Marquee History
Week 17 - 2016
By Max Braden
April 27, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
This week’s highlights are the 10th anniversary of United 93, the 15th anniversary of a disastrous box office weekend, and 25th anniversary of Stallone trying his hand at comedy.
Here are the movies that premiered on theater marquees this week...
10 years ago - April 28, 2006
RV
Barry Sonnenfeld directs Robin Williams in this road trip comedy about the man who is required to go on a business trip and tells his family that it’s their vacation. Cheryl Hines, singer JoJo, and Josh Hutcherson play part of his family while Jeff Daniels and Kristin Chenoweth play another family on the road. Will Arnett plays the plot’s antagonist. Poor reviews didn’t keep RV from opening at #1, and audiences made it the biggest Robin Williams live action film since Patch Adams. It was also his return to comedy after a string of dramas. RV took in $16.4 million from 3,639 theaters and went on to gross $71 million.
United 93
Four and a half years after the events of 9/11/2001, writer/director Paul Greengrass portrays the events on the hijacked flight that went down in Pennsylvania. With events aboard the plane being played out in real-time, and audiences being well-versed in the outcome of the story, it’s understandable that some audiences felt it would be too much to go through and instead stayed home. Still, despite that concern before release, United 93 earned the highest per-site average of the weekend along with strong reviews. It was later nominated for Best Director and Best Editing at the Oscars, and won in the same categories at the BAFTA Awards. United 93 opened at #2 with $11.4 million from 1,795 theaters and went on to earn $31.4 million in the U.S. for a total of $76 million worldwide.
Stick It
Life As We Know It television actress Missy Peregrym stars in this teen school sports action film as a former world-class gymnastics star who returns due to court order and clashes with her coach, played by Jeff Bridges. Kellan Lutz appears in his first film role. Jessica Bendinger had written the cheerleader comedy Bring It On, released six years earlier, and both wrote this film and directed it in her debut. Stick It opened at #3 with $10.8 million from and went on to gross $26.9 million, far short of the $68 million for Bring It On.
Akeelah and the Bee
Ten-year-old Keke Palmer stars in this spelling bee drama, with Laurence Fishburne playing her study coach. Angela Bassett co-stars as her mother. Doug Atchison’s screenplay was a Nicholl Fellowship winner, and under his direction the film later won an Image Award for Writing as well as Outstanding Actress for Palmer. Akeelah opened at #8 with $6 million and eventually brought in $18.8 million.
Also in limited release this weekend: Andy Garcia’s first time as director for the Havana tale The Lost City, and the Canadian drama based in India Water which was later nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
15 years ago - April 27, 2001
Driven
Driven is a race car drama from Cliffhanger director Renny Harlin. Sylvester Stallone wrote the screenplay (remember, he earned an Oscar nomination for Rocky) and stars as a former champion driver who comes out of retirement to team with a younger driver, played by Kip Pardue. Burt Reynolds plays the racing team owner, and Estella Warren plays Pardue’s love interest. The trailer teased a sequence were race cars drive through downtown traffic, some big crashes, and may have tried to remind audiences of Days of Thunder. But reviews were awful and the film bombed at the box office. It even earned Razzie Award nominations for Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Reynolds, Stallone, and Warren. At least it did better than Get Carter. Driven opened at #1 with $12.1 million from 2,905 theaters and went on to earn $32.7 million in the U.S. against a budget nearly triple that amount.
Town & Country
This romantic comedy stars Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton as one couple and Goldie Hawn and Garry Shandling as another, with an ensemble of supporting characters. Delayed for years, the final release was met with lousy reviews and turned out to be an enormous box office bomb. After costing a ridiculous sum of $90 million, Town & Country opened at #7 with $3 million and only managed $6.7 million in the U.S. for a total of $10.3 million worldwide. The scorn for this flop may be the reason it’s been the last time we’ve seen Beatty in a film to date.
The Forsaken
This vampire hunters vs. vampires with a plot similar to The Highlander stars Kerr Smith, Brendan Fehr, and Johnathon Schaech. Reviews were even worse than for Town & Country, and The Forsaken opened at #8 with $3 million (actually a stronger per-site average than Town & Country due to fewer theaters). It quickly shed theaters and ended up with $7.2 million.
One Night at McCool’s
A scarlet-haired Liv Tyler stars at the center of a romantic and crime comedy, with Matt Dillon, Paul Reiser, and John Goodman. Reviews were weak, as was the audience interest: McCool’s opened at #11 with $2.5 million, only earning a financially disappointing $6.2 million overall.
Also opening in limited release this weekend: Director James Ivory’s drama The Golden Bowl starring Kate Beckinsale and Uma Thurman.
20 years ago - April 26, 1996
The Quest
Jean-Claude Van Damme stars in and directs for the first time for this Bloodsport-esque martial arts adventure that takes place in 1920s New York, Southeast Asia, and Tibet. Roger Moore plays a swindling businessman. Among the highlights for this film were the variety of martial arts disciplines portrayed by the tournament contestants, and the cinematography. Van Damme won this weekend, but this was part of a decline for Van Damme’s box office after his 1992-1994 peak. The Quest opened at #1 with $7.0 million from 2,092 theaters and eventually took in a domestic gross of $21.6 million.
The Truth About Cats & Dogs
This romantic comedy stars Janeane Garofalo and Uma Thurman in a Cyrano de Bergerac arrangement, wooing a guy played by Ben Chaplin. The film received good reviews and audiences made it one of the biggest lead performances for Thurman of her career before Kill Bill. Cats & Dogs opened at #2 with $6.7 million and went on to earn $34.8 million.
Sunset Park
Rhea Perlman stars in this high school sports/social drama as the coach of a boys basketball team. Terrence Howard plays a student in one of his early film roles. Unlike the similar but more comedic football version with Wildcats in February, this was a more serious take. It also made significantly less at the box office. Sunset Park opened at #3 with $4.7 million and eventually brought in $10.1 million.
Mulholland Falls
Not to be confused with David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, this crime drama stars Nick Nolte, Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen, and Chris Penn as LAPD detectives in the 1950s. The film opened at #5 with $4.3 million and went on to earn $11.5 million.
25 years ago - April 26, 1991
Oscar
While comic actors tend to switch things up with dramatic roles, tough guys seem to try out comedy: Arnold Schwarzenegger had Twins and Kindergarten Cop the late 1980s, and this comedy was Sylvester Stallone’s turn. Stallone plays 1930s gangster Snaps Provolone, whose plans to go legit are complicated by his daughter’s romantic entanglements. Marisa Tomei co-stars, along with Vincent Spano, Tim Curry, and Chazz Palminteri. Critics were not "on board" with the John Landis’s screwball comedy approach, and eventually he and Stallone and Tomei each received Razzie Award nominations. Audience interest was strong enough to keep the movie at the top of the box office for two weeks. Oscar opened at #1 - taking down Steven Seagal’s Out For Justice in its third weekend - with $5 million from 1,388 theaters. It went on to earn $23.5 million in total. Stallone stuck with comedy again in 1992 with Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot before returning to his more successful action roles.
A Kiss Before Dying
This murder-suspense film was a remake of the 1956 adaptation of Ira Levin’s novel. Sean Young plays the twin sister of an apparent suicide victim, who was actually murdered by Matt Dillon’s character. James Russo, Max von Sydow, and Diane Ladd co-star. Director James Dearden previously wrote the screenplay for the popular thriller Fatal Attraction. Dillon came to the project with acclaim from Drugstore Cowboy, and he was perhaps the only one to come out unscathed by critic reviews; Young was later nominated for two Razzie Awards - one for each role in this movie. A Kiss Before Dying opened at #2 with $4.3 million and eventually earned $15.4 million.
Toy Soldiers
Not to be confused with 1998’s Small Soldiers or the 1984 movie of the same name, this thriller has a plot mix of Die Hard and Taps. Sean Astin, Wil Wheaton, and Keith Coogan play students at a boarding school that is taken over by Colombian terrorists. Together with the school dean, played by Louis Gossett, Jr., the teens subvert the terrorists from the inside while the FBI works from the outside. Jerry Orbach plays the mob boss father of Wheaton’s character. Daniel Petrie, Jr., who co-wrote the screenplay for Beverly Hills Cop, served as a first time director for this movie. Astin was probably still best known for The Goonies six years earlier, but had appeared in Memphis Belle in 1990. Similarly, Wheaton was known from Stand By Me in 1986 and also as Wesley Crusher for Star Trek: The Next Generation, already in its third season. Toy Soldiers opened at #3 with $4.1 million and eventually earned $15.0 million.
Also in limited release this weekend: Edward James Olmos and Lorraine Bracco in the baseball drama Talent for the Game.
30 years ago - April 18, 1986
Tom Cruise held the #1 spot with the carryover Legend this week, while The Money Pit moved back up to #2 in its fifth weekend. The Color Purple, in its 19th weekend, was still in the top ten and coming up on the $90 million mark.
The only significant presence for new films this weekend was the crime drama 8 Million Ways to Die, starring Jeff Bridges and Rosanna Arquette, with Andy Garcia in one of his early film roles. At 215 theaters it only had one-fifth the distribution of the week’s lead films, and only took in $1.3 million overall.
Also in very limited release: Crimewave from director Sam Raimi and the Coen brothers, and French comedy Three Men and a Cradle which would be remade into Three Men and a Baby the following year.
Come back next week for another installment of Marquee History!