Have to admit I was a little pleased to hear about the good news/bad news situation at the weekend box office.

The bad news for Hollywood? Megasequel Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life debuted with a lackluster $21.8 million, less than half the opening-weekend take of the original, despite your typical saturation advertising campaign and a slew of unavoidable marketing tie-ins. (That compares poorly with a reported budget of $140 million) Instead, Spy Kids 3-D was the big winner, pulling in $32.5 million and proving the continued drawing power of franchises targeted at the so-called “family” audience.

The good news? Well, Seabiscuit made $21.5 million on 1200 screens, which is pretty damned good. Fellow non-sequel Pirates of the Caribbean performed at about the same level, as did Bad Boys II.

What does this prove? A couple of things. First, the soft openings of Lara Croft and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle break the trend – probably begun when Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me made more in its first weekend than the first film did in its entire theatrical run – of sequels performing better than original films, making them a no-brainer for studio execs and ensuring mainstream moviegoers a steady summer diet of essentially regurgitated meals. (Also on point, I’d argue, is the fact that both Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Charlie’s Angels were terrible originals whose money was made solely on the back of savvy ad campaigns.)

Second, it breaks the trend of a single property (The Matrix, Hulk, Bad Boys II) towering like a big black monolith over everything else in release, simply by virtue of the number of bucks being thrown at the marketing budgets. Instead, audiences forked over big money to see something vaguely resembling a variety of films, from stoopid R-rated action to prestige equine biopic.

Paramount distribution exec Wayne Lewellen offered Reuters reporter Gina Keating an apologia for Lara Croft’s performance, noting that this was the first time five movies had each grossed more than $20 million over a standard Friday-through-Sunday weekend. (He also suggested that poor sales of the newest Tomb Raider videogame had something to do with it, but actual gamers knew the franchise was tired before the first film hit screens.) No doubt the original plan at Paramount was for Croft to hit somewhere north of $40 million, crushing everything in her path under the strength of her gigantic, pneumatic … never mind. Let’s just say that this particular adolescent fantasy has been quashed.

Looking at the films themselves, a trend-monger could conclude that girl power has had its day – that audiences aren’t as interested as they once were in seeing hot chicks kick ass. If Hollywood takes that as one of the lessons of summer 2003, it will be a shame. I’m definitely interested in seeing the ladies break themselves off a piece of that ludicrous-summer-action-blockbuster pie. The problem, as far as Charlie’s Angels and Lara Croft are concerned*, is I’d like to see them do it in movies that don’t suck.

* I'm talking originals here; I haven't seen the new models.

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Comments

Whoa my head hurts. Good insight Bryant.

Posted by: Jay F at July 30, 2024 01:50 PM

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