Summer Movies 2006 Recap

Pirates, Sunshine, Snakes and Mutants Highlight this Year’s Hits and Misses

MISS

A Cute Title And Some Internet Buzz Will Only Get You So Far

Back in April, you couldn’t throw a stick and not hit someone talking about the gigantic buzz being generated by a crazy little B-movie from New Line called Snakes on a Plane ($26-million and counting). This pulpy Samuel L. Jackson potboiler was going to be the Next Big Thing, bloggers and myspace.com enthusiasts around the world doing everything from creating mock trailers and posters for the film, to writing songs based on the picture’s titles. Heck, they even started submitting dream lines of dialogue they hoped Jackson would say, one of them actually even making its way into the actor’s lips at a pivotal moment.

Some (including me) thought this buzz would carry all the way until the film’s Aug. 18 release. Others even prophesized Snakes on a Plane would reach the same heights as The Blair Witch Project ($140-million in 1999), the all-time benchmark for Internet-generated box office enthusiasm. The sky was certainly the limit for this inexpensive little muckraker, the only thing holding it a back a hard R rating that would keep some (but not all) of the targeted young adult audience away from the multiplex.

While shame on all of us, because although it is going to make money (it only cost $33-million) Snakes on the Plane is nowhere near the sensation many of us assumed it to be. After an anemic $13-million opening weekend, Jackson’s airline extravaganza was pretty much D.O.A., and no matter how many die hard fans out there loved it before its release not enough of them showed up at the theater to make the studio even remotely happy.

What happened? Well, for one thing New Line should have pushed up the picture’s release when they suddenly lucked into all that Internet enthusiasm. There was no way they were going to be able to sustain that momentum for a full four-plus months and, surprise surprise, they didn’t. Internet bloggers are notorious for their short attention span, and just because you have them locked down for a month or two doesn’t mean you’re going to keep them energized much longer than that.

Of course, New Line also could have made a better movie. While quality certainly isn’t always important in relation to box office success, just resting on the laurels of the giddy idiocy of the title wasn’t going to get them very far. And it hasn’t. Snakes on a Plane is disappearing faster than a piece of bubblegum at a bimbo convention. But that’s okay, if you end up missing it while it’s in theaters I’m sure the DVD will be out in just a few short weeks.

HIT

The Indies Continue To Rise

It doesn’t take much for an independent film to be a success, but whenever one manages to play in theaters longer than say the latest from M. Night Shyamalan or Wolfgang Peterson that’s cause for polite tip of the cap. Akeelah and the Bee ($19-million), A Prairie Home Companion ($20-million) and An Inconvenient Truth ($22-million) all have done respectable business, each still playing to generous crowds across the country even though they were released back at the start of the summer.

The biggest one, however, might just be the latest to see the light of day. Little Miss Sunshine ($14-million and counting) has received rapturous praise from critics and audiences alike since its debut at Sundance, and as early (much too early, really) Oscar talk swirls around it Fox Searchlight continues to build upon the momentum to greater receipts each and every week. While we’re not talking Brokeback Mountain ($83-million last year) or Sideways ($71-million in 2004) numbers, these are still tidy little sums for the studios who released them, proving once again you don’t need superstar talent to make money at the box office.

MISS

No Matter How Much They Choose To Ignore It, Critics Do Still Matter

I’ve lost track of how many films have failed to screen for movie critics this year (Snakes on a Plane and Material Girls were just the latest), but the number is humongous and growing every month. Studios are continually becoming under the impression people who critique and write about film for a living are irrelevant, and when you consider disasters like The Benchwarmers ($57-million), Date Movie ($48-million) and Silent Hill ($47-million) have all been solid successes it’s hard to disagree with them.

But then films like The Devil Wears Prada and Lady in the Water ($41-million) enter the picture. Would either have hit (the former) or flopped (the latter) without critics coming out squarely for or against them? Sure a case could be made that reviews didn’t matter, but I find it hard to believe that critical exuberance in regards to The Devil Wears Prada didn’t make at least a small bit of difference. More so, considering M. Night Shyamalan’s recent track record (up to and including the far worse The Village), it’s just as difficult to fathom audiences would have stayed away from Lady in the Water in such droves had their venom not been so deafening.

All in all, critics do still matter, and even if reviews don’t carry the same weight as maybe they once did every now and then they can still sway people one way or the other if the volume of their thoughts is turned up high enough. While audiences will ultimately always make up their own mind (which probably accounts for the $71-million success of RV), critics are still vital, if only to carry the conversation in regards to film in directions others might never have considered.

HIT

Movies From This Summer You Should Go See (in no particular order)

The Descent, Superman Returns, Cars, The Devil Wears Prada, An Inconvenient Truth, Over the Hedge, Little Miss Sunshine, The Break-Up, Brothers of the Head, Miami Vice, Quinceañera, Who Killed the Electric Car?, Monster House, A Prairie Home Companion, House of Sand, Scoop, The Proposition, The Heart of the Game

MISS

Movies From This Summer You Should Have (but probably didn’t) Skipped (in no particular order)

X-Men: The Last Stand, Little Man, You, Me and Dupree, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, The Omen, Barnyard, Click, The Da Vinci Code, Talladega Night: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Poseidon

BOX OFFICE RECAP

Once again, I was way off on my predictions. While I did get the summer’s (and probably the year’s) number one movie correct, I was pretty much way off the mark on all the rest. Granted, I did successfully predict neither Superman Returns nor Mission: Impossible III would make as much as their studios had hoped. Then again, I also figured Dreamworks’ Over the Hedge would cream Pixar’s Cars and that Poseidon would prove the naysayer’s wrong and do The Day After Tomorrow-like business. Shows what I know, right?

Any-who, here are the top ten box office hits of the summer as of August 24, 2006. Feel free to compare them with my predictions and see how big an idiot I was.  (All figures provided by www.boxofficemojo.com.)

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - $402,975,626^*

2. Cars - $239,769,512

3. X-Men: The Last Stand - $234,187,916

4. The Da Vinci Code - $217,536,138

5. Superman Returns - $194,493,540

6. Over the Hedge - $154,566,028

7. Click - $135,468,818

8. Mission: Impossible III - $133,501,348

9. The Devil Wears Prada - $119,532,692^*

10. The Break-Up - $118,490,215

* - As of 8/24/06 film still in 500-plus theaters.

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