The Dow took a major dip last week, increasing fears of another recession, but one place in America is more than thriving — Hollywood. The July box office numbers are in, and it’s a record-breaker: almost $1.4 billion. The previous record was set last July, with $1.32 billion. In fact, the top seven months of box office are all Julys — the next biggest is July 2007, with just over $1.3 billion. After all, that is when studios tend to release their biggest blockbusters.
However, that doesn’t mean that more people are enjoying air conditioned cinemas than ever before. Estimates put July attendance at 175 million, while July 2007 saw almost 190 million tickets sold. Why the discrepancy? Ticket prices have risen and 3-D has started to catch on. It costs more to see a film in that new technology, as anyone who’s purchased a ticket for a 3-D film knows.
It also helps that this summer saw the final film in an immensely popular franchise, and the third in another series. Combined, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2” and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” were responsible for almost half of the box office total last month.
That doesn’t mean everyone in Tinseltown is in good cheer, though. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced a new producer to join Don Mischer for the 84th annual Academy Awards: Brett Ratner.
That name isn’t one synonymous with the type of old Hollywood glamour viewers have come to expect from the yearly telecast. Ratner is the director of the “Rush Hour” movies, and immediately critics started cracking jokes about getting Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker on stage next February. To be fair, that might not be so much worse than this year’s pairing of Anne Hathaway and James Franco — though it’s not clear if the problem there was a lack of chemistry or an excess of chemicals. And Ratner is said to have an encyclopedic knowledge of film history, even if it doesn’t seem that he uses any of it in making his own movies.
Let’s finish by talking about an actual movie — sort of. There’s almost certain to be a film about just-deceased Amy Winehouse. And though the troubled singer’s bed is barely cold, rumor has it that preparation has already begun for a biopic about her life. British tabloid the Daily Star reports that an insider claims Lady Gaga is in talks to play Winehouse. It’s hard to imagine a Catholic girl from New York City transforming herself to play a Jewish girl from North London — but transformation is one of the things Lady Gaga does well. The insider told the paper that Gaga would “be spot on performing Amy’s songs and has got the right look and bolshy attitude.” How a woman known primarily for wearing outrageous — and outrageously expensive — clothing could possibly have a Bolshevik attitude, though, is a mystery to me.
Kelly Jane Torrance is the Washington Examiner Movie Critic. Her reviews appear weekly and she can be reached at [email protected].
