In the Dead of Movie Autumn

By Connect2Mason writer Matt Todd

A measly opening weekend for Nicolas Cage’s Bangkok Dangerous stands as just one of the many bitter reminders of why many September to mid-October films bomb at the box office.

The Pang Brothers’ remake of their very own action-thriller of the same name, starring Academy Award-winner Nicolas Cage (1995’s Leaving Las Vegas) and distributed by Lionsgate, proved an embarrassing lull in the season of box office bombs and bad flicks. Opening to mostly bad reviews and a derisory $7.5 million, Bangkok drops from #1 to #8 this week, adding just $2.4 million to its overall $12.4 million tally. Its far from recouping its estimated $45 million budget. Its opening weekend was the lowest #1 debut since David Spade’s DOA 2003 comedy Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, which grossed $6.6 million.

This weekend proved a little better with the Coen Brothers’ (No Country for Old Men) spy comedy Burn After Reading, starring Academy Award winners George Clooney and Frances McDormand, opening at almost $19.5 million, Tyler Perry’s new drama The Family That Preys, starring Academy Award nominee Alfre Woodard, coming in at #2 with $18 million, winners Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino’s Righteous Kill, opening at #3 with almost $16.5 million, and the remake of the 1939 classic The Women, starring nominee Annette Bening, Meg Ryan, and Eva Mendes, opening at #4 with approximately $10 million. Four September films debuting over $10 million in the same weekend is rather impressive. But what do these four have in common? They’ve all been getting mixed to mostly bad reviews.

Labor Day to mid-October, films barely register with critics or plainly and simply, just do not attract many filmgoers. Why? Numerous factors. For example, September and October, kids go back to school, teens and college students occupy their weekends with homework, and parents and adults are dumped with more work between the summer and the holiday months. Therefore, movie studios feel no need to release the costlier fare, not to mention, studios pitch out more bad films or movies that just doesn’t stand a chance. For example, what do high-profile movies such as Don Bluth’s A Troll In Central Park, Madonna’s Swept Away, and Jenny McCarthy’s Dirty Love have in common? All of them were so poorly received that they were released in late-September to early-October just to die quickly and quietly.

These were just to name a few of the thousands of films dumped in this comparatively barren season at the box office. Not every movie can be Rush Hour, which opened with $34.8 million in mid-September 1998 (and went on to gross $140 million), and The First Wives Club, which opened at $18.5 million in September of ’96 (before it went on to gross over $105 million). The fact of the matter is, this is the time when sales drop dramatically and when studios either release low-budget or lackluster movies for them to either find very moderate success or limp their way to failure.

Truthfully, there are times when we want to find good cheap entertainment to get away from our busy work and school lives, but sadly, we’re not given much or many good options.