Jack Black in a love scene in Dreamworks' Kung Fu Panda

Ok, let's talk film. Kung Fu Panda topped the box office with 60 million. That’s ten more million than Sex and the City did last week. The rated R rating stumped SATC from reaching higher numbers that’s just the tough life of a rated R movie. It doesn’t make that much money at all. That is the reason mostly everything is rated PG-13. They need to suck in the main demographic of 13-35. Well something like that. The specific ages change a couple years but the numbers are still there. All depends on what overpaid marketing “Specialists” you ask.



Marketing specialist just means that you know someone who got you into Hollywood to look at last years numbers and figure out what people like to see without thinking for yourself. What Hollywood needs to know is this demographic is changing. The demographic of optimum movie goers has always been 13 to 35, something like that. What’s changing you ask? Well the old demographic of 13 to 35 is maturing into 30 to 55. They were the kids in the 80’s like me, who loved to go to the movies and still do. People my ancient age still go to the movies. We are excited about it. Though, movie going experience is no where near the quality that we experienced back then. Even the Masters like Spielberg and Lucas who try to recreate the quality of Episode 4 and Raiders of the Lost Ark still come up short of the mark, with Episode One and Crystal Skull which was good, but no Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The demographic shift here is something for Hollywood to consider and the reason why we need better film. The kids, like me who rushed to Star Wars and Temple of Doom didn’t really realize the poor quality in some of those films that we do now. Only now do we know that the Ewoks in Episode six was really campy and the Temple of Doom was really not that good of a film, yet they were totally entertaining, like Crystal Skull is. It’s not as good, but wonderfully entertaining. So, the old demographic knows what bad film looks like. This shift in age and quality demand has Hollywood on its toes.

Speaking of keeping Hollywood hopping, Variety reports today, as I predicted last week, Producers Stephanie Austin and Sara Risher are starting a production company called Chickflicks, aimed at you guessed it, the female Demo that cried out last weekend to be heard. And in quote in Variety, “With the Extraordinary success of Sex and The City: the underserved market for, intelligent emotional films with reliable characters has spoken emphatically.” Again, I am tired of being right all the time.



With this recent shift in the call for more female comedy, the master of romantic comedy has been called up from the minors, Cameron Crowe is back, that’s right. He is the granddaddy of intelligent comedy that drips with romance. Great stuff from him always. This time he is directing his contemporary set screenplay, which is shockingly Untitled. If you know anything about Mr. Crowe, he hates to title his movies, he feels it limits them. Or something like that. He has called in Super sluggers Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon to star for a January lensing.

Well this week is going to be the making or final breaking of M. Night Shyamalan. His new film, The Happening will be in the hands of the public this Friday and not only is he going up against the Hulk, but depending on reviews he could steal some of the Hulk’s numbers. The Happening won’t open with incredible numbers because of the R rating, but it will take on a good audience if he had good reviews. If he has bad reviews, I can bet this will be the end of his less than stellar career. So I hope the best for M. Night, it would be nice to see him get offers to do new film. There will always be an audience for good horror. I am a big fan of good horror. I think its one of those genres that will never die. Its one of those genres that can produce bad film and we may still see it. Producers wish that Epic films had that much of a curve. Sorry, they don’t.



So far the summer is going very well at the box office. Last weekend’s numbers were very good. The Zohan came in second with 40, Indy with 20. This means that people were out in droves in the movie theaters. One thing we haven’t forgotten as a large movie going public, is that a cool air conditioned theater is a great place to avoid the heat.
Until Tomorrow! Let's Talk Film!