Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Summer 2012 in Review

Labor Day weekend brings the summer of 2012 to a close. Before we transition into the fall and the Hollywood awards season, here is a look back at this summer’s movies:

The Good
The Avengers – The match up of superheroes Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Nick Fury was some of the most fun to be had at the movies all summer.

The Dark Knight Rises – This cycle of Batman films came to one hell of a finale. But beyond entertaining us, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy may be the defining epic of our time.

The Expendables 2 – Yes, it’s crude, chauvinistic, and dumb but this sequel was also self-aware, shamelessly entertaining, and a better movie than its predecessor.

Hope Springs – This funny and touching story about a couple facing old age features a terrific performance by Tommy Lee Jones.

Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson broke out of his more insular humor with one of his most accessible films.

ParaNorman – The best animated film of the summer was smart and even a little subversive.

The Bad
Battleship – A movie for viewers who thought Transformers was too cerebral.

Dark Shadows – Once upon a time, Tim Burton’s films were modern fairy tales with great characters. Now they are just exercises in art direction with Johnny Depp mugging for the camera.

Hit and Run – A story of obnoxious characters making stupid decisions.

Piranha 3DD – It is one thing to make an exploitation film but quite another to fail so completely at it.

Sparkle – The filmmakers aspire to Dreamgirls but what they’ve created is much closer to Glitter.

The Watch – It’s unfair to say Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill, Vince Vaughn, and Richard Ayoade were just going through the motions. That would imply they were actually doing something.

Films You Didn’t See But Should
Most moviegoers spend the summer running from one Hollywood tent pole to another. This was an exciting summer with some highly anticipated releases like The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises but there were also a lot of films released this summer that didn’t benefit from major marketing campaigns or wide theatrical releases. Others were given limited release earlier in the year and were issued on DVD this summer. Here is a look at what you might have missed:

Coriolanus – Ralph Fiennes’ fierce adaptation of one of William Shakespeare’s lesser known works is a smart and well-made picture that provocatively connects the politics of the original text with current events.

Friends With Kids – Two middle-aged friends decide to produce a child. This is an example of how a fairly standard plot can be livened up by smart character writing and better than average performances.

Margaret – A teenager gets caught up in the aftermath of a traffic accident. Although it is longwinded the film is also an interesting story about guilt, empathy, and responsibility.

Marley – In the last few years there has been an underappreciated but steady stream of impressive music documentaries (see: Pearl Jam Twenty and Anvil: The Story of Anvil) and this portrait of reggae musician Bob Marley is a comprehensive look at his music and legacy.

Rampart – Although not a film for mainstream audiences, Rampart reunites the director and co-star of The Messenger and it has a fascinating performance by Woody Harrelson. 

Take This Waltz – Michelle Williams continues to prove that she is one of the best actresses of her generation in this story about a married woman tempted with the possibility of an affair.

Summer of Box Office Flops
The summer is generally considered the major revenue season for Hollywood but 2012 had a number of very costly productions that did not do nearly as well as hoped by studios. Prefacing the summer was Disney’s spring release of John Carter, which had a $250 million production budget but only grossed about $73 million domestically and $209 million internationally. This was the loudest and most widely publicized flop but John Carter was not the only film that failed at the box office. Universal’s Battleship cost $209 million but only took in $65 million domestically and another $237 million internationally. There were also films that did not exactly fail but did underperform. Sony’s Men in Black 3 cost $225 million to make, drew $178.5 million domestically, but did manage to generate $445 million internationally. Warner Bros. Dark Shadows cost $150 million but only made $79 million domestically with a worldwide total of $236.5 million. Also underwhelming was The Amazing Spider-Man, which cost $230 to produce and made $735 million worldwide. That’s not a bad gross but it is still less than the take of any of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, including the generally reviled Spider-Man 3, even though the 2012 film benefited from inflation and the 3-D surcharge. The summer season was brought to a close with the release of The Oogieloves and the Big Balloon Adventure which may have had the worst opening weekend ever for a wide release.

What does this mean? Financial failure is a part of show business but what we have here are major investments from nearly every major Hollywood studio failing to generate expected returns and that is bound to make executives skittish. Box office results have no bearing on whether a film is good or not (see also: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) but it does influence what projects get made. A general rule of thumb is that financial success breads imitation and failure is a dead end. Note that although nearly all of the above titles were reboots or adaptations of preexisting materials, the most successful films of the summer (The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man) were new installments of familiar franchises while less recognizable titles fared less well. Because Hollywood’s business practices are fundamentally conservative (especially when there are hundreds of millions of dollars at stake) look for more sequels and remakes or reboots in the future but expect that they will come from increasingly familiar sources.

Animated Kids Films
Animated films are a popular form of family entertainment but most of the films this summer were geared much more toward children than family audiences, including Pixar's Brave.
  • Brave
  • Ice Age: Continental Drift
  • Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
  • ParaNorman
  • The Oogieloves and the Big Balloon Adventure
Return of Muscle Men
Over the past few years, there has been a nostalgia for the 1980s evidenced by homages and remakes of films from that decade. The summer of 2012 continued that with a return of the “hard body” films of the 80s, which had been epitomized by actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.
  • The Avengers
  • The Dark Knight Rises
  • The Expendables 2
  • John Carter
  • Magic Mike
Are Musicals Dead (Again)?
This summer saw the release of Sparkle and Rock of Ages. Neither of them were very good nor did they generate much revenue. Two films aren't enough to declare the genre dead but when pared with waning interest in television shows like Glee and American Idol this might signal a decline.

Taylor Kitsch – Box Office Poison?
What do John Carter, Battleship, and Savages have in common? All three underperformed at the box office and all three featured actor Taylor Kitsch in a lead role. It’s too bad since Kitsch is a capable and likable actor, he just needs better material.

No comments: