Marquee History
Week 6 - 2016
By Max Braden
February 5, 2016
Welcome to Marquee History, the weekly column that takes you back to a time when you - or your parents - were younger. Prepare to become nostalgic (and shocked) at how much time has passed when you recall what was new in theaters 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years ago.
This weekend’s highlights are the record-setting return of Hannibal Lecter, the 25th anniversary of L.A. Story, and the 30th anniversary of Hannah and Her Sisters.
Here are the movies that premiered on theater marquees this week...
10 years ago - February 10, 2006
The Pink Panther
In this remake, Steve Martin takes on the role first brought to film by Peter Sellers in 1963 as the inept French inspector Jacques Clouseau. The plot involves the theft of the Pink Panther diamond ring from a pop star played by Beyonce. Kevin Kline plays Clouseau’s superior officer, and Jean Reno plays Clouseau’s smarter but conciliatory assistant Gilbert Ponton. While the Sellers movies involved slapstick, they were generally geared toward adult audiences. This Steve Martin version was much more geared to younger family audiences. Martin’s similarly toned Cheaper By the Dozen 2, released at Christmas eight weeks earlier, was still in theaters this weekend. The Pink Panther won the weekend along with the other three new releases, opening with $20.2 million from 3,477 theaters. Barely overcoming a hefty $80 million production budget, it grossed $82 million in the U.S. out of $158 million worldwide, making it the best performer of the 11-movie franchise. Martin and Reno returned for The Pink Panther 2 in 2009.
Final Destination 3
The third entry in this horror film series starts with high school students escaping death in an amusement park roller-coaster tragedy. Over the rest of the story, death comes for them one by one. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Ryan Merriman star. Reviews weren’t great, but the point of this series is really about the Rube-Goldberg approach to each death scene, which makes it as much a dark comedy as a horror film. Final Destination 3 opened at #2 for the weekend with $19.1 million from 2,880 theaters (the best per-site average of the weekend). Its final gross of $54 million is the second-best of the series, which is comprised of five films. The next entry, The Final Destination (but the fourth out of five), came in 2009.
Curious George
The long-running children’s book character gets a feature-length animated film. Will Ferrell voices the Man With the Yellow Hat (finally given a name for the movie: Ted), a museum guide who comes across a curious monkey while in Africa. The monkey follows Ted back to the city and causes problems while Ted tries to save his museum from being shut down due to budget issues. Drew Barrymore voices a teacher named Maggie. The film’s traditional animation style and calm pace, true to the original material, both impressed some critics and underwhelmed others. Curious George opened at #3 with $14.7 million from 2,566 theaters and went on to earn $58 million, just over its production budget. A sequel was released straight-to-DVD in 2010.
Firewall
I’m a huge Harrison Ford fan and I had completely forgotten this movie existed. Ford stars as computer security specialist coerced by Paul Bettany’s thief to hack into bank accounts and steal $100 million or lose his family. In similar style to Air Force One, Ford’s character gets mad and turns the tables on the villains. Virginia Madsen, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Robert Forster, Robert Patrick, and Alan Arkin appear in supporting roles. Reviews of this thriller were poor. Firewall opened at #4 with $13.6 million from 2,840 theaters. It earned a total of $48.7 million, which was at least an improvement over his previous film, Hollywood Homicide.
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