Box Office Blather: Spectacles, Star Vehicles, Subtitles and Easy $

Year in Review Pt 1 of Many
It's time to wrap up 2010. You'll have to have patience since The Film Experience likes to do this piecemeal... and often! Let's do it every day at 10 AM or 10 PM or both when we magically have free time. How about that? We'll start with the US box office.

Box office hits get much coverage in the media so let's just dispense that basic "smash hit" list quick-like and move on to more interesting less covered seat-filler topics. All figures on all lists are up until the December 18th. And please go easy on any errors as I am unskilled at math is not my strong suit.



US Top Dozen

1. Toy Story 3 $415
2. Eyesore in Wonderland $334
3. Iron Man 2 $312
4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse $300
5. Inception $292
6. The Commercial For Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2 $265
7. Despicable Me $250
8. Shrek Forever After $238
9. How to Train Your Dragon $217
10. The Karate Kid $176
11. Clash of the Titans $163
12. Grown-Ups $162

The list proves again - as in every year - that the American moviegoer has an extremely limited palette. There are only four types of films he/she will go to in droves: animated features, sequels/remakes (i.e. "franchises"), action/visual spectacles and broad comedies. It doesn't get more diverse until much further down the list. The only film in the year's top 25 that doesn't fit neatly into one of those four categories is Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. So well done, Marty. That is a true accomplishment.

Subtitled Features
(I've included worldwide figures too for the sake of provenance)

1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo [Sweden]  $10 (worldwide: $104)
2. The Girl Who Played With Fire [Sweden]  $7 (worldwide: $66)
3. The Secret in Their Eyes [Argentina]  $6 (worldwide: $33)
4. I Am Love [Italy] $5 (worldwide: $10)
5. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest [Sweden]  $4 (worldwide: $40)
6. My Name is Khan [India]  $4 (worldwide: $41)
7. A Prophet [France] $2 (worldwide: $17)
8. Dabangg [India] $2 (worldwide: $3)
9. Kites [Miscellania] $1.6 (worldwide: $3)
10. Raajneeti [India] $1.5 (worldwide: $12)
11. MicMacs [France] $1.2 (worldwide: $16)
12. Golmaal 3 [India] $1 (worldwide: $2)

Beyond interest in the Swedish "Millenium" trilogy -- which dropped steadily with each film here and elsewhere in equal percentages -- it was tough going for international fare yet again. It seems like a different world entirely than when we regularly had a couple of substantial breakout hits a year (as recently as the mid Aughts). The only steady market seems to be Bollywood features, which regularly gross about a million with barely any media coverage. Oscar nominees are a far less stable subcategory. Despite more media coverage their grosses tend to be all over the place, ranging anywhere from $10,000 (Peru's Milk of Sorrow) to just over half a million (Israel's Ajami) to the $2 million range (France's A Prophet and 2009 holdover Germany's White Ribbon) to $6 million (the winner, Argentina's The Secret in Their Eyes). In other words it's a bit hard to imagine that the Oscar nomination does all that much more for the films than they could have managed on their own... unless they win. It's tough to quantify so it's aggravating that the studios seem to think that the first quarter is the only time to release the high profile foreign contenders. (It's like how the English language Oscar contenders all have to compete with each other for the same limited seasonal dollars from November through February. It's so weird.)

Next...?
Well, I was going to do a list based purely on original material but the list was so depressing (it was basically original material that could easily be confused for a remake) that I screamed abort! abort! and changed course immediately. Let's try this. Which DRAMAS, i.e. the things audiences mostly only want to see on their TVs now, were hits with moviegoers?

Top 12 Dramas (reality based i.e. no supernatural, genre or primarily action-focused stuff)

1. Shutter Island  $128 [debatable classification - remove it if you will]
2. The Town $92 [an action movie in a sense but mostly a drama]
3. The Social Network $91
4. Eat Pray Love $80
5. Dear John $80
6. The Last Song $62
7. Why Did I Get Married, Too $60
8. Secretariat $58
9. Letters to Juliet $53
10. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps $52
11. For Colored Girls $37
12. The American $35

On this list we see that quality matters far less than having a star in your movie; just don't expect big returns on investment since big stars cost $10+ million. Also: Amanda Seyfried and Tyler Perry are good bets for non-gargantuan but sturdy profits. The Social Network, a film without any action sequence, gooey romance or crime-angle, is a true anomaly. It's only here because it's awesome and topical. But being awesome and topical will only get you to around $90-100. It's interesting that The Social Network's box office is so similar to Brokeback Mountain's, another anomaly that had quality as its chief selling point. (GASP. What a crazy thing to bank on!)

Best Return on Investment???
This list is haphazard / insufficient using only production budgets vs. US distribution returns from box office mojo. In other words it's not so accurate (merchandising, foreign markets, DVD sales and the potential windfall of sequels all contribute to insanely costly movies making a lot of money... eventually. While marketing costs subtract from that profit margin all the while.) But I think the following list is interesting as a very blurry snapshot as to what films are profitable even before you factor in these other things.

1. Paranormal Activity 2 $84 gross = 28 times its budget.
2. The Last Exorcism  $41 gross =22.7 times its budget.
3. Easy A $58 gross  =7.25 times its budget.
4. Jackass 3-D $116 gross = 5.8 times its budget.
5. The Kids Are All Right $20 gross = 5 times its budget.
6. Twilight Saga: Eclipse $300 gross = 4.4 times its budget.
7. The Karate Kid $176 gross = 4.4 times its budget.
8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid $64 gross  = 4.2 times its budget. 
9. Despicable Me $250 gross = 3.6 times its budget. 
10. Dear John $80 gross  = 3.2 times its budget.

Black Swan, budgeted at $13 million may well join this top ten since it's already earned $15 million and it's only just finished its first weekend of wide release and once it wears off its opening week energy, presumably it'll get that Oscar nominee boost to keep it going.

If you include worldwide revenues and franchise potential the numbers would change. How to Train Your Dragon, for example, which cost $165 million to make and grossed $217 million doesn't sound that profitable until you factor in the foreign gross (another $277 million) and the eventual sequels ordered up, which will come into the world market with the most cost efficent marketing tool possible: familiarity. And some movies are far more profitable overseas: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was budgeted at $13 million and has grossed $104 million worldwide, so only 10% of its gross is coming from America. But I was trying to make this as easy on myself as possible hence the US totals.

The year in box office. Crazy numbers. I'd be happy just making a really crappy "per screen average" figure this week. How 'bout you?

Finally..

It would... oh never mind. This post is long enough. What's the last movie you paid to see? Did you get your money's worth?

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Mean Girls

Next Wednesday night is the Season 1 Finale of 'Best Shot". Together we'll look at the 1955 classic Night of the Hunter which --- well, if you've never seen it, you're in for a major film event. It's appropriately creepy for late October, too. Today, something lighter and flirtier.

MEAN GIRLS (2004)

God, she can be SO annoying.

Few movies from the Aughts have proved as delightfully durable as Mean Girls, the Tina Fey scripted Mark Waters directed comedy that introduced us to Queen Bee Regina George (a total "rock star" performance from Rachel McAdams) and her army of skanks, Gretchen (Lacey Chabert), Karen (Amanda Seyfried) and new girl Cady (Lindsay Lohan) -- "I love her. She's like a Martian" -- transferred in from Africa and experiencing the jungles of public education for the first time. On first viewing back in 2004, its debt to Heathers (1988), another comedy about evil life-ruiner hotties, seemed insurmountable in terms of New Classic! reaction. But Mean Girls has, in the past six years, more than proved its own worth and its own identity. In retrospect the two films feel very different in tone and aesthetic personality, with only the subject matter, mean girls, and über quotability to unite them.  In future years, the next great mean girl classic will be compared unfavorably to both of them.

The best filmmaking choice in the movie, aside from the inspired casting, might be the staging of every character intros. The entire principle cast gets fun intros with the best being reserved for the Queen Bee herself who is literally carried into the picture in slo-motion by her male admirers while a Greek chorus of students fills us in on who she is and why we should be in awe of her. It kicks off with the double conscience of the film Janis Ian (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese)

"And evil takes a human form in Regina George. Don't be fooled. She may seem like your typical selfish back-stabbing slut-faced ho-bag but in reality she is so much more than that. She's the Queen Bee. The star. Those other two are just her little workers... "

. To underline her power, Missy Elliott is on the soundtrack also introducing her...

 "hey hey hey ♫ I'm what's happening."

And Rachel McAdams is indeed what's happening in Mean Girls (especially now that we've had to let our love for LiLo's brief sparkliness go).  Every time you watch it, her performance gets better. A lot of actresses can and have done deliciously bitchy but her deliciously bitchy has so many shadings from stickily sweet (is she for real? why do i want to believe this one moment) to casual bored privilege to tossed off power plays to embarrassment at any hint of runner up status to machiavellian rage spiked with tiny flashes of self-loathing (that Burn Book sabotage moment!). She's damn near unimproveable in the picture.

For best shot, I choose a two-part Regina moment...



I love how the camera tracks Regina through the hallway after she's hatched her brilliant revenge plan. She's regained control of her screaming rage we saw in the prior scene and she's just gliding through the hallways, with a neat hint of actressy athleticism. Gone is the sex kitten and in her place is the marathon runner.

The shot functions like a reverse Hansel & Gretel; the witch is leaving a bread crumb trail. In the bookend shot that follows (also pictured) the camera is still moving but the witch isn't. Witness her hungry self-satisfaction while she watches the children gobble up the crumbs. They're already baking in her oven!

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Finally, I have to end with a gymnasium moment because Amanda Seyfried just slays me as Karen Smith "one of the dumbest girls you'll ever meet".



This scene where Gretchen "apologizes" to her classmates -- 'I can't help it that I'm popular' -- always makes me cackle. Particularly because the punchline is so funny. Karen is watching Gretchen blankfaced and just opens up her arms to receive her friend while everyone else steps away. The funny thing about Karen is actually how innocent she seems, like a mean girl by accident of proximity and stupidity.


The "Best Shot" clique is so fetch

• Dean A believes in kissing cousins.
• Sorta That Guy maps it out for you.
• Okinawa Assault wonders what table you sit at?
• Serious Film thinks Daniel is too gay to function
• Pussy Goes Grrr had never seen the movie before!!!
• Antagony & Ecstasy goes to the mall and notices the gap. Not the Gap.
• Movies Kick Ass Whoa. great minds think alike. Jose and I both got caught up in the Wicked Witch of the North (Shore).
• Awkward is What We Aim For survives a three-way call.
• Andrew R appreciates a "cool mom"

 Previously on "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"

• Angels in America (2003), X-Men (2000), Showgirls (1995), Bring It On (2000), Black Narcissus (1946), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Pandora's Box (1929), Se7en (1995), Requiem for a Dream (2000) and La Dolce Vita (1960)

Related Reading

•  "Let me tell you something about Lindsay Lohan"

Halfway Mark: Screen Hotties of 2010

I blame the heat and nothing good in theaters but for the holdovers from previous weeks (go see Winter's Bone, I Am Love, Toy Story 3 and I Am Love if you haven't. Uh... I Am Love you're required to see twice, apparently -- Freudian typo!) for this week's Towleroad article. After assessing the Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man announcement I obsess over the Year in Screen Hotties (thus far).

Click over!

Since Towleroad is all about the Gay the list is men but since I'm an actressexual and since all the best people are at least bi-curious when it comes to the movies, you know I can't ignore the silver screen sirens. I haven't seen all of these movie but here's an incomplete overview of the year thus far.

The Girlie Show

Jan: Portia Doubleday torments Michael Cera (both of him) in Youth in Revolt. Kristen Bell can't pick a man in When in Rome. Can't pick screenplays either. Niche hotness, GMILF Edition: Helen Mirren wants her man crowing like a cock in The Last Station.

Feb: Amanda Seyfried, Our Lady of Annually Increasing Beauty, stars in Dear John. The Wolfman follows Emily Blunt's scent no matter the consequence; Who wouldn't? Uma Thurman turns men, not just man parts, to stone as Medusa in Percy Jackson.

Mar: Double Team Alert! Amanda Seyfried rocks Julianne Moore's world in more ways than one in Chloe. Plus, Dakota Fanning unleashes her scandalous Cherry Bomb whilst Kristen Stewart works a Bad Reputation in The Runaways. Niche hotness, Macrophile/Microphile division: Mia Wasikowska can't pick a dress size in Alice in Wonderland.

April: Erika Alexander is a boho honey in La Mission. Zoë Saldana holds a hot piece in The Losers. Niche hotness, Gothic division: Christina Ricci gets yet paler (c'est possible?!?) as a perpetually nude corpse in After.Life.

May: Ari Graynor's tongue brings ecstasy, albeit in pill form, to Holy Rollers. Scarlett Johansson wears ringlets and leather for Iron Man 2 and may or may not have speaking lines though no one can recall. Naomie Harris handles the first part of sex & drugs & rock and roll with her usual style. Love the 'fro in that first scene. Niche hotness, The Alex Forrest "I'm Not Going to Be Ignored" New Generations Award to Naomi "seduce & destroy" Watts in Mother and Child.


June: Colin Farrell's little mermaid is full grown Polish beauty Alicja Bachleda in Ondine. Please note how many reviews of Winter's Bone describe Jennifer Lawrence's long tresses and full lips in as much loving detail as her performance, even though the movie is about as far from "sexy" as a movie can be. Marisa Tomei is still working the 'dream girl for losers' track in Cyrus. Can you blame the losers? Tilda Swinton is a prized pale gold Russian collectible in I Am Love. Cameron Diaz in primary colors, yellow bridesmaid, red bikini for Knight and Day. Gina Gershon is a whore! (not a dancer) in Love Ranch... the less said about the rest of the movie, the better.

Which actors and actresses grabbed your eyeballs this year?
It doesn't have to be for, uh, performance reasons.

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Red Carpet Lineup: Tribeca Blowout

red carpet lineup. random celebs who've been out and about this week...

With Tribeca handing out their awards last tonight and me coming back to life (things have been crazy) I thought we'd talk about some people attending New York's glitzy festival. I'm asking a comment question in red for each of them because I'm "reader discussion guide" annoying like that. Maybe I should have been a T.A.? Tribeca doesn't have the same prestige or art-driven mentality as the far older New York Film Festival (always in the fall) but it does pack theaters all over town, offer up a diverse 'something for everyone' slate and bring out the celebrities in droves. To hawk their films. Though I did see Ben Stiller and Denis Leary as audience members at the religious satire The Infidel.

from left to right

• Ellen Barkin plays a sullen drug addict in The Chameleon and she'll start her Shit Year at Cannes next month in the Directors' Fortnight lineup. Is her career revving back up or is this another Oceans 13 false alarm. Do you care?
• Mark Ruffalo seems to be letting himself go. Maybe it's just a 'between projects' kind of thing. Though, when is he between projects? Always working. I'm already stealing myself for disappointment if he doesn't get the credit he deserves for sly great work in The Kids Are All Right. Will he ever be Oscar nominated?
  
• Kirsten Dunst is on the comeback trail despite being only 28. Today is her birthday! She was at Tribeca because she directed the short film Bastard. Are you rooting for her comeback?
  
• Melissa Leo can't say no. That's my theory because she's made 15+ movies since Frozen River (2008) -- no joke -- and she's in two miniseries this year too (including Todd Haynes' Mildred Pierce). Should she be saying yes to everything? Riding that Frozen River momentum til it stops paying dividends.
  

from left to right

• Andy Serkis came to town with his BAFTA nominated star turn in the rock bio sex & drugs & rock & roll. I wondered a few times if he could get any Oscar traction for it. Pro: there's the disability factor AND the biopic factor. Con: It's probably an unfamiliar rock story to most AMPAS voters and they like familiar. I admit I didn't know the story either. Do you know Ian Dury and The Blockheads?
  
• she who must not be named was in NYC for My Own Love Song. You know how I felt about the trailer but believe me I don't want to be this frightened to go near her work. In all honesty I was really hoping to get back on board but then came that trailer. I even tried to give her a new nickname Zeéeeee which is vowel-accurate and friendly-like. Are you rooting for her comeback?
• Christy Turlington is my favorite model of all time. But I realized sitting in the audience of her new documentary that it's weird to have a favorite model of all time. Because what can you do other than look at them? With favorite actors there's all sorts of imagination connection, storytelling, catharsis, etcetera. There I sat thinking "she's pretty" and my thoughts pretty much ended there. Unlike many of her supermodel peers from the 90s, she didn't try acting. But after marrying Ed Burns she is trying filmmaking. For a good cause though! Visit the website every mother counts. Have you a favorite model of all time ever?
  
• Patricia Clarkson starred in a travel drama called Cairo Time in which she misplaces her husband in Egypt. Somehow I missed it even though I love my Patty and also enjoy her co-star Alexander Siddig. Bad planning me. Why do people go to the desert on vacations?
  

from left to right

• Amanda Seyfried was starting her Letters To Juliet tour. Dominic Cooper walked her down the aisle -- I mean the red carpet -- for the premiere. Do you like them as a couple or do they give you painful flashbacks to Mamma Mia?
  
• Guy Pearce should maybe be hired for Christian Bale's health scare roles. I'm just sayin'. He was in town for a special screening and discussion of Memento. Do you love Memento?
  
• Sissy Spacek was promoting Get Low. I didn't like the movie -- which I saw before the festival and which most people do like for Oscar noms -- but it sure was nice to see her again in a substantial role. Still waiting for another In the Bedroom, though. What's your favorite Sissy? Other than Carrie I mean.
• <---Brian Geraghty was the unofficial poster boy of the 9th annual Tribeca Film Festival. He was a home invader in the erotic thriller Open House, a muscley redneck brother-in-law in The Chameleon and he also appeared in Kiki's short Bastard. It's like Melissa Leo's Frozen River longtail... only with The Hurt Locker. Thoughts?
  

Finis.
* Renée Zellweger