What’s remained consistent and for the most part rather bankable this year at the box office are Tyler Perry movies, movies offered in 3-D, horror genre sequels, horror re-imaginings and even docu-horror (i.e. Halloween II, Paranormal Activity), sequels across the board (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), adult comedies like The Hangover and Couples Retreat, disaster films like 2012 and Knowing, and animation films like Up.
Tyler Perry in "Madea Goes to Jail." The time is ripe for Hollywood to start taking more chances with talented black filmmakers to compete with Tyler Perry.
Without further ado, here are some major trendbusters that have either gone against the expectations of studio heads in recent months or introduced the potential for a new trend.
Paranormal Activity vs. The Saw Franchise
Does horror have a new name? Oren Peli’s achievement is already spawning a sequel in the works and posing a threat to the long-time monopolizing Saw franchise which, if not for next year’s 3-D selling point, probably would never have made it to Saw VII.
What Can We Learn From Michael Jackson’s This is It?
What can Tinseltown learn from the success of a Michael Jackson music documentary which has already generated roughly $200 million worldwide? Well, not much. That is unless there are any plans to conjure up a series of post-mortum specs for Patrick Swayze and Farrah Fawcett. Wouldn’t shock me. Look for someone to make the first move on taking a stab at more of these kinds of documentaries in the future.
Cirque du What? Down with the Vampire Movies!
So much for the vampire craze being an automatic for hefty returns (and thank God). Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant royally tanked, leaving an indelible stain on John C. Reilly’s career. With the exception of the inevitable success of Summit Entertainment’s The Twilight Saga: New Moon, it looks like studios will be hard-pressed to find the next best blood-sucking story.
Funny or Die
Judd Apatow is mortal after all. With Funny People, he has officially crossed the line of “bankability” and must now return to his back-to-basics approach of making funny movies. Judd was able to get away with injecting in heavy doses of drama in his comedies. But he may want to start introducing newer actors into the mix as Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill are way overexposed.
So Precious
Much to the surprise of the trend-setting suits, there is indeed a market for straight-dramas, after all! While Precious has yet to fully realize its box office potential, its word-of-mouth buzz has given it a worthy head start. What studio heads should also be paying attention to is how well movies geared towards African-Americans are fairing this year in general. Disney is finally giving us its first black princess in history with The Princess and the Frog. I’d say this is long overdue. Hollywood needs to get stories from more black filmmakers.
Ghost Stories for the Anti-Gory
Not only did we witness the presence of supernatural horror films like Paranormal Activity and The Fourth Kind eat into the horror pie, we can expect more of these invisible villains to threaten the box office in the near future. Martin Scorsese’s mental hospital horror, Shutter Island, which has been pushed back to early 2010, has already generated a lot of buzz. And none other than the master of horror himself, John Carpenter makes a much-anticipated comeback with his bone-chilling mental hospital supernatural horror called The Ward. Seems like the times-are-a-changing for torture-porn lovers.
Revisionist History is In (Sort Of)
Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds created an “historic” precedent for Hollywood (and a potentially dangerous one, at that) as he proved that he could alter the course of history in the re-telling of the downfall of The Third Reich. Michael Mann’s Public Enemies made John Dillinger into a sympathetic good-guy and reaped worldwide box office spoils (though let’s give Johnny Depp and Christian Bale credit for having sold this God-awful attempt at a movie). Amelia failed to excite….but then again, it wasn’t quite revisionist-history. Steven Spielberg is already generating excitement for his upcoming projects, Lincoln and a yet-to-be-named Martin Luther King Jr. picture.
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Charlie Wachtel is a Senior Writer for The Film Crusade and Founder of www.filmcrusade.com.
