Revenge of the 80s ~ Now With More 10s Sexism!

When the red band trailer for the revival (not a reboot but a long distant "next generation" sequel) of Vacation premiered yesterday, with Chris Hemsworth swinging a big fake one around for a cheap laugh, it got me to thinking about how phallic-centric Hollywood has become. This is no new thinkpiece notion of course. But with the incredible amount of material from the 1980s that Hollywood has been mining and regurgitating, we're getting about the sharpest resolution picture possible of how Hollywood has regressed in terms of equal opportunities for female stars. Hollywood has always had its share of sexism but today's Hollywood seems especially female-averse. How did it happen exactly? Hollywood will reboot ANYTHING from the 1980s. So long as it did not star a woman. No, not even if it was a smash hit. They won't do it... although they will allow those titles to be remade for television if you're really desperate to see them revamped. 

To prove the point here are a list of the most successful 1980s movies starring women. I only looked at the top 25 or so box office hits from each year of the 1980s. To give you a contemporary correlative of their success that's like from the tippity top American Sniper sized behemoth down to the Lucy-sized hit levels last year if you pretend that each year is roughly the same as the last in terms of gross domestic box office.

Disclaimer: This list should in no way be mistaken as a plea to remake these pictures -- we have more than enough remakes. We need original material!  It's just to make a point. 

40 BIGGEST HITS LED BY WOMEN IN THE 80S
(in very rough order of success) 

Click to read more ...

Avengers Assemble... Your Loot!

As expected Marvel's latest evil plot for world domination was a significant success at the box office. The US opening took in an estimated $187.6 but that's just the beginning of its gross and in addition to what it's already earned overseas ($340 million). Even though its launch wasn't as successful as its predecessor, it should still end the year comfortably with crazy big grosses. How high can it fly? Expect a big drop-off domestically next weekend since audiences and critics seem grumpier this time. I personally don't think that's so much about the movie itself as it is about the increasing ubiquity of its genre. It will be harder and harder for these films to wow people as their ranks have grown so swiftly. The special becomes the standard and so forth. 

In 'it's about time' news, Furious 7 had a big percentage drop and lost 500 theaters. In far more curious news Cinderella one of the year's leggiest hits somehow rebounded (second run houses?) to return to the top ten despite losing more theaters. 

WIDE RELEASE
01 Avengers: Age of Ultron $187.6 NEW Review & Marathon
02 Age of Adaline $6.2 (cum. $23.4)  Trailer discussion
03 Furious 7 $6.1 (cum. $330.5) Review
04 Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 $5.5 (cum. $51.1)
05 Home $3.3 (cum. $158.1) the rise and fall of Dreamworks
06 Cinderella $2.3 (cum. $193.6) Review
07 Ex-Machina $2.2 (cum. $10.8) Review
08 Unfriended $1.9 (cum. $28.5) 
09 The Longest Ride $1.7 (cum. $33.2)
10 Woman in Gold $1.6 (cum. $24.5) 

Limited releases were fairly quiet this week though Far From the Madding Crowd opened with $172,000 at 10 locations and Clouds of Sils Maria got a nice expansion and should soon cross the million dollar mark.

What did you see this weekend?

Box Office: Muscle Cars, Curvy Androids, and Eternal Youth

Oscar Isaac Dance Off to celebrate EX-MACHINA's wide release. Who'll join us?The concept of characters that don't age insures of at least one thing: they don't usually get to have sequels without looking ridiculous. Adaline may never age but her actressy vessell Blake Lively will. Still Blake had a good opening for what looked like a ridiculous movie so kudos to her! In other box office news, Furious 7 continued to the success story of the film year having already cracked a billion worldwide and bound to be more succesful domestically than anything released last year since it will soon surpass Katniss and that Sniper.

The happiest news for cinephiles is the success of A24's thinky sexy sci-fi oddity Ex Machina as it went into wide release with a per screen average as good as most of its competition. Russell Crowe's directorial debut (he also stars) The Water Diviner kicked off its US run without much fanfare but still managed over a million in limited release.

WIDE RELEASE
01 Furious 7 $18.2 (cum. $320.5) Review
02 Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 $15.5 (cum. $43.9)
03 Age of Adaline $13.3 NEW Trailer discussion
04 Home $8.3 (cum. $153.7) the rise and fall of Dreamworks
05 Unfriended $6.2 (cum. $25.1) 
06 Ex-Machina $5.4 (cum. $6.9) Review

Russell Crowe seems pretty proud of himself.

LIMITED RELEASE - EXCLUDING MOVIES THAT WERE ONCE WIDE
01 The Water Diviner (AUS) 320 Theaters $1.2 NEW 
02 Brotherly Love (US) 200 Theaters  $.2 NEW
03 Clouds of Sils Maria (France) 71 Theaters $.2 (cum. $.5) Articles
04 Child 44 (UK) 510 Theaters $.1 (cum. $1)
05 Wild Tales (Argentina) 58 Theaters $.1 (cum. $2.5) Review
06 The Salt of the Earth (France/Brazil/Italy) 47 Theaters $.09 (cum. $.5) Conversation
07 What We Do in the Shadows (NZ) 18 theaters $.07 (cum. $3.2) Review
08 Kung Fu Killer (Hong Kong) 28 Theaters $.06 NEW
09 Adult Beginners (US) 10 Theaters $.04 NEW 
10 Seymour: An Introduction (US) 378 Theaters $.03 (cum. $.5) Review

What did you see this weekend?
Any of these 16 movies listed or did you watch movies at home?

Box Office Machina Sparks

Scott Eastwood (Son O' Clint) headlines the new Nicholas SparksFurious 7 and Home dominated the charts just like last week and Cinderella logged its fifth consecutive week in the top five -- she's got legs, that girl with in the glass slippers.

The only new wide release The Longest Ride, came in third. It's on the lower end of the nevertheless very consistent scale of Nicholas Spark adaptations. They've never opened below $10 million but average out around $17 million for a first weekend. The Notebook (2004) remains the most successful overall though it also opened in the lower end of the range. So only time will tell how popular the latest one is.

WIDE RELEASE
01 Furious 7 $60.5 new (cum. $252.5) Review
02 Home $19 (cum. $129.5)
03 The Longest Ride $13.5 NEW 
04 Get Hard $8.6 (cum. $71.2)
05 Cinderella $7.2 (cum. $180.7) Review

The point is that Nicholas Sparks is as much of a brand as, say, Marvel movies or Bond pictures. The plots and actors may vary from film to film but you mostly know what you're going to get.

This snarky dismissal made me giggle: 

No, I WON'T be seeing the new Nicholas Sparks movie! I expect to see a man hold a lady's face, not simply adjust her hat

A photo posted by Stephen Merchant (@stephenmerchant) on Apr 11, 2015 at 6:40am PDT

No, I WON'T be seeing the new Nicholas Sparks movie! I expect to see a man hold a lady's face, not simply adjust her hat

Meanwhile in limited release While We're Young continues to perform for Noah Baumbach despite its initial mixed response with criticss, and Ex Machina, Alex Garland's directorial debut was the biggest movie in limited release with a quarter million despite only 4 screens. The other strongest "per screen average" belonged to the Juliette Binoche/Kristen Stewart duet Clouds of Sils Maria which we'll talk about real soon.

What did you see this weekend?

Furious #7, Cinderella #1

As expected the big loud noisy high speed franchise on wheels Furious 7 broke April box office records and earned the biggest opening weekend of 2015... until Age of Ultron arrives.

WIDE RELEASE
01 Furious 7 $143.6 new Review
02 Home $27.4 (cum. $95.6)
03 Get Hard $12.9 (cum. $57) 
04 Cinderella $10.2 (cum. $167.2) Review
05 Divergent: Insurgent $10 (cum. $103.3)
06 It Follows $2.4 (cum. $8.5) Review
07 Woman in Gold $2.1 new
08 Kingsman: Secret Service $1.7 (cum. $122.2) Review
09 Do You Believe $1.5 (cum. $9.8)
10 Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel $1 (cum. $30)

The other story is leggy Cinderella. The lux live action adaptation -- which has spurred on much future live-action remake planning from Disney animation (see that bizarre Winnie the Pooh news and next year's possibly even bigger Beauty & The Beast film) has just become the #1 biggest grosser of 2015. Not that the glass slippered princess will wear that particular tiara for more than a day or two at the rate the Fast & Furious company is collecting coin. 

What did you see this weekend?