The Summer Movie Debacle
   By Christopher Cavanaugh

You would think that with big names like Star Wars, Batman, The Fantastic Four, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory you’d make more money this summer than the last summer.

If you thought that, you were wrong.

Even with the increase in prices at the movie theaters this year the summer blockbusters failed to exceed last year’s revenues. The summer movie that grossed more than any other this year was Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, with its $379 million, which was overshadowed by last year’s Shrek 2 with its $439 million.

Even with the increase of ticket prices, summer 2005 failed to meet the expectations for the big movie companies. For example, Paramount’s War of the Worlds only made $231 million with its $128 million price tag.

To the average person $231 million compared to $128 million may seem like a lot of money, or a good investment, but that’s barely making even in the movie business. If you put up that much money for a movie you’re expecting to make triple and $231 million is not the triple of $128 million.

Why one may ask, because movie companies make dozens of movies a year, most will ail or break even. So the companies sink most of their money into one film, which is hoped to become a blockbuster and balance their budget.

If you look at the movies themselves War of the Worlds wasn’t bad it just suffered from one of today’s clichés, which would be: “give the movie a happy ending so families can go see it.”

Student Neville Ngwa had this to say about the film: “It [War of the Worlds] was good up until the last ten minutes.”

In War of the Worlds Tom Cruise’s character has a son and a daughter. Halfway through the film you’re given the illusion that the son is killed, but somehow in the end the son is miraculously at the final destination waiting for his father and sister.

It feels like Spielberg is losing his touch.

Some people blame the low attendance rate on the fact that Hollywood keeps making remakes of movies that only had moderate success. So 2005 has been labeled “the year of the remake.”

Some of the movies that have been remade this year are War of the Worlds, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Longest Yard, Bad News Bears, and the TV to movie remake of The Dukes of Hazzard.

When these movies originally came out they had an impact, but only received moderate success at the bank. Hollywood chooses these movies, instead of bigger and better ones because there’s less risk involved.

If you tried to remake the Ten Commandments or Gone with the Wind you’d get the stigma of never being able to top the original, or “so and so” actor was good, but he was no Charlton Heston.

It’s a fruitless venture.

So Hollywood decides that if they remake a moderately successful movie there’s a chance they can improve on it and gain a profit, like with the Longest Yard.

Originally a Burt Reynolds’ film, the Longest Yard was turned into an Adam Sandler comedy. It made a good profit at the bank, but there was a feeling of unoriginality to it, which suggests that perhaps Hollywood should stop trying to reproduce these classic movies and move on towards finding good original movies to produce.

Will Maynard was quoted saying: “It was good, but it couldn’t compare to the original,” There were good things about this summer though, like the original movie Wedding Crashers. Student Kyle Largent says: “Wedding Crashers was the best f***ing movie I’ve seen all year.”

Wedding Crashers features a talented cast: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Christopher Walken, and many more, a funny story about two best friends, who crash weddings to meet women. But at the biggest wedding of the year they meet the women of their dreams, but one of the guys just doesn’t know it and the other has to get around his girl’s abusive boyfriend. So they make elaborate plans to win the hearts of these women, and the hilarity ensues. If you liked Dodgeball, Anchorman, or Old School you’d love the Wedding Crashers. Wedding Crashers also happened to be one of the biggest box office successes this year, pulling in nearly $200 million with a cost less than half that.

So maybe there is some hope for Hollywood, and the audience it seems to be losing.

Top Summer Movies of 2004

Title Total Gross Release Close Weeks Company Cost 1. Shrek 2 $436,471,036 5/21/2004 8/20/2004 14 Dreamworks $70,000,000 2. Spider man 2 $373,377,893 7/2/2004 11/12/2004 20 Sony $210,000,000 6. Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban $249,358,727 6/4/2004 10/29/2004 22 Warner Bros. $130,000,000 7. The Day After Tomorrow $186,645,502 5/28/2004 9/24/2004 18 Fox $125,000,000 8. The Bourne Supremacy $176,049,130 7/23/2004 11/26/2004 19 Universal $75,000,000 I, Robot $144,795,350 7/16/2004 12/24/2004 24 Fox $120,000,000 13. Troy $133,228,348 5/14/2004 8/13/2004 14 Warner Bros. $150,000,000 Van Helsing $120,025,245 5/7/2004 7/30/2004 13 Universal $160,000,000 17. Fahrenheit 9/11 $119,078,393 6/25/2004 10/1/2004 15 Lions Gate $6,000,00 Dodgeball $114,283,204 6/18/2004 10/8/2004 17 Fox $20,000,000

 Top Summer Movies of 2005

Place	Title	Total	Gross Cost	Company
1	Revenge of the Sith	$379.39	$115.00	20th Century Fox
2	War of the Worlds	$231.81	$128.00	Paramount
3	Batman Begins	$203.02	$150.00	Warner Brothers
4	Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	$201.34	(no info)	Warner Brothers
5	Wedding Crashers	$195.80	(no info)	New Line
6	Madagascar	$191.60	(no info)	DreamWorks
7	Mr. and Mrs. Smith	$184.60	$110.00	20th Century Fox
8	Monster in Law	$82.89	$45.00	New Line
9	Longest Yard	$157.78	$82.00	Paramount
10	Fantastic 4	$152.73	(no info)	20th Century Fox