Okay, you've got a cop thriller with Keanu Reeves opening in theaters, plus a college comedy with Dennis Quaid, plus a rom-com with Ryan Reynolds -- and, oh yeah, a cruddy remake of a 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis horror movie that wasn't even screened for critics. Guess which one ruled the weekend box office?
Right, "Prom Night" (above), which pulled in an estimated $23 million, versus Keanu in "Street Kings" ($12 million), Quaid in "Smart People" ($4 million), and Reynolds in "Chaos Theory," a limited release which managed a woeful $23,000 at 11 theaters. Card-counting drama "21" is holding up well in third place and has grossed $61 million overall; it won't hit $100 mill but its DVD afterlife is assured. I just remain mildly astonished by how many people are willing to accept it as a "good movie".
But to "Prom Night" -- how do we explain that a generally reviled piece of slasher remake product, lacking stars or any originality whatsoever, tops the box office? The question answers itself: From its cannily targeted title on down, the movie's purely generic -- the equivalent of buying superstore shampoo. There doesn't need to be a star because the genre (and its return on minimal emotional investment) is the star. The audience knows what it's going to get, and it knows what it wants, which is an excuse to paw one's date under the socially acceptable blanket of movie suspense. Doesn't matter how bogus the film is; indeed, the lamer it is the more fun the group experience can be.
Or, as a friend's son said when his dad asked how "Prom Night" was, "Okay -- there were four or five good jumps."
There's the fallacy of movie criticism right there -- the assumption that every film should have worth beyond the utilitarian when much of the time the audience goes simply hoping for Pavlov to ring his little bell.
More numbers from Box Office Mojo and Leonard Klady.
