Chances are you take your kids to the movies, drop them off and go home.
At least that’s what Hollywood is finding out since adult-themed movies — no, not porn — have fizzled at the box office since the recession hit.
We’re through 18 weeks of the surprising 2009 box office, and exactly one of those weekends — Jan. 9-11 for Gran Torino — was won by a decidedly adult drama that had zero young-person appeal. Marley & Me won the first week and probably was an adult drama, but was marketed through its trailers and commercials as something akin to Beverly Hills Chihuahua.
Last year, you need to go back to the weekend of Sept. 19-21 — the week the recession hit — to find an “adult” movie, Lakeview Terrace, that won the box office weekend. Burn After Reading won the week before, another adult film.
So are we at the end of adult movies as we know it? Will we only see them on DVD since they’ll be out of the theater in a week? Umm . . . maybe? For adults, movies are too much of a risk right now.
Adults are not the ones who jump out to see the latest movies, they’re more apt to wait and see the reviews. If they decide it’s a movie worth throwing $20 to see, taking into account the fact that if they wait three months they can see it on DVD, then have to find babysitters, take off work, put aside the chores, beg out of attending the PTA meeting and spend two-plus hours in the dark checking their phones every 30 seconds to see if that home equity loan came through so they can get more than three hours of sleep at night worrying about whether their kids can stay in Catholic school or not.
Can you see why adults aren’t going to movies? Throw in the recession affect — adults are way more likely to budget than kids — and you may not see another adult movie like State of Play movie greenlit with a budget of more than $30 million until the recession lifts.
That means a Hannah Montana sequel is probably on the way and Tom Cruise is going to have a hard time finding work.
In related news, the Zac Efron hype machine begins now. You’ve been warned. This kind of reminds me of the pilot of Entourage when no one really cared that much about Vince until Head On opened to $16 million, then Ari’s people were gushing all over him. Consider Efron the new Vincent Chase — without the side-turn in Vegas judging a stripper contest. There are no Turtles in Efron’s life, you can pretty much guarantee that.
Not done with the adult movies yet – I doubt any 15-year-old cares about how many walks Jeremy Brown had at the University of Alabama, which is a big part of Moneyball. Seeing as baseball people already are dissing it, it’s not going to be raking in Field of Dreams type money.
One good trend — Hollywood is going to keep putting out bigger movies throughout the year to keep the glut of movies during summer and holiday weekends to a minimum.
As if it wasn’t hard enough for unions to fight management, now the SAG actors are fighting themselves. It’s cliched, but guys, seriously, this is exactly what they want you to do. You’re better than that.
Maybe Tom Hanks can find his way out of the next sequel, if he’s lucky. It seems like a well-guarded secret right now, how he got roped into Angels and Demons even though Da Vinci Code was the biggest blow to his career since Dragnet.
If we wait long enough, maybe Leno will do a show in Stroudsburg. Nah, I still wouldn’t go.
Here’s the deal. I’d probably get in trouble if I just straight-up linked to the pictures in Allure Magazine’s nude issue, featuring nakedness from Eliza Dushku, Chelsea Handler and a couple other women I haven’t heard of. So instead, there’s the link to Allure Magazine. Whatever you find on that site, you find.
Monday TV watch (SPOILERS): Liked 24, I just think they made Tony play his hand to Jack a little too early. The Teri reveal was kinda cool, I thought . . . Chuck finally kept me interested for a full hour (first time in a while that happened) and I’m actually looking forward to next week’s season finale.
