Halloween is not a big moviegoing day--not a problem if the holiday is during the week, but it can be a big issue if it falls on Friday or Saturday. Meanwhile, since the mid-90s, the first weekend of November has been the kickoff of the holiday movie season--but that doesn't necessary mean audiences are eager to see the first offerings.
One Year Ago--November 2, 2018: Given that, of the top four movies of the prior weekend, two of them were released the first weekend of October and the other two had the word "Halloween" in their titles, it's not surprising that November audiences embraced the new, as the top three slots went to freshly opened films. Of course, moviegoers didn't embrace the newcomers equally. Leading the pack was the long-gestating Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. Originally, Sacha Baron Cohen was set for the lead role of Freddie Mercury, but when he left, he was replaced with Rami Malek, who was primarily known for his TV work and had never carried a major motion picture before. Even more troubling was the disappearance of directer Bryan Singer off the set for several days, which resulted in his firing and replacement with Dexter Fletcher (Singer retained solo directing credit). Critics were decidedly mixed on the project, complaining it was largely a by-the-numbers biopic that also effectively whitewashed Mercury's bisexuality. But even the critics who weren't fond of the film mostly conceded that Malek was fantastic as Mercury, and that the recreation of Queen's 1985 Live Aid performance during the finale was incredible. Audiences didn't have any such reservations, as the film opened to an impressive $51.1 million. Even more impressive, it would prove to have some of the best legs of 2018, ultimately grossing $216.4 million, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2018 that was neither a franchise cog nor a remake. Despite the mixed reviews, it ended up with five Oscar nominations, including Picture, which would be the only award it was nominated for it wouldn't win, as it took three technical categories, and Malek won Best Actor. One of the dirty little secrets of Disney's recent rise to entertainment dominance is that, for all of their box office-smashing prowess, they can't break out of their wheelhouses. They can (and do) do extremely well with Marvel, Star Wars, animation, and live-action (or "live-action") animated remakes, but every other type of movie they've released over the last nearly five years has ranged from a mild disappointment to an epic disaster. Falling on the "disaster" side of the ledger is The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, an overproduced attempt to turn Tchaikovsky's ballet into an epic fantasy a la Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia (the first film of which was a huge success for Disney over a decade prior). Mackenzie Foy played the heroine, Clara, who finds herself in a magical world on Christmas Eve, thanks to her godfather (Morgan Freeman). Various characters from the ballet appear, including the Sugar Plum Fairy (Kiera Knightly), and while there is some dancing (mostly from renowned ballet dancer Misty Copeland), it is considerably de-emphasized in favor of on-screen spectacle. Critics admired the sets and costumes but didn't much like anything else, and audiences, also found the whole thing bizarre, as it opened to $20.4 million and burned out well before Christmas, finishing its run with $54.9 million, which was roughly half of its production budget, and the lowest grossing Disney release of the year. It's usually not too difficult to spot a Tyler Perry movie. For one thing, his name is all over the film. For another, its usually released by Lionsgate. For a third, it's rated PG-13. It also usually stars Perry himself (typically in old woman drag) or a moderately known African-American actress. It's also a bizarre, disjointed blend of broad comedy and earnest melodrama. You would be forgiven for not realizing that Nobody's Fool was directed by Perry. His name is not on the title, it was released by Paramount, it was rated R, and it starred Tiffany Haddish at peak Haddish. What it did keep was the blend of comedy and melodrama. Haddish played a recent parolee who moves in with her sister (Tika Sumpter), who is in an online relationship with a guy she's never met in person. Haddish becomes convinced her sister is being catfished, and attempts to uncover the truth. Another thing consistent with previous Perry films was the critical response. They hated the film, and audiences, who again might not have even realized it was a Tyler Perry film, largely stayed away. Nobody's Fool ended up being one of Perry's lowest-grossing films, as it opened to $13.7 million and ended at $31.7 million. In limited release, Boy Erased, the second movie of the year about the horrors of gay conversion therapy, the second movie of the year with the word "Boy" in the title about the fraught relationship between a teenage boy and his parent starring an Oscar-nominated actor who was in Lady Bird, and the first film of the year starring Lucas Hedges as a troubled teen opened to roughly the same reviews that The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Beautiful Boy had already opened to, and Ben is Back would open to in December--decent, but nothing overwhelming. It would also end up with the same number of Oscar nominations that the other three would receive: zero. The drama, starring Hedges as a gay preacher's kid sent to the camp by his parents (Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman) would end up the second-highest-grossing of the quartet, making $6.8 million.
Five Years Ago--October 31, 2014: With Halloween falling on Friday night, the big studios took the weekend off, with the only wide releases being two smaller indie studio films and a re-release from the biggest of the indies. Appropriate for the season, the horror flick Ouija repeated at #1, but it was just barely able to hold off the bigger-than-expected debut of Nightcrawler, which scored $10.4 million that weekend, possibly because of the strong reviews, possibly because the title sounds horror-ish, possibly because some audience members thought it was a solo X-Men film. Jake Gyllenhaal played an unethical freelance "journalist" (using that term extremely loosely), who prowls LA to be the first to film violent car crashes and then sell the footage to local TV stations. Rene Russo, who is seen all too rarely these days, played the news director at a station who happily buys his footage, and Bill Paxton played another freelancer. While Nightcrawler wasn't a major hit, it did ultimately make a profitable $32.4 million, and also scored an Oscar nomination for Original Screenplay. Finishing all the way down in #15, despite boasting the star power of Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, was Before I Go to Sleep. Critics were very negative toward this thriller, in which Kidman played a woman suffering from anterograde amnesia, unable to remember anything that has happened in nearly 20 years. Firth plays her husband, who has to reintroduce himself to her every morning, and Mark Strong played her doctor. Of course, Things Are Not As They Seem. Critics compared it negatively to the similar Memento, and audiences, sensing there had to be a reason as to why a film starring Kidman and Firth was being dumped on Halloween, stayed away. Before I Go to Sleep opened to $1.8 million and would finish its short run with $3.2 million. Still, Sleep was a blockbuster compared to the ill-advised decision to re-release Saw for its tenth anniversary. Perhaps two or three Fathom-style screenings in the week leading up to Halloween might have brought in an audience, but a five-shows-a-day screening schedule for a not-that-fondly remembered movie that had been available for home viewing for roughly 9 1/2 years by that point proved totally unwarranted, especially since it didn't even open until Halloween day, meaning there were a lot of empty auditoriums in theaters around the country from Saturday onward. Despite playing in over 2,000 theaters, Saw managed to pull in just $0.7 million. The engagement had been advertised as lasting only one week, and theaters around the country were happy to let the film go that Thursday, as the re-release met its grisly end with just $0.8 million total.
Ten Years Ago--October 30, 2009: Michael Jackson's sudden death in June of 2009 sent shockwaves throughout the country and the world. A lot of that shock was felt in London, where Jackson had been scheduled to perform a series of concerts through the second half of the year and into 2010. He had been hard at work rehearsing for the shows in LA, which were only a couple of weeks away from starting at the time of his death. Many of those rehearsals had been recorded, and in the wake of his passing, that footage was edited together into This Is It. What, had Jackson been able to perform the concerts, would have been a nice bonus feature on the eventual DVD release, instead serves as a testament to how spectacular the concerts were likely to have been. Arranged roughly song by song, the footage showcases Jackson and his backup dancers from a variety of times during the rehearsal process, from early on, when everyone is in street clothes, to near dress rehearsals in some of the final footage shot. Critics mostly raved, though the ones that didn't were of the opinion that it was a ghoulish cash grab. Sony took advantage of a very quiet Halloween weekend to release the film, which was originally advertised as a limited, 2-week event. This is It would open in #1 to $23.2 million, even with Halloween falling on Saturday, which convinced the studio to give the film an open-ended run. It would dance off the stage with $72.1 million. Opening in limited release was The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. A sequel to the 1999 cult hit about vigilante brothers who think they're on a mission from God, one that involves a lot of dead mobsters and no saved orphanages, this one brings back Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery as the homicidal brothers, who have to return to Boston to clear their names after being framed for murdering a priest. Critics were harsh to the film, while the first film's cult didn't really come out in large numbers for this one, as Saints II finished with $10.3 million.
Fifteen Years Ago--October 29, 2004: The Grudge would repeat at #1 for Halloween weekend, but with the holiday falling on Sunday, usually the least busy day of the weekend, two new movies went out, both with one word, three-letter titles, only one of them a horror film. And, while The Grudge would gross more than either of the two newcomers, both of them would have a bigger longterm impact. Opening in second was the non-horror movie, a critically acclaimed biopic of a legendary singer/piano player. While, by 2004, most people knew the then recently deceased Ray Charles was blind, sang "Georgia on My Mind", and had done ads for Diet Pepsi, they didn't know much about his earlier life. Ray proved to be a warts-and-all look at Charles during the early days of his career, including his womanizing and his heroin addiction. Between the summer thriller Collateral and this, Jamie Foxx, who portrayed Charles and preformed the singing and piano playing, found himself the toast of Hollywood, and he swept many of the pre-Oscar acting awards. The film also starred Kerry Washington as Charles's second wife and Regina King as Charles's lead backup singer and longterm mistress. Ray would be nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Taylor Hackford, and would win two, including Best Actor for Foxx. It would also come close to knocking off The Grudge, taking in $20 million in its opening weekend, and earning $75.3 million by the final verse. Possibly even more impressive than the performance of Ray was the performance of Saw. The low-budgeted horror film, starring two strangers, a doctor (Cary Elwes) and a photographer trapped in a disgusting bathroom (that's the size of a hotel room) with a corpse and audio tapes instructing them on what gruesome things they'll be forced to do in order to escape. Danny Glover has a supporting role as an obsessed cop. Marking the directorial debut of James Wan, Saw got mostly negative reviews, but proved to be an unexpected smash, opening to $18.3 million and going onto gross $55.2 million. It would also launch a tradition of a new Saw movie every Halloween until 2011. Since then, there was the unsuccessful 10-year anniversary re-release mentioned above, another attempt to reboot the franchise in 2017, and coming next year will be yet another reboot, this one starring Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson. Opening in semi-wide release outside the Top 10 was Birth, a drama starring Nicole Kidman as a widow who, shortly before her second marriage, meets a young boy who claims to be the reincarnation of her first late husband. The film proved controversial because of some rather intimate scenes between Kidman and pre-teen actor Cameron Bright, and critics were split down the middle on it. Audiences were more confused than anything, as the drama opened to $1.7 million and top out at $5.1 million.
Twenty Years Ago--October 29, 1999: Halloween weekend is a good time to release a horror movie, and the newcomer House on Haunted Hill took the top spot. Not to be confused with 1999's other haunted house movie, The Haunting, Haunted Hill, a remake of a 1959 Vincent Price movie, stars Geoffrey Rush (playing a character named Stephen Price), who invites several diverse people to spend the night in an old mental institution, promising a cool million for anyone who stays until morning. The guests include an all-star (for 1999) lineup of Famke Janssen, Peter Gallagher, Ali Larter, and Taye Diggs (who also starred in last week's #1 movie The Best Man). The studio promoted a giveaway in which one lucky moviegoer would win a million dollars him or herself. I don't know if it was the contest, the cast, or the fact it was a new horror movie for Halloween that brought in audiences, but it certainly wasn't the critics, who at best thought the film to be marginal. Haunted Hill opened to $16 million and would ultimately gross (in both senses) $40.9 million. Wes Craven's films are generally known for their violence, especially ones released over Halloween. But this Wes Craven film, instead contained violins, even though it was released over Halloween. Music of the Heart, Miramax's thank you to Craven for the Scream movies, was his only non-horror/thriller film he directed in his career. Meryl Streep starred in this inspirational true story as a violinist who starts a program to teach the instrument to students in impoverished schools in Harlem. Based on an Oscar-nominated documentary, critics weren't particularly impressed with the film, but Streep got her customary Best Actress nomination, and the film's title song was also nominated. Music of the Heart opened in fifth (behind The Best Man, Double Jeopardy, and American Beauty) to $3.7 million and would finish with a somewhat disappointing $14.9 million. Opening to high per-screen average in limited release was the bizarre but critically acclaimed comedy Being John Malkovich. John Cusack played a puppeteer who gets an office job, and there discovers a portal that allows anyone who enters to be able to access the head of actor John Malkovich (John Malkovich). Cameron Diaz glammed down to play Cusack's dowdy wife, while Catherine Keener would earn her first Oscar nomination as Cusack's co-worker whom he falls for. In addition to Keener, Charlie Kaufman would be nominated for Original Screenplay, and Spike Jonze, making his feature film directorial debut after a career of directing music and skateboarding videos, would get his first Directing nomination. Critics, of course, were near unanimous in their love for Malkovich (Malkovich Malkovich), and the film became a moderate commercial success, grossing a total of $22.9 million.
Twenty-Five Years Ago--November 4, 1994: 1994 was the first year that the first weekend in November was also the start of the holiday movie season, though given that the second weekend of Stargate topped the box office, they could have waited. Opening in second was the much-hyped Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a cousin of the Francis Ford Coppola-directed Bram Stoker's Dracula from two years prior (Coppola only produced this time around). The horror remake, which probably shouldn't have chosen to forsake Halloween audiences for the prestige of a November launch, starred Kenneth Branagh (who also directed) as the not-so-good Dr. Frankenstein, who decides to use the newly discovered powers of electricity to bring a creature (Robert De Niro, under miles of Oscar-nominated makeup) made of various body parts back to life. Naturally, Bad Things Happen. Helena Bonham Carter (who Branagh would leave wife Emma Thompson for) played Frankenstein's fiancee, and John Cleese played his mentor. Critics, who had largely praised Branagh's previous, much lower-budgeted efforts, mostly hated this, and audiences were repelled as well. It's $11.2 million opening was considered a massive disappointment, and the film earned such awful word of mouth that more than half the final total was earned in the first three days. Frankenstein went to its grave with only $22 million. Kevin Costner had suddenly found himself in a career slump after the back-to-back flops of A Perfect World and Wyatt Earp. His next film, The War, didn't do much to revive his fortunes. Costner took a supporting role in the 70s-set drama, as the Vietnam veteran father of Elijah Wood, who is engaged in his own war against the kids in another family over the ownership of a treehouse. Critics largely dismissed the film, while Costner's presence didn't sell many tickets. The War opened in third, to $5.2 million, and wave the white flag with $16.9 million in the bank. Opening outside the Top Ten was Double Dragon, perhaps the second feature film based on a video game (after the previous year's Super Mario Bros.). The actioner starred Mark Dacascos (who has Asian ancestry) and Scott Wolf (who is very, very white) as brothers keeping half of a magical medallion protected from crime lord Kogo Shuko (played by the very, very white Robert Patrick). The few critics who watched it largely hated it, and audiences mostly ignored the under-advertised film, as it opened to $1.4 million and hit Game Over at $2.3 million.
Thirty Years Ago--November 3, 1989: With the holiday movie season still two weeks ago, Look Who's Talking easily won the weekend for the fourth straight time, followed by The Bear, Shocker, and the expanding Crimes and Misdemeanors. The weekend's top opening was the comedy Second Sight, a vehicle for TV stars John Larroquette, who plays a private detective, and Bronson Pinchot, who plays a psychic Larroquette hires to help track a missing girl. Reviews were almost completely negative, and audiences acted as if they had a vision to avoid the film. It's too bad that Warner Bros. didn't get real psychics to tell them to not greenlight the movie, since they might have been able to foretell its $2.2 million opening and $5.4 million final. In 1994, I could understand Frankenstein opening after Halloween. I am quite flummoxed as to why, five years earlier, The Phantom of the Opera opened three days after the holiday. Quite possibly the only gory horror movie inspired by a Broadway musical (which would have its own misguided movie version 15 years later), this version of Gaston Leroux's public domain novel starred Robert Englund as a composer who sells his soul to the devil for fame and fortune, at the cost of his face. He becomes enchanted with young soprano Christine and is determined to make her a star, no matter how many people he has to brutally kill first. Boasting an odd, time-travel framing device, only Englund's most ardent fans turned out, as the film opened to $2.1 million and succumbed to the music of the night with $4 million.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--November 2, 1984: After sending five films out the weekend before, Hollywood took this weekend completely off, as no new films opened wide, nor did any films in limited release significantly expand for the first time. The Terminator repeated in the top spot, actually earning a bit more in its second weekend than it did in its first. Places in the Heart jumped back to second, and Body Double finished in third again. Falling to fourth was Terror in the Aisles, which, with Halloween past, lost nearly half its business from the weekend before, an almost unheard of drop in 1984. A Soldier's Story jumped back in the Top 10 into fifth thanks to a small expansion. Opening in limited release, where it would stay until just before the Oscar nomination announcement in February was The Killing Fields, about the takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge in the mid-70s, through the eyes of two journalists, an American (Sam Waterston) who is able to escape, and a Cambodian (Haing S. Ngor, who was himself a Cambodian refugee), who is trapped and sent to a concentration camp. Critics were near-unanimous in their praise for the film, and Hollywood followed suit, awarding the film 7 Oscar nominations, including Picture, Actor for Waterston, Director for Roland Joffe (making his first feature film, after a long career directing British television), and Adapted Screenplay, and winning 3, including Supporting Actor for Ngor. The acclaim helped the film become a commercial hit as well, as it would end up earning $34.7 million.
Five Years Ago--October 31, 2014: With Halloween falling on Friday night, the big studios took the weekend off, with the only wide releases being two smaller indie studio films and a re-release from the biggest of the indies. Appropriate for the season, the horror flick Ouija repeated at #1, but it was just barely able to hold off the bigger-than-expected debut of Nightcrawler, which scored $10.4 million that weekend, possibly because of the strong reviews, possibly because the title sounds horror-ish, possibly because some audience members thought it was a solo X-Men film. Jake Gyllenhaal played an unethical freelance "journalist" (using that term extremely loosely), who prowls LA to be the first to film violent car crashes and then sell the footage to local TV stations. Rene Russo, who is seen all too rarely these days, played the news director at a station who happily buys his footage, and Bill Paxton played another freelancer. While Nightcrawler wasn't a major hit, it did ultimately make a profitable $32.4 million, and also scored an Oscar nomination for Original Screenplay. Finishing all the way down in #15, despite boasting the star power of Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, was Before I Go to Sleep. Critics were very negative toward this thriller, in which Kidman played a woman suffering from anterograde amnesia, unable to remember anything that has happened in nearly 20 years. Firth plays her husband, who has to reintroduce himself to her every morning, and Mark Strong played her doctor. Of course, Things Are Not As They Seem. Critics compared it negatively to the similar Memento, and audiences, sensing there had to be a reason as to why a film starring Kidman and Firth was being dumped on Halloween, stayed away. Before I Go to Sleep opened to $1.8 million and would finish its short run with $3.2 million. Still, Sleep was a blockbuster compared to the ill-advised decision to re-release Saw for its tenth anniversary. Perhaps two or three Fathom-style screenings in the week leading up to Halloween might have brought in an audience, but a five-shows-a-day screening schedule for a not-that-fondly remembered movie that had been available for home viewing for roughly 9 1/2 years by that point proved totally unwarranted, especially since it didn't even open until Halloween day, meaning there were a lot of empty auditoriums in theaters around the country from Saturday onward. Despite playing in over 2,000 theaters, Saw managed to pull in just $0.7 million. The engagement had been advertised as lasting only one week, and theaters around the country were happy to let the film go that Thursday, as the re-release met its grisly end with just $0.8 million total.
Ten Years Ago--October 30, 2009: Michael Jackson's sudden death in June of 2009 sent shockwaves throughout the country and the world. A lot of that shock was felt in London, where Jackson had been scheduled to perform a series of concerts through the second half of the year and into 2010. He had been hard at work rehearsing for the shows in LA, which were only a couple of weeks away from starting at the time of his death. Many of those rehearsals had been recorded, and in the wake of his passing, that footage was edited together into This Is It. What, had Jackson been able to perform the concerts, would have been a nice bonus feature on the eventual DVD release, instead serves as a testament to how spectacular the concerts were likely to have been. Arranged roughly song by song, the footage showcases Jackson and his backup dancers from a variety of times during the rehearsal process, from early on, when everyone is in street clothes, to near dress rehearsals in some of the final footage shot. Critics mostly raved, though the ones that didn't were of the opinion that it was a ghoulish cash grab. Sony took advantage of a very quiet Halloween weekend to release the film, which was originally advertised as a limited, 2-week event. This is It would open in #1 to $23.2 million, even with Halloween falling on Saturday, which convinced the studio to give the film an open-ended run. It would dance off the stage with $72.1 million. Opening in limited release was The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. A sequel to the 1999 cult hit about vigilante brothers who think they're on a mission from God, one that involves a lot of dead mobsters and no saved orphanages, this one brings back Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery as the homicidal brothers, who have to return to Boston to clear their names after being framed for murdering a priest. Critics were harsh to the film, while the first film's cult didn't really come out in large numbers for this one, as Saints II finished with $10.3 million.
Fifteen Years Ago--October 29, 2004: The Grudge would repeat at #1 for Halloween weekend, but with the holiday falling on Sunday, usually the least busy day of the weekend, two new movies went out, both with one word, three-letter titles, only one of them a horror film. And, while The Grudge would gross more than either of the two newcomers, both of them would have a bigger longterm impact. Opening in second was the non-horror movie, a critically acclaimed biopic of a legendary singer/piano player. While, by 2004, most people knew the then recently deceased Ray Charles was blind, sang "Georgia on My Mind", and had done ads for Diet Pepsi, they didn't know much about his earlier life. Ray proved to be a warts-and-all look at Charles during the early days of his career, including his womanizing and his heroin addiction. Between the summer thriller Collateral and this, Jamie Foxx, who portrayed Charles and preformed the singing and piano playing, found himself the toast of Hollywood, and he swept many of the pre-Oscar acting awards. The film also starred Kerry Washington as Charles's second wife and Regina King as Charles's lead backup singer and longterm mistress. Ray would be nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Taylor Hackford, and would win two, including Best Actor for Foxx. It would also come close to knocking off The Grudge, taking in $20 million in its opening weekend, and earning $75.3 million by the final verse. Possibly even more impressive than the performance of Ray was the performance of Saw. The low-budgeted horror film, starring two strangers, a doctor (Cary Elwes) and a photographer trapped in a disgusting bathroom (that's the size of a hotel room) with a corpse and audio tapes instructing them on what gruesome things they'll be forced to do in order to escape. Danny Glover has a supporting role as an obsessed cop. Marking the directorial debut of James Wan, Saw got mostly negative reviews, but proved to be an unexpected smash, opening to $18.3 million and going onto gross $55.2 million. It would also launch a tradition of a new Saw movie every Halloween until 2011. Since then, there was the unsuccessful 10-year anniversary re-release mentioned above, another attempt to reboot the franchise in 2017, and coming next year will be yet another reboot, this one starring Chris Rock and Samuel L. Jackson. Opening in semi-wide release outside the Top 10 was Birth, a drama starring Nicole Kidman as a widow who, shortly before her second marriage, meets a young boy who claims to be the reincarnation of her first late husband. The film proved controversial because of some rather intimate scenes between Kidman and pre-teen actor Cameron Bright, and critics were split down the middle on it. Audiences were more confused than anything, as the drama opened to $1.7 million and top out at $5.1 million.
Twenty Years Ago--October 29, 1999: Halloween weekend is a good time to release a horror movie, and the newcomer House on Haunted Hill took the top spot. Not to be confused with 1999's other haunted house movie, The Haunting, Haunted Hill, a remake of a 1959 Vincent Price movie, stars Geoffrey Rush (playing a character named Stephen Price), who invites several diverse people to spend the night in an old mental institution, promising a cool million for anyone who stays until morning. The guests include an all-star (for 1999) lineup of Famke Janssen, Peter Gallagher, Ali Larter, and Taye Diggs (who also starred in last week's #1 movie The Best Man). The studio promoted a giveaway in which one lucky moviegoer would win a million dollars him or herself. I don't know if it was the contest, the cast, or the fact it was a new horror movie for Halloween that brought in audiences, but it certainly wasn't the critics, who at best thought the film to be marginal. Haunted Hill opened to $16 million and would ultimately gross (in both senses) $40.9 million. Wes Craven's films are generally known for their violence, especially ones released over Halloween. But this Wes Craven film, instead contained violins, even though it was released over Halloween. Music of the Heart, Miramax's thank you to Craven for the Scream movies, was his only non-horror/thriller film he directed in his career. Meryl Streep starred in this inspirational true story as a violinist who starts a program to teach the instrument to students in impoverished schools in Harlem. Based on an Oscar-nominated documentary, critics weren't particularly impressed with the film, but Streep got her customary Best Actress nomination, and the film's title song was also nominated. Music of the Heart opened in fifth (behind The Best Man, Double Jeopardy, and American Beauty) to $3.7 million and would finish with a somewhat disappointing $14.9 million. Opening to high per-screen average in limited release was the bizarre but critically acclaimed comedy Being John Malkovich. John Cusack played a puppeteer who gets an office job, and there discovers a portal that allows anyone who enters to be able to access the head of actor John Malkovich (John Malkovich). Cameron Diaz glammed down to play Cusack's dowdy wife, while Catherine Keener would earn her first Oscar nomination as Cusack's co-worker whom he falls for. In addition to Keener, Charlie Kaufman would be nominated for Original Screenplay, and Spike Jonze, making his feature film directorial debut after a career of directing music and skateboarding videos, would get his first Directing nomination. Critics, of course, were near unanimous in their love for Malkovich (Malkovich Malkovich), and the film became a moderate commercial success, grossing a total of $22.9 million.
Twenty-Five Years Ago--November 4, 1994: 1994 was the first year that the first weekend in November was also the start of the holiday movie season, though given that the second weekend of Stargate topped the box office, they could have waited. Opening in second was the much-hyped Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a cousin of the Francis Ford Coppola-directed Bram Stoker's Dracula from two years prior (Coppola only produced this time around). The horror remake, which probably shouldn't have chosen to forsake Halloween audiences for the prestige of a November launch, starred Kenneth Branagh (who also directed) as the not-so-good Dr. Frankenstein, who decides to use the newly discovered powers of electricity to bring a creature (Robert De Niro, under miles of Oscar-nominated makeup) made of various body parts back to life. Naturally, Bad Things Happen. Helena Bonham Carter (who Branagh would leave wife Emma Thompson for) played Frankenstein's fiancee, and John Cleese played his mentor. Critics, who had largely praised Branagh's previous, much lower-budgeted efforts, mostly hated this, and audiences were repelled as well. It's $11.2 million opening was considered a massive disappointment, and the film earned such awful word of mouth that more than half the final total was earned in the first three days. Frankenstein went to its grave with only $22 million. Kevin Costner had suddenly found himself in a career slump after the back-to-back flops of A Perfect World and Wyatt Earp. His next film, The War, didn't do much to revive his fortunes. Costner took a supporting role in the 70s-set drama, as the Vietnam veteran father of Elijah Wood, who is engaged in his own war against the kids in another family over the ownership of a treehouse. Critics largely dismissed the film, while Costner's presence didn't sell many tickets. The War opened in third, to $5.2 million, and wave the white flag with $16.9 million in the bank. Opening outside the Top Ten was Double Dragon, perhaps the second feature film based on a video game (after the previous year's Super Mario Bros.). The actioner starred Mark Dacascos (who has Asian ancestry) and Scott Wolf (who is very, very white) as brothers keeping half of a magical medallion protected from crime lord Kogo Shuko (played by the very, very white Robert Patrick). The few critics who watched it largely hated it, and audiences mostly ignored the under-advertised film, as it opened to $1.4 million and hit Game Over at $2.3 million.
Thirty Years Ago--November 3, 1989: With the holiday movie season still two weeks ago, Look Who's Talking easily won the weekend for the fourth straight time, followed by The Bear, Shocker, and the expanding Crimes and Misdemeanors. The weekend's top opening was the comedy Second Sight, a vehicle for TV stars John Larroquette, who plays a private detective, and Bronson Pinchot, who plays a psychic Larroquette hires to help track a missing girl. Reviews were almost completely negative, and audiences acted as if they had a vision to avoid the film. It's too bad that Warner Bros. didn't get real psychics to tell them to not greenlight the movie, since they might have been able to foretell its $2.2 million opening and $5.4 million final. In 1994, I could understand Frankenstein opening after Halloween. I am quite flummoxed as to why, five years earlier, The Phantom of the Opera opened three days after the holiday. Quite possibly the only gory horror movie inspired by a Broadway musical (which would have its own misguided movie version 15 years later), this version of Gaston Leroux's public domain novel starred Robert Englund as a composer who sells his soul to the devil for fame and fortune, at the cost of his face. He becomes enchanted with young soprano Christine and is determined to make her a star, no matter how many people he has to brutally kill first. Boasting an odd, time-travel framing device, only Englund's most ardent fans turned out, as the film opened to $2.1 million and succumbed to the music of the night with $4 million.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--November 2, 1984: After sending five films out the weekend before, Hollywood took this weekend completely off, as no new films opened wide, nor did any films in limited release significantly expand for the first time. The Terminator repeated in the top spot, actually earning a bit more in its second weekend than it did in its first. Places in the Heart jumped back to second, and Body Double finished in third again. Falling to fourth was Terror in the Aisles, which, with Halloween past, lost nearly half its business from the weekend before, an almost unheard of drop in 1984. A Soldier's Story jumped back in the Top 10 into fifth thanks to a small expansion. Opening in limited release, where it would stay until just before the Oscar nomination announcement in February was The Killing Fields, about the takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge in the mid-70s, through the eyes of two journalists, an American (Sam Waterston) who is able to escape, and a Cambodian (Haing S. Ngor, who was himself a Cambodian refugee), who is trapped and sent to a concentration camp. Critics were near-unanimous in their praise for the film, and Hollywood followed suit, awarding the film 7 Oscar nominations, including Picture, Actor for Waterston, Director for Roland Joffe (making his first feature film, after a long career directing British television), and Adapted Screenplay, and winning 3, including Supporting Actor for Ngor. The acclaim helped the film become a commercial hit as well, as it would end up earning $34.7 million.
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