekend from Tropic Thunder (who had been the number one four weeks in a row!) only by $.3 million! WTF? I know Nic Cage has had some difficult times lately, but dag. This is bad even for a one of his movies. Many people I know say that the weekend after Labor Day is traditionally the beginning of a slow period for the box office, and any big budget movie that was released that weekend was dumped there.

Can’t wait to see what coming up next weekend. We at The Round Up expect The Women to be the top movie, but we'll have to wait and see. Though it's nice to see a movie based on a good play out there. It sticks to the original conceit, there's not one Y chromosome on that screen at all during the movie.

Speaking of upcoming movies, Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla got a great review in Variety, having just screened at the Toronto Film Festival. Reviewer Joe Leydon says that Ritchie is back in top form, and calls the movie “a cleverly constructed, sensationally stylish and often darkly hilarious seriocomic caper.” Well done, Guy. I can’t wait till it comes Stateside. I know a lot of people will say that the “British Caper Movie” is the only genre he can do, as a way of knocking his talent. Let me tell you, haters are just jealous. Anyone who makes movies is lucky to do so, and as long as Ritchie keeps making movies of that genre, I’ll keep going to see them. I believe, and I’m sure Guy will agree that it sure as hell beats working at the Dairy Queen.

And that’s the weekend? Ouch.



© 2008 MD TOTAL all rights reserved.