This weekend, Director Roland Emmerich's (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) prehistoric action-epic 10,000 BC opened to an impressive $35,730,000 domestically. In only three days since it's release on Friday, March 7th the film has already hit a financial benchmark crowning it with the second highest opening weekend so far this year. Having opened worldwide since Wednesday the 5th, the film has in only five days tallied up box office receipts nearing $61 million. While these numbers already surpass half the film's production budget, a reported $105 million, industry insiders face minimal shock. These numbers are simply business.A Hollywood blockbuster in every sense, 10,000 BC foregrounds scope, style, and special effects over character and story, ultimately gaining recognition across the internet as the highest-grossing, lowest-quality motion picture in years. Compiling nearly every critical review of the film, Rotten Tomatoes is a premier film review archive that weighs positive critiques against the negative, ultimately calculating a percentage deemed the film's "freshness." Thus far, 10,000 BC has received a 07% rating. That is, in regard to "freshness" or quality, only seven-percent of all film critics covered by Rotten Tomatoes think the film is worth watching. In an article on the site's main page summarizing the weekend box office results, writer Gitesh Pandya notes a possible key to the film's success--a trend that has become commonplace in Hollywood: "A strong marketing push led by a brilliantly exciting trailer helped to draw in a sizable audience which disregarded the dismal reviews." What one must wonder then is: how did audiences disregard the fact that critics panned this film, and furthermore: do reviews really matter anymore?
At one time, in fact, reviews did mean something. Before the birth of the blockbuster (with 1975's Jaws and '77's Star Wars) the movies were a medium of entertainment and art form and not nearly as profit driven as today. In 1972, writer/director Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather grossed a world-wide total of $245,066,411. As was often the case in the early seventies, it opened small at $302,393--only 0.2% of the film's overall gross. Produced for a mere $6 million, The Godfather could only be a hit by gaining word of mouth, and exciting audiences through shining reviews in newspapers and on television. The film ultimately played in theaters across the world for over a year. In those days, poor reviews could kill a film and positive ones nearly guaranteed success. According to Rotten Tomatoes, The Godfather's "freshness" rates at 100%, having won three Academy Awards and named AFI's #2 greatest motion picture of all time (Citizen Kane took the top spot).
Perhaps it is presumptuous to assume that the correlation between good films and good reviews should, as in the seventies, still garner high box office success. Unfortunately, in an era where giant multiplexes open films at thousands of theaters (10,000 BC opened on 3,410 screens in its first weekend as opposed to The Godfather's 6) and marketing campaign budgets sometimes equal film production budgets, audiences seem more willing to watch movies that impress with visual sizzle and an easily accessible high-concept. Compare the log lines of the two aforementioned films as provided on the Rotten Tomatoes site. The Godfather is summarized as "an epic tale of Mafia life in America during the 1940s and 1950s." Not bad, but it sounds a little complicated, and long. I'm not sure my MTV generation mind can comprehend a story spanning two decades. As for 10,000 BC's log line: "a sweeping odyssey into a mythical age of prophesies and gods, when spirits rule the land and mighty mammoths shake the earth." Now at least that sounds exciting. The posters look exciting, the TV commercials look exciting, hell even the actors are attractive twenty-somethings. That gets me excited! So why do audiences disregard the fact that despite the excitement Emmerich's film promises, the USA Today review labeled it a "bombastic bore?" Is it that people do not read reviews, or that people simply don't care for the opinions of strangers?
In Hollywood, the greatest singular factor to ensure popularity lays in strong word of mouth. Audiences would easily trust a friend's recommendation over a critic's because it is more personal, and often times more exciting for one to seek a movie out on his own rather than become force fed. One film that has proved successful both critically and financially also happens to be a film that in the last year gained increased word of mouth (amongst critics and audiences alike) before a national release: director Jason Reitman's Juno. Receiving a 93% "freshness" rating, Juno has been praised for its great characters and story. In fact, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seem to agree, awarding its script and first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Juno is a film about people and relationships more than a single high-concept log line. Its trailer plays up the comedy and actors' performances rather than stunning imagery and an epic scope. Overall, Juno, while not only a critical success, has received $186,337,533 at the box-office world wide, becoming a rarity amongst Hollywood blockbusters.Over the weekend I visited a screenwriter's conference where scripter Jeff Nathanson spoke of two Hollywoods: the smaller independent films that focus on character and story and the Hollywood "tentpoles" that are created most specifically for profit. While most people recognize that every review discouraged audiences to see 10,000 BC, people desired something visual (and ultimately forgettable) that one cannot see anywhere but the movies. While these circus acts may delight, they are, as Nathanson explained "alot of sizzle with no steak." While paying for a ticket to 10,000 BC may bring you back to Roland Emmerich's vision of prehistoric days, smaller films like Juno can take an audience somewhere emotionally. The blockbuster game is often hit or miss, but when quality films come calling, audiences must listen. Even if that call is from a stranger.
1 comment:
First and foremost, I want to thank you for this informative post. I found your discussion on the effect of critic reviews to be quite enlightening. Personally, I have to admit that I have never looked at a movie review to determine whether I was going to see a movie. I feel that sometimes critics can be a little too harsh for my taste. I would consider myself an average uninformed American who really could care less about the writing or the cinematography of the movie. It takes very little to entertain me and thus I feel that if I did look at review I would miss out on movies that I could potentially like. Regardless of my lack of knowledge of the movie world, I think that even people who might be very well informed in the industry might still gain something from going to watch a movie. Because of this, I think that maybe it is a good thing that we are going to the theatres and making our own opinions of movies instead of automatically listening to what critics have to say, even if that opinion is somewhat influenced by the media.
While I say this, I also have to say that it is quite sad that the movie making business is moving more and more towards making films for profit, and that the art that once was part of the movie industry is now being lost. Although it might be inevitable that we move towards this shift, I hope that there will still be people who focus more on making good quality films that have a purpose, and that not everyone becomes blinded by the desire to make money.
In terms of the mechanics of your post, I think that you wrote in a very fluid and eloquent manner. Your transitions were smooth for the most part, and I didn’t see too many repetitive words in your composition. I have a question regarding you’re a comment in the last paragraph of your blog post. You state that “While most people recognize that every review discouraged audiences to see 10,000 BC, people desired something visual (and ultimately forgettable) that one cannot see anywhere but the movies.” I am a little confused about the “forgettable” part. I do not understand why people would want to see something that they would quickly forget. Maybe if you could clear this up it would help me better understand your last point. Other than this, I really enjoyed your post and cannot wait until the next one.
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