Now that we are officially into the fall season on the calendar, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the change of seasons at the cinemas as well.
The summer box office season wrapped up well before summer officially ended, wrapping up by the end of August. While much has been made of the string of big-budget flops released this summer, the reality is that it was still a very busy time at the theatres and we saw a lot of hit movies.
Looking at the top of the box office this summer, I think it should come as a surprise to no one that Iron Man 3, released way back in May, is the summer box office champion for 2013. As of this past weekend that movie raked in a domestic haul of over $409 million.
That is no shock to anyone. What I think is the surprise is how well Despicable Me 2 did. It ended up second with a domestic haul of $360 million.
That a CGI summer movie would do so well is not surprising in itself. What is the big surprise for me is the studio backing it. Despicable Me 2 was produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal, so this franchise is not coming from the usual suspects like Disney's much-honored Pixar unit, or even DreamWorks Animation.
Just the fact that Despicable Me 2 topped Pixar's release Monsters University, which ended up fourth for the summer with $265 million, is a big coup for Universal and Illumination Entertainment.
Rounding out the top five summer movies was Man of Steel, which was third at $291 million, and Fast and Furious 6 at $238 million. The top 10 summer box office movies are rounded out by Star Trek Into Darkness, World War Z, The Heat, The Great Gatsby and We're the Millers.
Way down there was Pacific Rim at $101 million, but $407 million worldwide -- the tenth highest grossing film worldwide. This was that monsters-versus-robots movie directed by Guillermo del Toro.
I had read a story claiming Pacific Rim was supposed to be the top original live-action movie of the summer, pointing to all these other sequels and remakes that had done so well. So maybe Pacific Rim didn't do as poorly as some people were saying it was, but still, it probably should have done better nsidering how expensive it was to make.
This is the real story of the past summer -- the fact that so many big-budget summer movies such as The Lone Ranger, White House Down, After Earth and so on did so poorly.
The studio that was the biggest loser at the box office this summer was Sony Pictures Entertainment, responsible for the latter two movies and also The Smurfs 2, which only hauled in $69 million. This was not a good summer for them at all and their management has most certainly felt the heat over all the money they spent that went right down the drain.
So that was summer at the box office. We are now into the early fall, which is typically a time when the box office slows right down, at least for a little while.
To me, though, it's a very good time of year to go to the movies because you have fewer of the "popcorn" type of movies and the rollout of more serious fare with more serious actors in them.
The big news in September was, of course, all the activities surrounding the Toronto International Film Festival. That event introduced to the North American public many of the flicks that are getting some attention and Oscar buzz this fall. A few interesting titles rolled out there that are now either in theatres or coming to them soon. I'll just run down some of the ones I found particularly intriguing:
Rush -- This is the Ron Howard-directed account of the dramatic 1976 Formula 1 season and the rivalry between race drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda. The film stars Chris Hemsworth as Hunt and Daniel Bruhl as Lauda, and is now in wide release.
Don Jon -- This one, which was shown earlier at the Sundance Film Festival, is directed by and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and based on what I gather about it, its story centres around a guy with a porn addiction who finds that more satisfying than real sex. Portraying some of the women in his life are Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore. It's in wide release now.
Gravity -- From director Alfonso Cuaron, this stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock and revolves around a space shuttle mission in which satellite debris crashes into the spaceship and leaves them stranded in space. Its release date is October 4.
The Fifth Estate -- This opened the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 5. The controversial story about the news-leaking website WikiLeaks stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange. It is due out in wide release Oct. 18.
Our Man in Tehran -- This documentary follows on the heels of last year's Oscar-winning Argo, about the hostage crisis in Iran. Instead of that fictional account of how six US diplomats were smuggled out of Iran to freedom, this movie focuses on the true story of Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor and what really happened. It opened September 20 in limited release, so it might be a little hard to find around here, at least for now.
That is just a few of the many titles from TIFF that should pique the interest of moviegoers.
In addition to those, some family oriented titles are coming out this month. One worth mentioning is the CGI animated effort Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.
I mention it only because I did a story earlier this year on Dave Blais, who grew up in the Battlefords and ended up working as an animator on the movie Escape to Planet Earth. It was during my interview with Blais that he mentioned he was working on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.
That much-anticipated feature rolled out in wide release on Sept. 27 and is playing at the Capitol in North Battleford, so be sure to look out for that.
That's just a small sample of what is out there in the cinemas now and in the coming weeks. When we get to November we should be back to seeing more blockbusters including The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
It's safe to say that even though summer is over, the forecast is far from cloudy when it comes to the number of worthwhile motion pictures coming at cinemas this fall.
