Tag Archive for 'The Proposal'

At the end of 2009 the big story was the fact that women are the new “men” at the box office, so to speak.  The news was that women are now making films successful at the box office.  I have always believed — and written a lot about — women as a viable market for films.  But Hollywood has a short memory, and if you lose momentum you are a fluke.  The Wrap has a piece this week about “The Rise of the Female Driven Blockbuster” talking again about the box office numbers of The Blind Side, The Proposal and It’s Complicated (which has made $176 million worldwide.)   Hollywood is also taking notice of the success of Dear John a $25 million budgeted movie that opened at $30 million and was driven by women.

So based on what happened, even just last week, 2010 should be a great year for women at the box office.  Right? The problem is based on an early overview of the of the big films coming out this year, very few are targeted at women and even fewer have female leads.

Based on a list from CNN, of 25 big blockbusters coming out this year only 3 have women as the leads.  Moviefone looked at the top 50 of the year and only 5 are women led (and one is animated.)

Here they are:

Sex and the City 2 – May 28

Eclipse- the third film in the Twilight saga- June 30

Salt- Angelina Jolie kicks ass- August

Eat Pray Love- Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert- August 13

Rapunzel- animated- Novemever 24

(I also might list Alice in Wonderland that opens in March, but we all know the star of the film is Johnny Depp)

That’s not a lot of love for women.

On the one hand, I love that women are being taken seriously at the box office, but if you want to build on the successes of 2009 you need to give us films we want to go and see.  I worry that women will get blamed again for “not going to the movies” based on all the male centric and male targeted films coming out this year.

Blockbuster bonanza: Big movies to look out for in 2010 (CNN)

BIG in 2010: The Best Movie Bets This Year (Moviefone)

Sex Change: The Rise of the Female-Driven Blockbuster (The Wrap)

Numbers matter. So we here at Women & Hollywood are going to try and put out as many numbers as we can.  (Just keep in mind that none of these are scientific studies)

Women & Hollywood intern Eva Krainitzki (all the way from England- how cool is that?) took a look at the 2009 box office numbers and also put forward a definition of what is a womencentric film.

Overview

2 of the top 10 grossing films are women centric;

9 of the top 50 grossing films (two of them are animated – The Princess and the Frog, Coraline);

18 of the top 100 grossing films;

26 of the top 150 grossing films

The Films, Their Rank and Total Gross

4 The Twilight Saga: New Moon ($293,897,327)

8 The Blind Side ($238,430,210)

—————————————————————————————————————-

16 The Proposal ($163,958,031)

31 It’s Complicated ($104,782,080)

32 The Princess and the Frog* ($100,352,358)

34 Julie & Julia ($94,125,426)

37 The Ugly Truth ($88,915,214)

39 Hannah Montana The Movie ($79,576,189)

42 Coraline* ($75,286,229)

—————————————————————————————————————-

56 Bride Wars ($58,715,510)

63 My Sister’s Keeper ($49,200,230)

66 Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire ($45,506,888)

67 Confessions of a Shopaholic ($44,277,350)

69 The Unborn (2009)** ($42,670,410)

70 Drag Me to Hell** ($42,100,625)

71 Orphan** ($41,596,251)

74 The Lovely Bones($38,647,080)

94 The Uninvited** ($28,596,818)

—————————————————————————————————————-

115 New in Town ($16,734,283)

116 Jennifer’s Body** ($16,204,793)

126 Amelia ($14,245,415)

129 Whip It ($13,043,363)

132 Sunshine Cleaning ($12,062,558)

144 An Education ($8,795,228)

146 My Life in Ruins ($8,665,206)

150 The Young Victoria ($7,673,21)

[1] Based on Box Office Mojo, domestic grosses for 2009.  As of February the 4th 2010.

* Animated Film

** Horror Film

While most Americans (and the world) are struggling financially, Hollywood had a great year.  Box office revenue topped  $10.6 billion, up 10 percent from 2008 (according to Hollywood.com) and many of the year end stories have talked about women both at the box office and as directors.

Here what IndieWIRE had to say:

This was truly a landmark year for women and film.  Female-centered options dominated the indie landscape, with “Precious,” the year’s top grossing specialty release, leading the way.  The film may have been directed by a man, but it featured an almost entirely female cast and most certainly raked in its box office due in large part to female audiences hungry for options.  And beyond “Precious,” there were surprisingly many. Christine Jeffs’ “Sunshine Cleaning,” Lone Scherfig’s “An Education,” Jane Campion’s “Bright Star,” Anne Fontaine’s “Coco Before Chanel,” Claire Denis’s “35 Shots of Rum,” Pedro Almodovar’s “Broken Embraces,” Cédric Klapisch’s “Paris,” Sebastian Silva’s “The Maid,” Cherien Dabis’s “Amreeka”…  It’s an incredibly long list of often fantastic cinema.

And on top of all of it, these movies are making money. Of the top ten grossing limited released narrative films of 2009, four were directed by women (“Hurt Locker,” “Sunshine Cleaning,” “Coco Before Chanel,” and “An Education”), and three more (”(500) Days of Summer,” “Precious” and “Away We Go”) were most certainly aimed at female audiences, and feature either a female co-lead (“Summer” and “Away”) or a nearly all female cast (“Precious”).

And don’t forget the earlier pieces from the Wrap: Look Who’s Winning the B.O Battle of the Sexes and CNN.com: Yes, Hollywood, Women Do Go to the Movies

So 2009 had a confluence of good movies that were directed by women that made money and movies about women that people wanted to see.

So 2010 should be a year to build on these successes.  Here’s the problem.  All the women who make movies at the studios released movies last year.  It’s not a big list to begin with.  It includes Anne Fletcher, Nora Ephron, Betty Thomas and Nancy Meyers (am I missing anyone?)  All those women were in action last year and none of them (except maybe Fletcher) releases a movie each year.  On the indie from we also had films from other high profile women like Jane Campion, Mira Nair, Karyn Kusama, Sally Potter, and of course Kathryn Bigelow.

The question is how to we keep building on the success of 2009 when they won’t be any big movies directed by women?  There will be some strong women centric films like Sex and the City 2, the third Twilight installment as well as films from Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Katherine Heigl and an action pic from Angelina Jolie.

But those are movies directed by guys about women.  We need those and several of them will be great, but we also need to see movies by women about women (and also about guys and other things.)

From what I can tell there are only a couple of women with films already scheduled for release in 2010 and they are all indies.  We will have films like Please Give from Nicole Holofcener, Toe to Toe from Emily Abt, Fish Tank from Andrea Arnold (January 15), Last Night from Massy Tadjedin (March 19), The Runaways, from Floria Sigismondi (March 19).  Other women with completed films but without a release date include Julie Taymor ’s The Tempest, Niki Caro’s The Vinter’s Luck, Jodie Foster’s The Beaver and Sophia Copolla’s Somewhere.

There are a bunch more films that will roll out starting at Sundance including Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right and Gurinider Chadha’s It’s a Wonderful Afterlife.

So the thing we all need to wrap around our heads early this year is that most all the women directed flicks will have smaller releases so we will all need to be vigilant and get our asses out to the theatres.

I don’t want to give the powers that be (whoever the fuck they are) any ammunition to say that 2009 was a fluke either from a box office or a behind the scenes perspective.

Is anyone else concerned about this?  Are there other movies coming out that I don’t know about?  Please share.

Box Office 2.0: The Biggest Stories of the 2009 Indie Box Office (IndieWire)

Look Who’s Winning the B.O. Battle of the Sexes (The Wrap)

Yes, Hollywood, women do go to movies (CNN.com)

On Friday morning Hollywood woke up to the realization that fangirls can be as rabid as fanboys.  By Saturday morning they realized that two BIG records had been broken, including the highest midnight screening opening and the best opening date in history.  On Sunday morning, they woke up realizing that New Moon had not only shattered all even optimistic expectations, it had coattails helping to fuel a big and unexpectedly good weekend at the box office  Entertainment Weekly wrote that: “this one of the most lopsidedly female-driven weekends in Hollywood history.”

Here are the numbers:

• New Moon made $140 (Updated: 142.8 million) dollars this weekend.

• It made more on Friday than Twilight did it’s first weekend.  That means the franchse is growing in strength.

• New Moon has the THIRD biggest opening weekend numbers.

• Women accounted for 80% of the tickets buyers; and were divided evenly between women under and over 21.

• The film also kicked butt overseas bringing in over $118 $124.1 (Updated) million overseas.

• The film scored a high A- in exit polling done when people left the theatre.

TOTAL WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: $258 $266.9 (updated) million for the weekend.

And while everybody expected New Moon to be big (but not this big) what is more astounding to me is how well Sandra Bullock’s movie did opening opposite the juggernaut.  The film actually performed way better than industry estimates which were at best $20 million and it cements Bullock back as a powerhouse.  The Blind Side topped her great opening this summer with The Proposal bringing in $33.6 million.

The film, more than New Moon, showed the power of women, even the much maligned older woman.  The film’s success was built on 59% female ticket buyers with 75% of them being over 25.   If you really think about it, it is older women who made this weekend a huge success because 50% of the audience for New Moon were over 21, and 75% of The Blind Side’s audience were over 25.

AND let’s not forget Precious.  The film widened to over 600 screens and took in $11 million and is still raking in high per screen averages.  It will roll out wider this holiday weekend.

So what does this mean?

It seems to me that while Hollywood felt comfortable dismissing Sex and the City, Mamma Mia (because the audiences for those were primarily over 25), and even Twilight (as a one time wonder), there is no way that these numbers could be dismissed as a fluke.  THEY ARE JUST TOO BIG.  Women and girls are looking for material that they connect with just as much as guys and boys are, but they thing that blows me away about the success of New Moon and even The Blind Side is that the theatres were just packed with women not caring if the guys came with them.  This was a weekend where the gals went in bunches and left the guys home cause they wanted to see this movie more than they wanted to see whatever their boyfriends or guyfriends wanted to see.

As I’ve harped on FOREVER there is an audience out there hungry to see films that appeal to them.  I’m not trying to say that all women’s films will be as successful as New Moon because that’s silly.  These kinds of movies come along rarely cause Hollywood hardly makes them.  But this weekend’s number indicate that they should make more of them.

I think we need to keep New Moon in perspective.  Like I stated above, these films come along rarely and Hollywood has a tendency to try and replicate successes very quickly.  Lots of times those replications don’t work.  I think the actual film New Moon suffered because it was rushed to the screen.  But that didn’t matter one iota to the fans.  They loved it.

I think this is an opportunity for Hollywood to be smart and creative and to think about how to build on the women’s market because it is clearly out there.

But don’t think that New Moon’s huge success doesn’t give me pause.  The misogyny which I have been told about (and refuse to read) that has made it’s way onto the web calling girls stupid and screaming idiots and worse (so typical) for enjoying the film makes me angry.  Because we have had so few films that has a woman at its center do as well as New Moon it is being held to an absurd standard.  Yes, I wish the film would have been better.  I thought it was cheesy and the last third was just useless (a total waste of Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen’s talents.)

I love how people are complaining about the objectification of Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson.  Now you’re upset about the fact that movies taunt and flaunt? The only thing that makes this different is that Megan Fox had to keep her short shorts on in Transformers, and Taylor Lautner spent most of New Moon with his shirt off.  If you’re going to complain about these guys being sexualized, you will have a hard time getting anyone to take you seriously.  Women are sexually objectified in basically every Hollywood film.

But at the end of the day the success of New Moon (there are many other people having better conversations about the content of New Moon and whether it sets back women and if it is anti-feminist), is a HUGE triumph, and has the potential to be a game changing moment in the film business.  The fact that a film fueled by woman power and starring a woman has called such waves in Hollywood is unprecedented.  The business must figure out ways to build on it.  If they don’t they are squandering a huge opportunity and all their shareholders should have them fired.

New Moon Shines at Box Office (Variety)

New Moon Tops Foreign Box Office (Hollywood Reporter)

The LA Times takes a look at the summer season so far.  Things started off very hot (Star Trek) but have cooled off considerably.  Here’s what they’ve learned:

Women make a difference

Female ticket buyers made up nearly half of the audience for the supposedly male-appeal titles “The Hangover” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” At the same time, women moviegoers helped give Sandra Bullock’s Disney romantic comedy “The Proposal” the actress’ best opening weekend by a wide margin: $33.6 million, compared with her previous best debut, $17.6 million for “Premonition.” If women turn out for July 24’s and “Julie & Julia,” they could leave an even bigger mark on the summer season.

Of course the LA Times put this point as the last point but at least women were acknowledged.  We buy half the tickets to the mainstream movies and more than half the tickets to the movies targeted at women SO women actually turn out in bigger numbers for women’s films and help propel them to success.  (I’m not saying that this means every movie that stars a woman will be a success because ones there are many that aren’t very good, but ones that are good and have decent word of mouth will be successful.)

Other points:

Films are on average are dropping about 52% on the second weekend because word of mouth sucks on many of them.  Word of mouth is something that really propels women’s films because there is usually less marketing money spent.  The Proposal which had good word of mouth dropped about 45%, but My Sister’s Keeper which had bad word of mouth dropped 53%.

Adult and star driven dramas are in serious peril.  Julia Roberts flopped in the spring and John Travolta and Denzel Washington along with Russell Crowe have had a hard summer.  Movies (especially from the studios) are moving more and more towards being kid focused that it makes me really nervous.  I want to go to the movies too!

Also for another news flash critics don’t matter

Summer Movie Season Cooling Off (LA Times)

I took myself to a matinee on a rainy Sunday to check out The Proposal since many of you commented on how much you liked it. I knew by the time I plunked down my money that it had won the weekend making over $34 million propelling Sandra Bullock back to the top of the list of people who can open a movie.  That’s a good thing.  Another good thing is that 63% of the people who paid to see the film were women and 70% of the attendees were between 18-49.  Younger men didn’t propel Year One to the top of the box office, but women propelled The Proposal.  Tell me again how women aren’t a market.

It also will probably give Anne Fletcher her chance to direct a broad “guy” comedy though I don’t exactly understand why people think directing movies about men is a step up from directing movies about women.

So the movie…it was good.  Way better than I expected from the trailer.  So here’s what I have to say to the trailer people and the people who approved the trailer.  YOU SUCK!  That trailer was incredibly sexist and not funny and made me not want to see the film, yet the film did not come off as sexist at all.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The beginning was hard to watch.  Bullock plays Margaret Tate a mid 40 something woman who is the editor-in-chief of a mainstream book publishing company.  She acts like an ice queen and everyone hates her.  She tries to be perfect and in doing so acts like a mean robot.  I hated that she was dehumanized by all the people in the office — she was called “it” on IM messages.  But I know that’s the set up that was needed to humanize her later.  Looking at it another way I found the portrayal of a woman boss in the workplace to be very sad.  This is how she felt she had to act to be respected.  She had to scare everyone off and keep everyone at a distance.  While she was a stereotype, stereotypes come from somewhere and I really, really wish we would get over these portraits of women with no life who are working so hard to get ahead that they and everyone around them is miserable.

I gotta say that the chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds was great.  From their boss/assistant relationship I completely understand why Bullock said she was the “guy” in the film.  Cause she is.  He’s her assistant and he’s really good at his job.  He takes care of her so well, cause that’s what good assistants climbing the corporate ladder do.  But having a guy play the assistant was so refreshing and the fact that he wants to be a book editor a world so completely dominated by women was also smart.

By now you know the premise.  Margaret blackmails Andrew (Reynolds) into marrying her so she can stay in the country and keep her job.  Most of the film is spent at Andrew’s family’s house in Alaska (he’s really rich but smartly they don’t let that get in the way) trying to keep up with the deception that they are in love.  But of course they fall in love (cause this is a romantic comedy) and I really liked how the story played out.

Once Bullock’s guard is down it is easy to remember why she is so popular — she knows how to be very funny and touching.  She’s also very comfortable with physical comedy.  I’m glad she waiting for the right script because this was the perfect piece for her.

Many of the stories leading up to the opening were about how much nudity is in the film.  Really?  I didn’t see any body parts.  The “nude” scene from the trailer was very tasteful and she has a gorgeous Alaskan husky pup covering her vajayjay.  I don’t know why such a big deal was made about her being naked throughout the movie cause that’s not what I remember.

It’s also interesting to note that a guy, a former studio exec wrote the script under a female pseudonym.  In an interview he says he used a fake name because he was an exec and if he failed he didn’t want that to effect his career.  But instead of picking a guys name, consciously he picked a woman’s name.  Here’s what he said:

It was all about deception and lies, as opposed to wanting people to think a woman had written it. It was about not wanting them to think that I had written it, not anything socially relevant.  (h/t Charlotte Trouper)

I find that answer disingenuous.  He could have out a guy’s name but it was a film starring a woman and knew it would probably play better with a female name.

So I want to thank the people who read this site and said they liked the film cause you convinced me to see it.  I really wish that the trailer they put out earlier would have not been such a turn off to me.  Another observation is that the film was very respectful of both men and women.  Both Bullock and Ryan Reynolds’s characters were well written unlike the comedies toplined by men that relegate women to the role of the shrew (if she’s there at all.)  I found it delightful to see a comedy with a female lead that both men and women can enjoy.

The Proposal, Sandra Bullock’s first movie in two years opens today on a little over 3,000 screens.  That is a mega wide release.  We are talking big mainstream Hollywood film release numbers.  I haven’t seen the film.  I tried but couldn’t get invited to any screenings.  So unlike most weeks I will be making the same decision with you as to whether to pay to see this film.

From my glancing at reviews (I don’t really read many anymore) the film is not getting great notices.  But I remember that Sex and the City got a lot of crappy reviews as did Mamma Mia so I don’t necessarily go by reviews.

Here is what I am using to make my decision.

Con- On the surface (from the preview and commercials) the movie looks really stupid and regressive.  Woman plays bitchy boss and forces her assistant to marry her so she doesn’t get deported to Canada.  Yikes.  It looks dreadful so much so when I saw the preview this past winter I wrote this post: What’s Up With Sandra Bullock’s Career?

But the press over the last couple of weeks, especially from Sandra Bullock has softened me.

Pro: Sandra Bullock.  She’s still a woman who can open a film and she’s also been really honest about why she hasn’t been in a film in a while.  The scripts have sucked.  Not too many women are that honest.  So major points to her.

This movie is easily going to make $20 million this weekend and that would be Bullock’s biggest opening yet.  Disney and all the folks associated with the film are doing everything to convince the public that this is a “date movie” to bring in the guys and I think the message is working.  If they could get a split of 50/50 or even 55/45 between women and men that would be a great sign that a movie that stars a woman can being in men.

Here’s what she had to say about romantic comedies:

…the 44-year-old actress now says she “can’t stand” romantic comedies because most of the scripts she reads from the genre are terrible and feature underdeveloped female characters. “I always read scripts and go, ‘I want to change the role of Sam to Samantha because it’s written better,’” (Wall Street Journal)

and

“They’re not funny, they’re not romantic, they’re not written well for women anymore,” she says, explaining her decision in typically no-bull fashion. “It was basically all crap. I did the last good one. I’m done.” (USA Today)

“This is basically a guy’s film,” says Ms. Bullock, who was an executive producer on the movie, “except I’m the guy.” (Wall Street Journal)

Pro: It’s directed by a woman — Anne Fletcher.  A woman directing a film that is playing on over 3,000 screens.  Extremely rare.  Happens maybe once or twice a year.  Fletcher might now be known for her romantic comedies but she’s ready for the straight comedies:

I want to do one of those movies because I know I can and they make me laugh. I want to be a woman who says, “Yeah, I made that movie.” But it would have to appeal to me. There are certain male-driven films that cross a line for me. I don’t know if I could put my name on it. (Forbes)

Pro: Betty White – the woman’s been in the business for 60 years.  How can you not love her.

All the above does not say one thing about the content of the film.  But then again how many times do you go see movies that stars men knowing all about it?  Probably not too often.   So for me, the pros — a woman star, AND a woman director — who actually like and respect each other have pushed me towards this film.  This quote from Bullock in USA Today made me laugh out loud:

…they said, ‘Here’s this woman director we like, Anne Fletcher. Can she come and meet you?’ I met her and within five minutes, she said the word ‘vagina,’ and I’m like (her voice rising giddily), ‘I love her.’ “

I know I am a broken record on this but it is my job to remind you need to support films by and about women.  We. just. do.  I wish we lived in a world where they don’t need our help but they do.  If this movie does $25 or $30 million that would be a great sign, even though sadly, it will still probably be dismissed as a fluke.

She’s the Boss (Wall Street Journal)

Something for the Ladies (Forbes)

Sandra Bullock is (bleeping) tired of romantic comedies (USA Today)