HAPPY HAPPY, JOY JOY: ONE MOVIE EARLIER THAN EXPECTED

A little over a week ago, I wrote about the news that Michael Bay was going to be directing a live-action Transformers film and that hopefully it would flop since he’s such a crap filmmaker. Bay isn’t just a wasted talent as a director (he undeniably has a wonderful visual sense and directs exciting individual action sequences, which is why he was so good as a music video director), but he’s an arrogant prick as well. Or at least, he comes off that way in interviews. I remember several years ago (maybe around Armageddon or Pearl Harbor) reading a quote from him which (paraphrased) said that he knows you can blow a million holes through anyone of his films’ stories but he just doesn’t care. And now, as Defamer quoted from an LA Times story on July 15, “‘You know,’ he says somewhat reflectively, ‘I’ve never had a flop.'”

So hip, hip, hooray for comeuppance in the name of The Island which couldn’t manage better than a fourth place finish, losing to a film that may, in fact, be worse than it (I can’t be sure — I haven’t seen Bay’s disaster yet), and that has already been playing for three weeks! But a $12.1 Million opening? I think that’s his worst opening weekend ever! I mean the original Bad Boys — his first movie, a decade ago, when he obviously had no blockbuster track record — opened with a $15 Million weekend.

Personally, I’m as shocked as the DreamWorks exec in that article. I was just telling someone this weekend that I was surprised everyone thought Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would hold on to the top spot so easily because Bay’s movies attract audiences. Stupid audiences, sure, but audiences none-the-less. A friend asked me why, and the answer is simple: it’s not so much that audiences are stupid, but they will always accept lowest-common denominator thrills if something better isn’t offered. The problem so often, particularly with Bay’s films, isn’t so much that the movie couldn’t have been good — Batman Begins and both Spider-Man are all recent proof that great modern movies can come from the action genre. Bay’s problem has always been that he doesn’t know how to make a movie: he simply links together big action sequences all containing the same energy level as the one before. That’s why his movies make such great trailers and such lousy films.

I have a hard time completely criticizing The Island because I have yet to see it, but everything I’ve read simply portrays it as just like every other Bay film: a bunch of huge action sequences, some which get tiring, that overshadow the presence of the story instead of servicing the plot’s advancement. Still, it is difficult to say that this is the beginning of a shift in audience consciousness; that moviegoers simply aren’t going to take the crap anymore if they don’t have to. I mean, it was a crowded weekend at the multiplex, and the fact that anybody is still going to Fantastic Four, a definite Razzie contender, is a potential sign of the apocalypse.

This year’s box office slump has been a story made bigger, at least in film biz circles, simply because of the attention paid to it. The fact is, each weekend had a big opener just like every other summer, but then the crap films would suffer huge drop-offs and distance between box office winner and previous holdovers would keep increasing. Of course, the biggest reason the total box office numbers have gone down is not because people are watching more DVDs (even though they are), but is due to the fact that there’s not an “indie film” grossing $400 million this year like a certain megastars polemic did last year. In fact, I’ve seen reported that if you take The Passion of the Christ out of the equation, the comparison of this year to last finds 2005 roughly even.

But with so much discussion this summer regarding the box office slump — a story that was absolutely made bigger in entertainment circles simply because of the attention paid to it — it is worthwhile to pay particular attention to the opening weekend disappointment of a film from someone considered such a guaranteed moneymaker. Sure, neither Ewan McGregor nor Scarlett Johannsen are big summer movie names, but you know what, neither were Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett nor Kate Beckinsale on Pearl Harbor.

The problem (if there is one) really is a matter of quality, not quantity. That doesn’t mean crap films won’t still make a ton of money, but maybe not as much and maybe not as many of them. It’s not a lack of imagination evidenced by sequels or adaptations of old TV shows that’s the problem; it’s lack of good imagination. Bewitched is a good example of a series adaptation that actually showed promise. It was cast perfectly and the idea of how to reimagine it was actually quite clever. The problem with Bewitched is virtually all in its execution. Nora Ephron is not a good director. She’s a great writer, often very funny, but she proves time-and-time again that she doesn’t know how to transfer her scripts to screen. There’s a reason that When Harry Met Sally … is so much better than Sleepless in Seattle or You’ve Got Mail, and that reason is Rob Reiner.

If Hollywood studios would put more effort into the script development process and cared a little less about determining a prime release date before the script has even been written, we would get better movies and they would get larger grosses. It really is (almost) that simple.

In some post last year I’m pretty sure I mentioned that Summer 2005 was shaping up to look like potentially the best summer for movies in recent memory with a huge, promising release every weekend all summer long. Looking back with more than half the summer movie season gone, I’d now have to call it possibly one of the most disappointing summer movie seasons in recent memory simply because of that great promise unfulfilled, with the notable exception of Batman Begins. That’s not to say everything has been bad, but very little has been as good as it could have been.

Just like every Michael Bay movie. Once Hollywood catches-on to releasing films that live up to their own even unhyped promise, there won’t need to be any more talk of box office slumps.