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Psychotic Reactions
-- John Shea
14 July, 2003
It wasn't exactly a monster weekend at the box office but yet it was an improvement over recent weeks. Pirates of the Caribbean did fair business, racking up about $46 million in its first weekend to claim the top spot and approximately $70 million since opening on Wednesday. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen did better than expected with about $23 million for second place. T3 was next with about $20 million, dropping 55% from it's first week. Landing in fourth, Legally Blonde 2 dropped 45% to earn about $12 million. Finding Nemo did a respectable $8.3 million as it creeped awfully close to the $300 million mark. Charlies Angels 2 took another nasty dive, dropping 46% to take in 7.4 million. At this rate it will struggle to reach $100 million, far short of the original film.
It seems more and more likely to me that the carpet bombing approach to marketing a film is the main reason for the huge spike and crash we see for virtually every summer movie. The idea of a movie as an event can be useful but that approach is being slapped on every single movie coming out and it becomes the boy who cried wolf mentality. The studio screams event and the audience yawns and says "oh yeah? prove it." It's too late to salvage this summer from this one note approach but maybe the lackluster box office will inspire some new ideas for next year. I know, I'm the eternal optimist. I keep thinking that things won't continue in their current mindless manner, that studios will learn and do it differently next time. I've got to work on that.
Changing gears for a moment, I want to talk about Gigli. First off, I have to say that changing the name of it to whatever it is they changed it to before changing it back to the headache inducing pronunciation quagmire that is this current and original title, was a mistake. I promise you that guys across the nation will be balking at taking their dates to this film for the simple reason that they have no idea how to pronounce the title and do not want to look stupid trying to buy tickets. The ads are definitely selling this as a romantic comedy and I suppose that's what it is but if the script I read is close to the final one, surprises are in store. I'm going to dance around the details because I do not want to be the one to let the cat out of the bag. But this is not your standard traditional romantic comedy. Yes Ben Affleck's character is attracted to Jennifer Lopez's character and to some extent the reverse. But the relationship is not what you expect it to be and it is a far cry from the vomit enducing pervasiveness of their real life romance.
That's what I liked about it. This movie has the nerve to do two things you almost never do in a romantic comedy. As a critic, I love that because it means for once I'm not having my face shoved into yet another cliche. But date movies are not traditionally daring films and being different could severely hurt its word of mouth. "How could they do that?" is not really the comment you want to build a movie on. I could be wrong. Maybe audiences really are dying for something different but the tiny grosses of most indie films tells me that's not the case.
I'm not going to get into a full review of Gigli here. I will say that Ben Affleck can play this role in his sleep. He was born for this sort of role. It plays to all of his strengths and none of his weaknesses. Call it the anti-Daredevil. As for Lopez, I'm not as sure. She can be excellent, look at Out of Sight for an example. But she can also be flat and uninteresting as most of her recent films would show. To make this movie really work, she has to be good. She has to be sexy as hell and she has to have huge chemistry with Affleck on camera. We shall see. Right now, I'm cautiously optimistic. Check out the trailer below.
News
Kill Bill: Rumor has it that Quentin Tarantino's new film may actually be two new films. Kill Bill is apparently running so long that serious thought is being given to dividing it in two, offering up Volume 1&2 as it were. This probably won't be good for the film's box office as it will spread confusion and make considerable time demands of viewers. It was a pretty long script though, so I'm not terribly shocked. (Ain't It Cool New, Entertainment Weekly )
The Woods: Add Sigourney Weaver to the rapidly growing cast list of M. Night Shyamalan's new project. Just what she'll be doing in the film is anyone's guess as the project is still veiled in secrecy. (The Hollywood Reporter )
Trailers
The Passion: Mel Gibson's film of Jesus' last hours now has a trailer for download online. The look of the film seems authentic enough, even somewhat reminiscent of Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ. True to early word on the film, the language in the trailer is Latin and Aramaic with no subtitles. It plays well enough for two minutes but it remains to be seen if that is sustainable for the entire length of a film.
Garage Days: It was a hit in Australia and now it makes its way to our shores. This is the story of a garage band willing to do just about anything to succeed.
Gigli: The not quite romantic comedy starring celebrity couple Affleck and Lopez.
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