At The Box Office, Part Two

The film that arguably reinvigorated the superhero genre after Superman IV was 1989’s Batman. The movie was destined to be the year’s biggest picture and it attracted long lines of ticket buyers. The sky was the limit when it came to the movie’s grosses and the film was certain to be number one on its opening weekend. Obviously, no film would want to go against this juggernaut; even if a studio tried to go up against Batman it would be trounced and its film would be forgotten, right? Walt Disney Pictures didn’t think so.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids premiered on the same day as Batman and instead of getting trounced and forgotten, it became a hit for Disney, spawning sequels and theme park attractions. Disney’s strategy was to serve as counterprogramming to Batman and a second choice to people who couldn’t get into the bigger film. This bold strategy worked, giving Disney a quiet hit that became a classic despite its formidable competition.

Disney’s strategy would not work today. In 1989, Warner Brothers was limited by how many prints of Batman it could produce and make available. With finite resources, it was impossible to add many screens to Batman’s total. This opened up the opportunity that Disney took advantage of to quietly create a hit film. With Avengers: Endgame, however, crowded movie theaters could quickly add showings to meet demand. Rather than be forced to watch a different film, audiences could just wait for additional showings to get added. As a result, Avengers: Endgame took over 90% of the box office over the weekend, leaving mere crumbs for the other films. (Captain Marvel, strangely enough, took the majority of those crumbs.)

At The Box Office, Part One

Hollywood box office records were broken this weekend with the massive success of Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame. Despite its length, the film broke nearly every box office record. While some of this success has to do with simple inflation, much of it can be traced back to other changes that we will examine this week.

Adjusted for inflation, the biggest Hollywood hit is 1939’s Gone With The Wind. The film’s record haul was once considered to be insurmountable. It seemed as though everyone in the United States who could afford a ticket and lived near a theater showing the film saw the picture.

While motion pictures had very little competition at the time, there was still a very real limitation that even the biggest films from the largest studios would bump up against. Movies needed to be reproduced on film and distributed to theaters in heavy film canisters. Even a huge movie like Gone With The Wind, released by the largest movie studio at the time could not be widely distributed. Movie studios would produce as many copies of the film as they could afford and begin exhibiting them in the bigger cities. If the picture was big, it would remain in the larger markets, with some copies filtering out to lesser cities. People who lived in small towns far away from big cities would have to wait weeks, months and even years to see the biggest hits.

This limitation lasted for decades. While the studios would increase the amount of copies they’d produce for each release, they were still unable to fully produce as many copies as they might have liked for some of the more popular pictures.

Today, however, films such as Avengers: Endgame are distributed digitally. If a film did much better than expected in the past, it was virtually impossible for a studio to increase the number of screens on opening weekend. In a digital world, adding additional screens can be as easy as a flip of a switch. It is this new ability to quickly react to a film’s popularity that makes it possible for movies to make ever larger amounts of money.

Weekends

Weekends

Anything Goes

Modern Times

Forbidden Planet

A Star is Born!

Hooray For Hollywood!

Easter Weekend

Easter Weekend

Anything Goes

Modern Times

Forbidden Planet: “The Secret of the Sword”

Prie pour Paris et Notre Dame

Hooray For Hollywood! Leo the Lion

One of the most famous logos in Hollywood belongs to MGM. The famous logo featuring a roaring lion was an appropriate one for the studio that was the undisputed king of the Hollywood jungle during its heyday in Hollywood’s Golden age. The logo, however, didn’t get its start with MGM.

The logo was originally created for Goldwyn Pictures, the ‘G’ in MGM. When Samuel Goldwyn merged his studio with Metro Films and Mayer Pictures, the combined MGM would adopt the famous logo for itself.

While the most famous lion to grace the logo was named “Leo”, the original lion used in the Goldwyn days was called “Slats”. Slats was replaced because he merely looked around and didn’t roar; this was the silent era after all. Slats was replaced by another lion whose real name was Jackie, though MGM gave him the stage name of Leo. The third lion used since 1957 was the first lion who was actually named “Leo”.

The strangest bit of trivia about MGM’s famed lion was that he almost got cast in The Wizard of Oz. Louis B. Mayer originally wanted to use “Leo” as the Cowardly Lion with a voice actor’s voice dubbed in. Luckily for the already troubled production, this bizarre plan was scrapped and Leo’s role went to human actor Bert Lahr.

Weekends

Weekends

Vacation!

Vacation!

Vacation!

Vacation!

Vacation!

I Ain’t Got Twenty Bucks!

(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life

“Now I've had the time of my life
No, I never felt this way before (never felt this way)
Yes I swear it's the truth
And I owe it all to you”

Anything Goes: Groucho’s Cafe

Modern Times: Baffling Movie Quotes

Forbidden Planet: “Mac & Me”

The film that ushered in the modern superhero blockbuster era was arguably 1989’s Batman. While Superman had enthralled audiences a decade earlier, it had run out of steam by the late 1980’s. Batman as imagined by Tim Burton reignited audience interest in superhero films. His Batman Returns kept the momentum going and Tim began planning out a third film which would reportedly feature Harley Quinn as the Joker’s daughter who would try to exact revenge on Batman for killing her father, egged on by Catwoman. Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer were both eager to reprise their roles. It seemed like a slam dunk- until McDonald’s stepped in. They had heavily promoted Batman Returns and felt that the film was too violent and inappropriate for its family audiences. Warner Brothers decided to replace Tim Burton with Joel Schumacher, Michael Keaton and Michelle Pfeiffer dropped out and the Batman franchise would eventually go down in a neon blaze of glory all because of McDonald’s.

Warner Brothers should have known better than to allow a fast food company to dictate the creative side of things. After all, McDonald’s had already shown that it had no business dabbling in the entertainment business years earlier when it and Coca-Cola decided to produce the E.T. rip-off Mac & Me. The film was a crass nightmare and its viewers could be excused if they mistook the film for a fever dream they had after eating a McNugget that had fallen behind the seat of their car. There’s the bizarre scene where a disabled young man in a wheelchair accidentally rolls down a cliff and falls into a lake.

I Regret Nothing!

Amazingly, the boy not only survives the drop, he isn’t even injured. The incident is portrayed as just a minor nuisance. The inevitable McDonald’s scene is even stranger. Apparently everyone at the restaurant contracted mad cow disease and is suffering from its horrific effects; there’s an actual breakdancing tournament taking place in the parking lot.

Breakdancing is still popular with the youth of today, right?

The titular alien has been disguised as a horrific teddy bear that looks like it was won at a cursed carnival and even it can’t resist getting down with the human kids!

Teddy Ruxpin, no!

The film ends with the aliens causing an inexplicable explosion at a supermarket that apparently was the front for a meth lab; after all, why would a regular store explode like this?

Woopsie Doodle!

In the end, the aliens become U.S. citizens and threaten to return in a sequel that thankfully never got made. After losing a ton of money on this film, McDonald’s decided to go back to just making hamburgers. It would be the best thing to come out of this bizarre mess of a film.

A Star is Born: Practically Perfect Julie Andrews

While talent is important if one wants to become a star, sometimes a bit of luck is also required. Julie Andrews is now known around the world by millions of fans, but once upon a time she was just a twelve year old with an amazing singing voice, practically unknown to anyone outside of family and friends.

Then on one fateful day she was in the audience of a traveling show when one of the stars asked for a volunteer to come up on stage and sing with him. Julie volunteered and amazed both the audience and the performers. Quite literally a star was born before everyone’s eyes. The performer who gave Miss Andrews her chance to shine was Wally Boag, who suggested to the show’s promoters that Julie could become a superstar. That was exactly what happened. Years later, Julie and Wally would be reunited at DISNEYLAND- he was performing in the park’s Golden Horseshoe Revue and she was promoting the film that would win her an Oscar and cement her status as a legend- Mary Poppins. Dreams do come true!

Hooray For Hollywood: Alfred on the Lot

Alfred Hitchcock is inextricably linked to Universal Studios and its famed backlot tour. His most famous film is prominently featured on the tour even today.

Sir Alfred, however, produced the bulk of his pictures for Paramount, not Universal. Even Psycho, whose forbidding house can be seen on the Universal tour, was released by Paramount, not Universal. After being mistreated by Paramount, who didn’t even want to release Psycho, Alfred found his home at Universal, who promptly acquired his catalog from Paramount. Alfred was used extensively on the Universal Studios tour, even starring in a promotional film.

Guests to the tour were constantly asking about Sir Alfred’s whereabouts, so much so that he became the subject of one of the studio tour’s biggest pranks. As a marquee talent, Hitchcock had his own production bungalow on the lot. Tired of hearing guests ask about Hitchcock’s whereabouts, a prankster placed Sir Alfred’s famous silhouette in the window of his bungalow. If guests asked about Hitchcock, tour guides would point to the window and mention that he must be working right now in his office. Most of the time, he wasn’t actually there. While Tour managers feared that Alfred would be upset if he found out, he actually found it to be quite amusing.