Tom Bagley

Summer is almost over, and it’s not just the frosty chill in the air that gives it away. It’s also the marquee at the multiplex.
    Late August has become the dumping ground for all the lost causes and also-rans from the summer movie season. Take a look at the Nicole Kidman thriller, The Invasion. If studios had any faith in the film, it would have been released months ago in the late-May, early-June pole position. Instead, despite a big budget and big cast, it’s been relegated to a miserable pre-awards season death.
    While that is typical of the summer movie season, the past few months at the box office have been anything but typical. This year continued the trend of pushing the limits of what can be called “summer,” with release dates creeping ever earlier, from the U.S. Memorial Day long weekend to the first weekend of May. Of course, 2007 will be known as the summer of the three-quel with many franchises offering up third instalments. Whether they were good (Ocean’s Thirteen) or abysmal (Spider-Man 3), they all made a crap-load of money. In fact, with grosses of over $4 billion, 2007 is going down as the most profitable summer on record, beating out the previous high set in 2004.
    Still, box office totals rarely correlate with box office quality, and that has been ably corroborated by moviegoers this year. The trend started back in February when the abominable comic book adaptation Ghost Rider opened with a $45-million weekend. Mid-life crisis comedy Wild Hogs made similar waves with a $40-million opening and, despite horrific reviews, both films went on to crack the $100-million mark. With that track record established, it’s no wonder so many wildly average films made so much money. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Transformers and Spider-Man 3 all cracked $300 million. Hell, even the new Fantastic Four flick and Evan Almighty are hovering around the $100-million mark.
    These box office totals beg the question, why? How is an industry that is supposedly terrified of losing revenue to piracy setting financial records with product that is so average? It boils down to familiarity. Hollywood is playing it safe with the projects it green-lights. Of the year’s top 25 movies so far, 19 are sequels, adaptations or remakes. While a few of these films, such as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Simpsons Movie and The Bourne Ultimatum, managed to breathe new life into aging franchises, the rest are nothing more than time-killers.
    The other factor contributing to this box office bonanza is the state of the small screen. Reality TV of all varieties dominates the ratings, which means that even with a proliferation of cable stations, long-form dramas and comedies are less common. Quite simply, this crop of summer movies, as average as they are, offer audiences something they can’t find elsewhere.
    With the record-breaking summer of 2007 behind us, we can look forward to more sequels and remakes. More importantly for the cinephiles out there, festival and award season is upon us. If you can wade through Rush Hour 3, Balls of Fury and Mr. Bean’s Holiday, there’s bound to be something interesting just around the corner.