By the time you read this, New Moon, the latest film based on Stephenie Myer’s dreadfully morose Twilight saga, will have officially scratched and clawed its way to the third highest spot in the all-time weekend box-office debuts (early Sunday night estimates put New Moon’s take at $140 million, which places it right at the heels of Spider-Man 3′s $151.1 million and Dark Knight’s $158.4 million). On its way to almost breaking the three-day record, two others were decimated. The film’s opening at midnight earned an estimated $26.3 million, surpassing former reigning king Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’s $22.2 million, and Friday totals hit $72.7 million, once again besting the Dark Knight, which raked in $67 million over one year ago.
Non-summer releases aren’t supposed to make this much money, right? Late last year, Warner Bros. Pictures, fearful of not wringing every possible box office dollar from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, delayed the basically-finished film until summer of the following year. Regarding the decision, Warner Bros. President and Chief Operating Officer Alan Horn said “Our reasons for shifting ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to summer are twofold: we know the summer season is an ideal window for a family tent pole release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter film, which is the second-highest grossing film in the franchise, behind only the first installment.” Their “for the summer for the family” reasoning makes sense…until decades worth of box office data are also considered. With the exception of Titanic, the highest grossing films domestically all received late-spring to mid-summer releases. Okay. Sure. If you want to maximize domestic revenue, you release in that time frame. But the Harry Potter films don’t hold any kind of a presence in the all-time domestic top ten records. The film adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s books make far more money worldwide, and, as of writing, even hold three of the top ten worldwide box office records (Sorcerer’s Stone at fifth with $974 million, Order of the Pheonix at seven with $938 million, and Half-Blood Prince at eight with $929.9 million). Also, four out of the ten highest-grossing films worldwide debuted during the fall, two of which are number one and two (Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). Warner Bros. didn’t switch the release from fall to summer to make sure all families find the time to see the latest Potter entry, the company made the move to create another Dark Knight. Warner Bros. failed, but laughing at them here is like laughing at Bill Gates in the 90s for not quite having enough money to buy the moon.
Twilight’s record-breaking presence at the box office isn’t a fall fluke. And its seating amongst the highly-publicized commercially elite isn’t due to some forgotten demographic suddenly appearing out of the woodwork. Tween females, the consumer group most closely associated with the series, helped drive films like High School Musical (1, 2, and 3), Hannah Montana, and even Transformers 2 to massive financial success. Twenty and thirty-something women like Twighlight, so do moms, and, to my constant surprise, guys of all ages (in legions they gather on message boards. Some even have beards!). At a Saturday afternoon showing in Minneapolis’s Block E theater, all of the aforementioned made some kind of an appearance.
Before we arrived, I joked with my girlfriend that I should hang my head low, sulk, and drag my feet as if attending this movie will rid me of some unrecoverable manhood. I wasn’t attempting to hide some pre-existing shame with light commentary on the presumed behavior of males attending, I was making fun of them. And, in a way, I pitied them. I possessed enough creativity and positive energy to turn an unfortunate situation into one much more fruitful. Seeing this film meant I could comment on it afterwards! These poor saps had nothing. I fear if given the opportunity to instead get their nose hairs plucked out by a drunken Irish barber with bad breath they would’ve immediately switched.
We arrived early to the showing. With 30 minutes to spare until 10-20 minutes of trailers already available online flooded our senses, I relished observing attendees make their way to the shockingly comfortable burgundy-colored theater seats. We sat in the center of the front row of elevated seating (our favorite spot). To our left, two women in their early 30s, one in her 40s, and a guy who looked like Washout from Hot Shots, but decked out head to toe in pseudo-trendy dirty denim, shared popcorn and noisily discussed things too uninteresting for me to care. A quiet couple our age, mid-20s, sat behind us. They didn’t say much, but I wanted to say something to them after my seat received two kicks to its backside. Before my dwelling on the knocks reached dangerous levels, three Indian men in their late 20s walked in front and made their way to the seats to my right. They were alone, and looked strangely indifferent to the worldwide media event. I wanted to strike up a conversation and find their reason/s for attending, but they looked serious. Not once during the pre-trailer time did they speak to each other. I know. I was creepily watching.
At one point, a teenager walked in with two other girls. His head hung low, he shuffled his feet a bit, and awkwardly kept his hands in his jean pockets. He didn’t want to be there. I, of course, immediately pointed him out to my girlfriend and we shared a delightful laugh.
As time dragged on, the seats started to fill with moms and daughters, various groups of women of all ages, but nothing that would qualify as “elderly,” and more than a couple of middle-aged men flying solo. I couldn’t tell if any “Twi-hards” were in attendance other than one twenty-something girl in a gaudy strapless number, and even her legitimacy is in question with the theater’s proximity to bars, clubs, and other social uh…hangouts. In retrospect, I should’ve aimed some derogatory remark at Edward Cullen to pinpoint the card-carrying members. But it’s probably better I didn’t. The movie sucked, and dealing with an awkward situation would’ve made the experience exponentially less desirable.
New Moon’s bad. Transformers 2 bad, in fact. Like the original Twilight, the connection between Bella and Edward is never established – leading me to believe their “love” is best categorized as intense pubescent infatuation. It’s surprising, considering their “love” is the film’s foundation and driving factor. When separated, Bella falls apart and proves she’s even more boring and uninteresting without her pasty white friend. For reasons unknown, wolf dude Jacob, a.k.a. Beefcake McManliness finds this attractive and incessantly beams his pearly whites in her direction at every possible occasion. Months pass by, and Miss mopey uses Beefcake to rebuild some motorcycles, Beefcake gets mad when he finds out the truth, and, as you can probably guess if you’ve seen the trailers, hilarity ensues, unintentionally, of course. “Yows,” whistles, and swoons filled the theater as often as laughter during Beefcake’s appearances. Part of it’s due to actor Taylor Lautner’s poor delivery, and the rest is from bad direction. When Bella’s head starts to bleed after knocking it against the rock, the director takes the camera low and shows an overeager Taylor removing his shirt like a Chippendale showman. In another scene, Taylor bounces from Bella’s house, a nearby tree, and back to the house again, lifts himself up and into her window. Immediately, the camera zooms in on Taylor’s face and he nonchalantly says “hey” while cocking his head up. I expected the following scene to feature any number of beer bongs and cans smashing into heads, but alas. Maybe in the eventual sideproject “Beefcake Beats College” or “Wolfboy Gone Wild.” For fear of dangly parts, I’ll hope for the former.
I often hear from male and female Twi-hard friends of the series’ miscategorization as intended literature and film for young teenage women. With both films now behind me, I feel the categorization’s perfect, at least for one medium. Bella’s a flawed, uninteresting character with almost no redeeming qualities. She’s a self-made outcast, a poor friend, even a Debbie Downer at times, and without any motivation to pick up a hobby (at one point she starts scrapbooking, but does so reluctantly to please her mother). She’s easy to relate to because she represents how we regard ourselves at our lowest and most depressed. Edward’s the fairy tale shining beacon that says it’s “ok” to be who you are, and will love you no matter what…only Edward loves Bella because she smells good and her mind can’t be read. But these details don’t matter to the stereotypical teen audience. They see “star-crossed lovers,” vampires with heavy access to white makeup and custom contacts, Beefcake’s abs, and, most importantly, themselves dramatically caught in the midst of all the nonsense. The poor acting, dialog, and general film execution, coupled with the film’s already record-breaking success, give me great cause for concern of Hollywood’s future and the role it plays in the minds of moviegoers everywhere. In spirit, this is fall’s Transformers 2.
