Week Of November 6, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri

November 6, 2006

Why do journalists and industry pros keep flogging the same old STUPID idea that every time a unique film succeeds that it is the beginning of an industry changing trend???

In the years since the amazing success of Jackass: The Movie have we seen gonzo pseudo-docs taking over the industry? Oh course not.

On the negative tip, remember the insane overreaction to The Real Cancun? The sky is always falling around here!!!

Yes, we will probably see some performer, like Mike Myers or someone we haven't seen before, try a $10 million character comedy with a handheld camera soon. Maybe we'll see two… or even… THREE!

But I can promise you, none of them will be the funniest movie of the decade, as so many of us feel Borat is.

And let's not forget the "end" of this genre, back when Mike Myers' deal for Deiter died an ugly, public death and led to his painful performance in The Cat In The Hat.

People will go to the movies and pay for expensive tickets to see The Blair Witch Project or Fahrenheit 9/11 or My Big Fat Greek Wedding or Borat because they really, really want to see the films. But none of them have changed the dynamic… except to distract studio execs, especially in distribution, who think the phenom can be recreated, putting more pressure on filmmakers to deliver what is impossible to recreate.

What we see when these events take place are numbers that simply cannot be reproduced, at least not anytime soon. It is the same as Titanic, which a decade later is still the #1 film in the world by $700 million. There are only 22 other films that have ever grossed $700 million worldwide… and that is the distance Titanic has on all of the rest. Hell, there are still only two others films that have cracked $1 billion (Rings III and Pirates II).

Look back at Fahrenheit 9/11. Aside from March of the Penguins, which was sold as a family film and not as a straight doc, the next highest grossing doc of all time is An Inconvenient Truth… which did less than one-fifth of F9/11's gross. And AIC was just an incremental jump from the previous record-holder, Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine.

There are still only seven docs in history to crack $10 million. Four of them are mentioned above. (The rest are Madonna: Truth or Dare, Winged Migration, and Super Size Me.) But that $10 million mark is really where the doc high mark is. You can always run into a phenom, but you can't plan on it. $3 million continues to be a mark of box office excellence for docs. And with 27 films cracking that mark, it is possible and wonderful. But unless you have something else going on (McDonald's, Madonna, Moore), it would be unreasonable to expect more than that for any doc.

Likewise the "mockumentary." The previous high was $18 million for Best In Show. Chris Guest has been "the Michael Moore" of the genre. The March of the Penguins in the perceived genre is Jackass and Jackass Number Two, which pushed to $64 million and $73 million, but really aren't doc mocks in any way. It is cheap, pre-sold on TV youth rebellion genre stuff. But before you jump on that trend, you better look at the many TV ideas MTV eats through each year and the mediocre grossed for The Dukes of Hazzard.

There are those who will argue that TV conversions are now going to be hot. But there is no real indication of that paradigm being in play. Most TV conversions are long after the series died and really just take the idea of the show, building something quite different. Bean is really the highest domestic grosser that fits Borat's model and that film did only $45 million here… which was excellent, really. Serenity, a film version of cancelled cult show, Firefly, did $26 million last year, which is probably where a culty show conversion can reasonable aim. (Most will fall short even of that low number.)

Of course, we are well into the era of people being able to make their own movies at home. You definitely see it at Sundance and other festivals. Submissions have gone through the roof. But quality has not. Nor has success. Love Little Miss Sunshine, but it is a film made by highly skilled commercial directors, produced by high-end indie producers, and essentially, an inexpensive quality comedy for adults that was sold brilliantly. It's not some movie that a guy got inspired about and shot with a $4000 camera with his credit cards. Quinceanera closer to that… and did $1.7 million for Sony Classics.

The only industry lesson of Borat is to have a great movie and be flexible in your thinking when you hit walls. If this was a movie that Fox didn't believe in heart & soul, it would have been dumped into 2000 theaters without much thought. But they did believe. And however many missteps, they kept fighting. And that is the lesson that can make everyone a little better.

E Me.

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