March 06, 2003

Big Year For Hollywood

2002 was a banner year for Hollywood, with the number of admissions rising to record levels and a gross take of 9.5 billion dollars (I have to stop using the 6 billion I used to quote). Spiderman, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding were the top five grossers. Guess what, none of the top 20 films were rated R. I like a good grownup movie, but Hollywood has a hard time making good grownup movies.

The attendence figures don't add up for me -- 99 percent of the movie going public is over the age of 12. All those family movies and nobody under 12 -- are the Fruit of the Murphy Loins the only two kids under 12 going to movies? And the 17% who are 50 and over -- they all go to rush hour shows in St. Louis in my experience. Since half the audience is under 30, I don't feel so bad about all the movies I have no interest in seeing -- they weren't made for me.

Posted by Kevin Murphy at March 6, 2003 12:36 PM | Movies
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Out of all those movies...only ONE was made for a relatively small sum (in Hollywood terms)...guess which one that was?

Posted by: Da Goddess at March 7, 2003 03:35 AM

I'm going to guess My Big Fat Greek Wedding. After we saw it, I told my wife I hope Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson make a ton of money off of it - we'd read it had a hard time finding anyone willing to make it. And I don't think they spent a nickle on advertising. The word of mouth was so good they didn't have to.

At least in the others you can see where the money went - and it wasn't up the star's nose.

I like blockbusters and small movies if they're good. The quality is what counts for me.

Posted by: Kevin Murphy at March 7, 2003 08:16 AM

Bingo!

The interesting thing about this movie is exactly what you said...it was word of mouth alone that propelled it to the top. And, it made a ton of money!

This is what movie making should be about. Not how much money the star will get, what big names are attached, blah blah blah.

It's about telling a story.

Posted by: Da Goddess at March 8, 2003 02:58 AM