Almost every year, detractors complain of the Academy’s disregard for popular entertainment. In Oscar’s eyes, the “movie” is somehow inferior to the worthy “film,” and as a filmmaker, you either dumb down your craft to make nine figures, or you take your work seriously, because Academy voters like nothing better than art that knows it is serious. When both coalesce it is the exception, not the rule.
Last year the dichotomy between pop and art were obvious: Cameron’s crowd-seducing Avatar vs. Kathryn Bigelow’s indie thriller The Hurt Locker. I use the labels “movie” and “film” with caution. They are more economic distinctions than aesthetic ones. Avatar glowed with as much breathless artistry as The Hurt Locker simmered with tried-and-true exercises in Hitchcockian suspense. Bigelow’s effort made back its $11-million, but only squeaked in and out of theatres. Meanwhile Avatar charged, dominating the box office for seven straight weeks.
By giving Best Picture to The Hurt Locker, the Academy lived up its reputation for high-brow snobbery. Of course, they would not give the award to the biggest cinematic event of the year (which Avatar was, tepid plot aside). Of course, they would not give The Dark Knight a nomination in 2009. Even doubling the number of nominees did not give the popular films a fighting chance at the award.
This year, unique visions and commercial appeal have paired together in a surprising number of films that won critics and audiences. In an industry increasingly dominated by massive budgets and groundbreaking special effects, Americans (and, let’s not forget, Canadians) have turned overwhelmingly to niche auteurs and dramas. A group of strong contenders are poised to carve the Academy between themselves, maybe evenly. There is no binary Cameron-Bigelow showdown. Undoubtedly, The Social Network is the zeitgeist biopic winning accolades and the critic’s affections. Fincher’s cynical drama has raked in over $218 million worldwide, despite having little star power (only Justin Timberlake in a supporting role) and an unsympathetic cast of characters.
Even more extraordinary was True Grit, which has grossed $158 million domestically. Considering the Coen brothers are hardly mainstream material and the Western is a genre long thought dead, this was the year’s runaway hit. The psychosexual Black Swan also exceeded expectations with an impressive $97 million and counting, despite director Daren Aronofsky’s poor history with the box office. Other films excelled: The Fighter won over $84 million; The King’s Speech crossed the Atlantic and the $100 million mark worldwide.
This was an amazing year for dramas, original concepts, and a dead monarch’s stutter. Even among the blockbusters novelty prevailed. Who would have thought a two-and-a-half hour mindbender like Inception would gross $800 million worldwide? Granted, the ads were prefaced with “From the Director of The Dark Knight,” but Christopher Nolan does not have the same draw as Steven Spielberg or Michael Bay. Neither does Tim Burton, who gambled on an unpromising March release date to sell the monumental Alice in Wonderland.
But what about the usual cash machines — the sequels, remakes, and star vehicles that fill the most seats year by year? As Brook Barnes noted in The New York Times, a large number of expected steamrollers tanked. Killers and The Tourist needed foreign rentals to make back their budgets, despite having the full weight of studio marketing. Sequels like Sex and the City 2 and Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore also underperformed domestically.
I have hope, as Barnes does, that audiences are becoming more demanding. They want an Inception or a Despicable Me rather than another Prince of Persia. Strong numbers for the Oscar front runners could be a signal of audiences maturing out of the governing 18—25 male demographic.
To understand the shift to quality it is useful to go back to last winter, when Avatar was well on its way to breaking the billion-dollar benchmark. Cameron’s visuals, scope, and 3D mastery have not yet been equalled, even challenged. Has the standard been set too high for subsequent blockbusters to compete? Were Avatar’s stunning looks and banal story so mismatched as to train us to spot rehashed material in subsequent spectacles?
There are too many outliers to answer in the affirmative. 3D did wonders for Resident Evil: Afterlife and Clash of the Titans, and the requisite summer sequel Iron Man 2 exploded globally. But the same magic is gone, or at least waning. TRON: Legacy, in all its attempts to be 2010’s Avatar, was only a moderate success. When True Grit is approaching the same numbers as Tron’s domestic haul, one can be optimistic enough to say we might just be sick of the same shit.
Studios recognize this but, typically, are taking shortcuts. When Sony hired (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb to direct its Spider-Man reboot, industry watchers like Variety called it a watershed moment of abandoning studio journeymen in favour of untested young talent. I think the more pressing issue is that Sony fully expects us to watch Peter Parker learn to climb again. No later than 2013. I thought the success of this year’s contenders would inspire Sony to find Webb a project to suit his subjective and postmodern take on romantic comedy.
Increasingly, it does not matter what Canadians and Americans think. Foreigners are gorging themselves on Hollywood crap. Gulliver’s Travels has little right to make obscene amounts on money, but Jack Black and co. did just that outside the U.S. Flashy, simple, and loud, action movies easily transcend cultural barriers. Producers can jump on the 3D bandwagon (regardless of how gratuitous and poor most 3D is), and exhibitors can charge higher ticket prices.
While I am glad that so many award-winning dramas plundered the home box office, this might be a minor blip in the Hollywood model and not the start of a trend. Clearly, studios are still hedging their bets on animation, sequels, and comic book adaptations.
Now the challenge is putting new wine into old bottles. Nolan’s reinvention of the derailed Batman franchise showed the MPAA how to inject high-brow gravity, no matter how superficial, into the familiar origin story. 20th Century Fox has already picked up Aronofsky to direct the next Wolverine film. The result should be interesting, but I hope auteurs will be given support for their own projects, even if they have to “make one for the system.” However, if attendance continues to drop almost five per cent a year, then the system might have to green-light stories as original as their directors.
