The Feb 20th issue of Weekly Variety has the now annual, “Uh, oh, the Summer Movie Line-up Looks Way Overcrowded” story. However, it’s still more than relevant. As noted below, the year’s movies so far have done little to assuage Hollywood’s ongoing straits. Without a single breakthrough movie yet seen this year, hopes are once again being pinned on a huge summer.
The problem, though, is that with so many high profile movies being released—the majority of weekends between May 5th and July 7th see the release of one huge movie—these films risk piling up atop of one another and bombing massively.
May 5: Mission: Impossible 3
May 12: Poseidon
May 19: The Da Vinci Code
May 26: X-Men Three
June 6: Omen 666
June 9: Cars
June 30: Superman Returns
July 7: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
And that’s just the blockbusters. Each week will also see, naturally, smaller movies hoping to catch some box office crumbs.
The problem isn’t that many of these films won’t have predictably big opening weekends (although it’s hard to see a Harry Potter or Spider-Man 2 or Star Wars in the bunch, save perhaps Superman Returns), but that they will make a goodly amount one weekend, be decisively pushed out of the number one spot the next week, and be almost forgotten by the third. And with many of the budgets for this things being simply huge—Poseidon‘s production budget alone, sans the tens of millions more in advertising and print costs, is a reported $150 million—chances are that the majority of these are going to lose money in the States, and will be praying for strong overseas sales.
Pirates probably has the best shot. It actually has a clear couple of weeks before the next ‘big’ film, Michael Mann’s reportedly $200 million (!!) remake of his old Miami Vice TV show. I can’t imagine that one not bombing, although that’s partly because I don’t get Colin Farrell at all, and he’s assuming the Don Johnson role. And Cars is this year’s animated movie, so that should probably do pretty well, although perhaps not Finding Nemo or Shrek big.
Still, believe it or not, the biggest gamble appears to be Superman Returns, by dint of it’s reported $250 million budget. It’s should be noted that director Bryan Singer has disputed that figure, noting the actual number is “a little lower than $200 million.” Even so…damn!! And again, you’ve got to figure that the advertising and prints budget for the movie will be between fifty and a hundred million on top of that.
Basically, with production and advertising budgets continuing to skyrocket, the majority of these films are going to have to do significantly better than $50 opening weekends if they’re to break even. And frankly, I don’t see it. The best hope is that the first couple of movies, M:I3, Poseidon and Da Vinci Code, turn out to be actually good and get people excited about seeing movies again. That’s possible, but I’m not holding my breath.
The most anticipated blockbuster, of course, arrives on August 18th: Snakes on a Plane.
