I wasn't meaning to send this column into hiatus, but as it turns out, watching three Christmas specials a week and then writing about them takes up more time than I remembered. So we're going to play catch-up, with the first two weeks of December in this one, and the last two in the next one this weekend. Then, knock on wood, we'll get back onto a regular schedule the first week of 2020.
One Year Ago--December 7, 2018: Despite being two weeks since Thanksgiving, Hollywood took this weekend completely off, allowing Ralph Breaks the Internet to threepeat, just barely holding off The Grinch. Indeed, the entire Top 6 was exactly the same as last week. The only wide release was a re-release, for the 25th anniversary of Schindler's List. Steven Spielberg's wrenching Holocaust drama is a masterpiece and a modern classic, but that didn't mean audiences were eager, in the middle of the holiday season, to go see a three-hour black & white film about arguably the worst atrocity of the 20th century, a film that has been readily available for home viewing for over two decades. The re-release would take in only $0.6 million, despite playing in over 1,000 theaters, usually three shows a day. By comparison, Fathom's screening of White Christmas, i.e. a movie people did want to see during the holidays, made almost the exact same amount, despite playing in almost half the number of theaters and only having two screenings all weekend, both Sunday afternoon. Universal would pull Schindler's at the end of its one-week run, as the film ended with just $0.8 from this re-release, making it 2018's lowest-grossing wide release. Opening in limited release was Mary, Queen of Scots, the latest dramatization of the war of wills between cousins Mary Stuart (2017 Best Actress nominee Saoirse Ronan) and Elizabeth I (2017 Best Actress nominee Margot Robie). A period costume drama about royalty starring two recent Oscar nominees released in December is clearly greenlit to rake in the Oscar nominations, but Mary's reviews were decidedly mixed, and it would end up getting just two nods, for Makeup and for Costumes. At the box office, it was a decent arthouse hit, grossing $16.5 million during its run.
December 14, 2018: With no major wide releases since Thanksgiving, the box office was ready for new blood, and it got it with four wide releases this weekend. Leading the pack was the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales gets bitten by a radioactive spider and suddenly finds he has the same powers as Spider-Man. After a tragedy, however, he is joined by various Spider-people from other alternative universes, who help Miles grow into his powers and try to bring down the Kingpin. Critics raved, but audiences, who had turned out in droves opening weekend for all the live-action Spider-Man movies, had a surprisingly muted response to the comic character's return to animation, opening to $35.4 million, easily enough for #1, but nearly $30 million behind the first weekend of The Amazing Spider-Man, which had been the worst numbers for a Spider-Man movie's opening weekend, and that film had opened on Tuesday, so by that Friday, it had already been out for three days. Spider-Verse would end up having excellent legs, as it played strongly into February, but was unable to overcome its opening, finishing with $190.2 million, below the franchise-suspending-and-rebooting final total of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Spidey compensated on the awards front, as it won the Oscar for Animated Feature. Opening better than expected in second was The Mule. Clint Eastwood, who (of course) also directed, came out of acting retirement to play a 90-year-old in need of extra money, so he agrees to become a drug mule for a Mexican cartel. Eastwood recruited a fine supporting cast (including Bradley Cooper, Diane Wiest, and Andy Garcia), but critics found the whole thing ridiculous (and said ridiculousness would be the subject of a Pete Davidson and Spider-Verse co-star John Mulaney Weekend Update desk piece on Saturday Night Live). It opened to an OK $17.5 million, but would also develop impressive legs, eventually grossing $103.8 million, which surprisingly enough is only his sixth $100 million grosser in his long career. After The Grinch and Ralph Breaks the Internet in third and fourth, comes arguably the biggest flop of December, Mortal Engines. Based on a novel, the film takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where entire cities drive around on wheels, consuming smaller cities for their resources. Despite being co-written and produced by Peter Jackson, critics and audiences found the premise even more ridiculous than The Mule's, and it would open to $7.6 million. Not even the usual strong holiday legs many December movies develop was able to save it, as it ended its run with only $16 million. Outside the Top 10 was one of the odder releases of the season, Once Upon a Deadpool. This was a more family-friendly recut of the rather hard-R Deadpool 2, that was able to get a PG-13 rating. The whole thing was bookended by a new framing device that had Deadpool reading the story of the movie to a kidnapped Fred Savage, playing himself. The few critics who did see the recut version wondered exactly what the point was, especially since the original theatrical version was by that point widely available for home viewing. The new cut of Deadpool actually opened on Wednesday in second, but plunged dramatically over the next few days so by the end of the weekend, the recut had only taken in $2.7 million. It would ultimately gross just $6.1 million, possibly closing the door on PG-13 recuts of R-rated movies. Opening in limited release was If Beale Street Could Talk, a drama from Moonlight director Barry Jenkins, based on the novel by James Baldwin. The critically acclaimed drama, about a pregnant woman who is trying to free her boyfriend from custody before she gives birth, would receive three Oscar nominations, including for Screenplay, and Regina King would win the award for Supporting Actress. Despite this, Beale Street was not a huge success at the box office, topping out at $14.9 million.
Five Years Ago--December 5, 2014: The first weekend of December is, as usual, very slow. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 plunged over 60% from Thanksgiving weekend and still easily finished #1 ahead of Penguins of Madagascar. Horrible Bosses 2 jumped to third, mostly because it didn't plunge as badly as the month-old Big Hero 6 and Interstellar. Staying steady at 6-8 were Dumb and Dumber To, The Theory of Everything, and Gone Girl. No movie went wide, but The Pyramid opened semi-wide and landed in 9th. The horror flick, about a group of archaeologists who explore an ancient pyramid and awaken something evil within, was largely trashed by the critics who did see it, and ignored by audiences. The film opened at $1.4 million and only earned $2.8 million during its short run. Outside the Top 10, the drama Wild opened well in limited release. Reese Witherspoon, who had spent the 9 years since her Oscar for Walk the Line mostly making forgettable flops, had a bit of a comeback in this film based on a true story as a woman who tries to shake off the demons of a divorce, a drug addiction, and her mother's death by spending several months hiking the Pacific coast. Witherspoon would get an Oscar nomination, as would Laura Dern for her supporting work as Witherspoon's mother. Wild would make a very sold $37.9 million.
December 12, 2014: Director Ridley Scott has directed some great films (Alien, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator), but has also directed some truly baffling films (Legend, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, The Counselor). Put Exodus: Gods and Kings into the latter camp. Essentially a remake of The Ten Commandments with nearly as white of a cast, this retelling of the second book of the Bible casts Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Ramses. The film was greeted with protests because of the extremely white casting (while Middle Eastern actors played some minor roles, Ben Kingsley was the only top-of-the-line actor who was anything less than a whiter shade of pale). After the weirdness of Darren Aronofsky's Noah earlier that year, audiences weren't willing to rush out to see another Biblical epic, especially one that got decidedly mixed reviews. Exodus easily opened at #1, but its $24.1 million opening was deemed disappointing, and the film burned out quickly, exodusing theaters with only $65 million. Three-week champ The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 fell to second, with Penguins of Madagascar in third. Opening in fourth was Top Five, a comedy written, directed, and starring Chris Rock as a comic actor trying to get a more serious film off the ground and Rosario Dawson as the reporter spending the day with him. Filled with cameos from some of Rock's famous friends, the film got mostly raves. It opened to $6.9 million and would have a decent run, finishing with $25.3 million. Opening in limited release was Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson's adaption of Thomas Pynchon's comic novel about a drugged-out detective (Joaquin Phoenix) in 1970s LA trying to track down his missing ex-girlfriend while also working several other cases that all turn out to be intertwined. Anderson, as usual, got a top-of-the-line cast, including Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro, and Reese Witherspoon, and the film largely got raves. However, that didn't translate into Oscar nominations (the film only got two of them, for Costumes and Adapted Screenplay), nor much box office, as the film ended its run with $8.1 million.
Ten Years Ago--December 4, 2009: After two weeks in the runner-up spot, The Blind Side finally moved to #1, passing The Twilight Saga: New Moon, which fell to second. Opening in third was failed Oscar bait drama Brothers. Based on a acclaimed Dutch film, the movie starred Tobey Maguire as a soldier who gets captured in Afghanistan, though his family is informed that he was killed. During his absence, his wife (Natalie Portman) and his brother (Jake Gyllanhaal) grow closer. When Maguire returns, with severe PTSD, the three have to figure out how to cope with everything that happened. With the cast and direction by Jim Sheridan, Brothers was expected to be an Oscar player, but reviews were largely mediocre, and the film was completely shut out. Audiences didn't like it any better, as it opened to $9.5 million and would wrap its run up with $28.5 million. Finishing 4th through 6th were A Christmas Carol, Old Dogs, and 2012, all ahead of the opening of heist film Armored. Columbus Short played a guard with an armored truck company who agrees to help participate in a robbery of one of the company's trucks. As always in films like this, things don't go according to plan. Despite a good cast, including Matt Dillon, Jean Reno, and Laurence Fishburne as fellow thieves, critics mostly found the film generic. The film opened to $6.5 million and would end with just $16 million, considerably less than the amount the thieves were trying to steal. Ninja Assassin and Planet 51 finished ahead of the next newcomer, the melodrama Everybody's Fine. In this remake of a 1990 Italian film, Robert De Niro plays a recently widowed father who feels disconnected from his grown kids (Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell) and decides to pay them all spontaneous visits, only to (eventually) discover they're all hiding big secrets from him. Despite a strong cast, critics disliked the film, and audiences ignored it, as it opened to $3.9 million and finished with a not-fine $9.2 million. That's still at least better than the week's other wide release, Transylmania. A boob-filled sex comedy about a bunch of stupid college kids who head to Romania for a semester abroad intending to party the entire time, only to encounter actual vampires. This would have been more at home on the drive-in circuit in the late 70s and early 80s, instead of somehow opening in over a thousand theaters 30 years later. The handful of critics who saw it were largely horrified, and pretty much no one went to see it, as it opened to $0.3 million and got staked with $0.4 million, making it by far the lowest-grossing wide release of 2009. It was handily beaten by the opening weekend of Up in the Air, despite that film playing in just 15 theaters. George Clooney starred in this drama about a man who flies all over the country to lay people off, who is far more comfortable being on the road than settled down any one place. When a new hire at his company (Anna Kendrick) proposes a system allowing the team to fire people remotely, he takes her on the road to teach her the business and show her why face-to-face encounters is better. Vera Farmiga plays a fellow road warrior who Clooney, much to his annoyance, starts developing feelings for. The Jason Reitman-directed dramady received sparkling reviews and got 6 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Clooney, and Best Supporting Actress for both Farmiga and Kendrick. It also proved to be a solid hit, grossing $83.8 million.
December 11, 2009: The Princess and the Frog finally went wide, and easily finished #1 with $24.2 million. However, that was only about four million more than what The Blind Side, in its third wide weekend, had made the weekend before, signaling that Princess was going to be an under-performer. Blind Side came in second, ahead of the weekend's biggest brand-new film, and other than Princess, only wide release: Invictus. The Clint Eastwood-directed drama starred Morgan Freeman as South African president Nelson Mandela, who believed that the country's national rugby team winning the World Cup in their home stadium would unite the shattered country. Matt Damon played the rugby team's captain. Reviews were generally positive, but the film was somewhat of a disappointment, opening to $8.6 million and finishing its run with $37.5 million. Invictus did score two major Oscar nominations, though, with Freeman being nominated for Best Actor and Damon for Supporting Actor. Two other Oscar nominees opened in limited release. The drama A Single Man starred Colin Firth as a closeted gay college professor in the 1960s who is mourning the recent death of his partner and has decided to commit suicide. Julianne Moore played his best friend, while Nicolas Hoult played a student who has developed an interest in Firth. Reviews for the drama were very good, and Firth would end up with a Best Actor Oscar nomination for the film. However, while it did well in art houses, it did only marginal business after going semi-wide in January, and topped out at $9.2 million. On paper, the hotly anticipated The Lovely Bones looked like a surefire Oscar contender. Based on the beloved bestselling novel, starring Oscar winners Rachel Weisz and Susan Sarandon and nominees Saoirse Ronan and Mark Wahlberg, and directed by Peter Jackson, this was expected to be a smash, despite being about the murder of a teenage girl (Ronan) and the aftermath, as she watches over her grieving family as they try to prove their very guilty neighbor (Stanley Tucci) is indeed guilty. Tucci would get his only Oscar nomination to date, but critics were completely underwhelmed by the film itself, and Tucci's nomination was the film's only one. It also underwhelmed at the box office after going wide in January, grossing $44.1 million.
Fifteen Years Ago--December 3, 2004: The first weekend of December proved to be typically slow, as National Treasure repeated at #1, followed by the seasonal Christmas With the Kranks and The Polar Express, both of which passed The Incredibles. The week's widest release was the relationship drama Closer, which opened in fifth, despite playing on less than 500 screens. The Mike Nichols-directed film starred Jude Law (in his fourth film of the fall) as a writer in a long-term relationship with Natalie Portman who pursues Julia Roberts, who is eventually involved with Clive Owen, who has a rendezvous with Portman. It received largely positive reviews, and given the type of film it was, did well, probably thanks to its all-star cast. It opened to $7.7 million and would finish with $34 million, Portman would be Oscar-nominated for Supporting Actress and Owen for Supporting Actor. After the success of Hero earlier in the fall, it was not surprising that another studio would give a major release to another Chinese martial artist period piece. House of Flying Daggers told the story of two policemen who both fall in love with a blind dancer (Ziyi Zhang) who has ties to a rebel group beloved by the populace. Critics highly praised the film, which would get a Cinematography Oscar nomination, and the film did well, though nowhere near as successful as Hero did. After Flying Daggers's wide release in January, it would gross $11.1 million.
December 10, 2004: Easily debuting at #1, the highly anticipated Oceans's Twelve reunited the entire cast of 2001's Ocean's Eleven and sent them all to Europe, where George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, et al. have to work off their debt to Andy Garcia, who figured out who ripped him off in the first film. Along the way to stealing a priceless Faberge egg, Pitt falls for Catherine Zeta-Jones's Interpol agent. Critics, even the ones who had really liked the first one, were considerably more underwhelmed by Twelve, which piled on twist on top of nonsense twist, including at one point, having Julia Roberts pretend to be Julia Roberts. Despite the weak reviews, the film opened strongly to $39.2 million, but finished well short of the first film, topping out at $125.5 million. Opening in second was Blade: Trinity, the third and least-liked entry in the Blade trilogy. Wesley Snipes returned as the "daywalker" half-vampire, who joins with a group of vampire hunters, including Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds, to take down Dracula himself. Critics were underwhelmed, and holiday audiences weren't too impressed, either. The film opened to $16.1 million and would gross $52.4 million. Opening in limited release was Wes Anderson's latest, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Bill Murray plays Zissou, a famed oceanographer who is hunting for a rare shark. The film contained numerous members of Anderson's usual ensemble, including Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, and Angelica Huston. While the film's reviews were decent, most critics felt it was a big step down from The Royal Tenenbaums, and the film, which went wide on Christmas, didn't cross over the way Tenenbaums did, ultimately grossing only $24 million.
Twenty Years Ago--December 3, 1999: Hollywood completely took the first weekend of December off, as the Top 10 stayed exactly the same, with Toy Story 2, The World is Not Enough, and End of Days repeating at 1-3. The only film to go wide that weekend was a one-week re-release of the six-month old Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace, which Fox and LucasFilm announced that all proceeds would go to charities picked by the screening theaters. Phantom couldn't quite crack the Top 10, finishing in 11th, less than $300,000 behind Anywhere But Here. Two Oscar contenders did open in limited release. The Neil Jordan directed The End of the Affair starred Ralph Finnes as a man in post-WWII London hoping to rekindle his affair with the married Julianne Moore, which ended abruptly two years earlier. Stephen Rea played Moore's suspicious husband. Critics were mostly positive, though they had some reservations that probably kept it from being a major Oscar contender. Moore was nominated for Best Actress, and the film's cinematography was also nominated. It also did well on the art-house circuit, grossing $10.8 million. Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown starred Sean Penn as a 1930s-era jazz guitarist whose immense musical talent is matched by his immense awfulness as a human being. Samantha Morton and Uma Thurman played the women in his life. Despite generally good reviews, Allen didn't get his near-customary Best Original Screenplay nomination, but Penn was nominated for Best Actor and Morton for Supporting Actress. Despite the nominations, the film under-performed at the box office, even by Allen's usual standard, grossing $4.2 million.
December 10, 1999: Toy Story 2 won for the third weekend in a row, though it barely staved off the opening The Green Mile, which finished in second. The drama, adapted from Stephen King's six-part serialized novel, starred Tom Hanks as the chief guard on Louisiana's death row in the 1930s, and his relationship with a hulking prisoner (Michael Clark Duncan) accused of murdering two young girls and who seems to possess amazing powers. Directed by Frank Darabont, who had directed The Shawshank Redemption, another Stephen King prison drama, five years earlier, this was one of the most anticipated films of the holidays. While it got solid reviews, critics weren't all that enthusiastic about it, citing the three-hour length as well as the Magical Negro stereotype that this film employed. Nevertheless, it did solid business, opening to $18 million, and grossing $136.8 million. It also scored four Oscar nominations, including Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor for Duncan, and Best Picture. The weekend's other wide opening was the decidedly not-Oscar contended Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. A vehicle for Saturday Night Live vet Rob Schneider, he plays a fishtank cleaner who, to pay to repair an expensive tank he broke, becomes a male prostitute, though one who offers life coaching to his clients (including a then-unknown Amy Poehler) instead of sex. Critics, needless to say, were largely dismissive, but the film became a surprise hit, opening to $12.2 million and ultimately grossing $65.5 million. Arriving in limited release was The Cider House Rules. An adaption of the novel by John Irving, Tobey Magurie starred as an orphan who was raised in an orphanage run by a kindly doctor (Michael Caine) who also performed then-illegal abortions. Wanting to see the world, he gets a job at an apple orchard, where he falls in love with the fiancee (Charlize Theorn) of the son of the orchard's owner. Like The Green Mile, The Cider House Rules received mixed reviews but was still nominated for a number of Oscars (in this case, 7), including Best Picture, Best Director for Lasse Hallstrom, and Best Editing. It won two, for the Adapted Screenplay and for Caine's supporting performance. While it was not a big box office hit, it did well enough, earning $57.6 million.
Twenty-Five Years Ago--December 9, 1994: The Christmas season got its first big release in Disclosure, a quickie adaption of the Michael Crichton's novel (which had been published just the previous January) about the then-new hot button topic of sexual harassment, and featuring the controversial twist of a woman harassing a man. The man was Michael Douglas, an exec in a tech company, and the harasser is Demi Moore, his ex-girlfriend and his new boss. Of course, there's more going on than meets the eye. The film, directed by Barry Levinson, got mixed reviews, but proved to be a popular draw over the holidays. It opened to $10.1 million and would top out at $83 million. After The Santa Clause at #2, Drop Zone, the second skydiving action movie of the fall, came in third. Wesley Snipes plays a federal marshal who has his prisoner kidnapped in mid-air by a team of terrorist skydivers led by Gary Buesy. They plan on skydiving into DEA headquarters to steal the list of undercover agents, and only Snipes can stop them. Critics liked the action, but felt the story was beyond ridiculous, resulting in mixed reviews. Having mostly skipped Terminal Velocity earlier in the year, audiences went ahead and skipped Drop Zone as well, as it opened to $6.1 million and finished with $28.7 million.
December 16, 1994: Jim Carrey finished off a year where he went from the white guy on In Living Color to the biggest comedy superstar on the planet with Dumb and Dumber. Carrey and Jeff Daniels played Lloyd and Harry, two morons whose combined IQ might approach double digits, who go on a cross-country quest to return a briefcase to Lauren Holly, who Lloyd developed an instant crush on, unaware that the briefcase is filled with ransom money for Holly's husband's kidnappers. Critics didn't find the debut directorial effort by the Farrelly Brothers to be all that funny, but audiences disagreed, as the comedy opened to $16.4 million and would go on to earn $127.2 million, the biggest hit of Carrey's phenomenal year. The Santa Clause stayed in second, with Disclosure falling from first to third and Drop Zone falling to fourth. Opening disappointingly in 5th was the romantic comedy Speechless. Michael Keaton and Geena Davis play speechwriters for opposing campaigns who fall in love with each other. Christopher Reeve, in one of his last roles before his accident, played Davis's ex-fiancee. Even the prospect of (romantic) Batman vs. (romantic) Superman didn't impress critics nor audiences, as the comedy opened to $4 million and closed its mouth at $20.7 million. Opening in limited release was the Beethoven biopic Immortal Beloved. Structured as a mystery, the film follows his friend and biographer as he tries to figure out who is "immortal beloved" was. Gary Oldman played Beethoven. The film got mixed reviews and failed to pick up any Oscar nominations, but did earn an OK $9.9 million from art houses. Meanwhile, Jodie Foster got her fourth Oscar nomination for Nell, playing the title character, who has been isolated in her backwoods home with her late mother her entire life and now speaks a language of her own. Liam Neeson and his real-life wife Natasha Richardson played doctors with opposing views as to what should happen to her. Foster entered the season as the odds-on favorite to win her third Oscar, but then people saw the movie, which got a decidedly mixed reaction from critics. Foster's nomination ended up being the movie's only one. Nell would go semi-wide on Christmas and wider in January, but would only be a modest performer, grossing $33.7 million.
Thirty Years Ago--December 8, 1989: Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito teamed up again for the third time, but in a very different project than Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile. The War of the Roses, directed by DeVito, was a pitch-black comedy about the end of the marriage of Oliver and Barbara Rose (Douglas and Turner), who decided that after all that time together, they've come to really despise each other, especially as each refuses to move out of the house. Critics were generally very complementary toward the film, and it became a sizable hit, opening at #1 with $9.5 million and ultimately grossing $86.9 million. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation stayed in second, while Back to the Future, Part II fell to third. Opening in fourth was another black comedy about the end of a marriage, this one decidedly much broader. She-Devil was the first (and to date, only) starring theatrical vehicle for the then and future Roseanne Barr, playing a frumpy housewife whose constantly cheating husband (Ed Begley, Jr.) leaves her for his newest client, a wealthy romance novelist (Meryl Streep) leading a charmed life. Barr proceeds to secretly and systematically destroy their lives while becoming a highly successful businesswoman herself. Critics were less-than-impressed by the film, especially as the odd-couple teaming of Barr and Streep was limited to only a couple of scenes. Audiences decided they'd rather stay home and watch Barr on TV, as She-Devil opened to $3.5 million and finished with a hellish $15.4 million.
December 15, 1989: Big-budgeted flops were the order of the day this weekend, as every new wide release, each one a star vehicle, under-performed. The best opening, in 5th (behind National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, reaching #1 in its third weekend, The War of the Roses, Back to the Future, Part II, and The Little Mermaid) was The Wizard, starring Fred Savage, of the popular sitcom The Wonder Years. He plays a kid who attempts to get his mute brother cross-country to California to participate in a video game tournament, joined by a girl (Jenny Lewis) who they meet along the way. Beau Bridges and Christian Slater play the boys' father and older brother, who are trying to track them down. Critics complained it was basically a feature-length commercial for Nintendo, and while the film has become a cult hit in the years since, it was largely disregarded when it was in theaters, opening to $2.1 million and hitting game over with $14.3 million. Still, that was better than most of the other wide openings, all of which had bigger stars than Fred Savage. Opening in 6th was the Sidney Lumet heist comedy Family Business, which cast Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, and Matthew Broderick as three extremely unlikely generations of the same family, who hatch a plan to steal scientific research and sell it for a huge payday. Of course, things don't go according to plan. Critics were mostly unimpressed, and the film was a fairly massive flop, opening to $2.1 million and getting away with only $12.2 million. After Steel Magnolias in 7th, came the weekend's other two flops. In 8th was We're No Angels, starring two of our finest dramatic actors, Robert De Niro and Sean Penn, in a wacky comedy about two escaped convicts who are desperate to make it to Canada, but are mistaken for priests in the border town on the American side. Demi Moore played a local woman who De Niro falls for. Like with everything else out that weekend, critics were underwhelmed, and the film opened to $2.1 million and finished with $10.6 million. Opening in ninth was Blaze, a biopic of the last few years in the life of Louisiana governor Earl Long (Paul Newman) and his relationship with prominent stripper Blaze Starr (Lolita Davidovich). The comedy-drama, the first film of director Ron Shelton since Bull Durham the previous year, was in the same boat as We're No Angles and Family Business--highly anticipated, huge disappointment. It opened to $1.7 million, but managed to develop better legs than the other three wide releases, and ended up making the most money of the quartet, finishing with $19.1 million. Far more successful were two films opening in limited release. Driving Miss Daisy, a comedy-drama adapted from Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer-winning play, starred Jessica Tandy as Miss Daisy, a well-off retired schoolteacher in Atlanta who reluctantly allows her son (Dan Ackroyd) to hire her a chauffeur, Hoke (Morgan Freeman) after she crashes her car. Over the next quarter century, as the South deals with the Civil Rights movement, the relationship between Daisy and Hoke evolves. The film proved to be a sizable hit when it went wider in January, ultimately grossing $106.6 million, finishing as the 8th-highest-grossing film released in 1989. It also was a significant player at the Oscars, being nominated for 9, including Best Supporting Actor for Ackroyd and Best Actor for Freeman, and winning 4: for Makeup, Adapted Screenplay, Actress for Tandy, and Best Picture. Another story about civil rights, set about 100 years before Daisy, was the Civil War drama Glory. Freeman did double duty that week starring as a solder in an all-African American regiment from Massachusetts, which also included Denzel Washington and Andre Braugher, and commanded by Matthew Broderick (also doing double duty that weekend). Glory got critical hosannas, and was nominated for five Oscars (though oddly, not Picture) and won for Sound and Cinematography. Washington won for Supporting Actor, his first Oscar. The film was not a smash when it expanded in January, but did earn a respectable $26.8 million. Another Oscar nominee opening in limited release was Enemies, A Love Story. Ron Silver played a Holocaust survivor married to the woman who saved his life, but is having an affair with another woman (Lena Olin), and discovers that his first wife (Anjelica Huston), who he thought had died in the war, had actually survived and was also in New York. Critics were positive, and the film earned three Oscar nominations, for its Adapted Screenplay and for both Olin and Huston as Supporting Actress. It did well in limited release, grossing $7.8 million.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--December 7, 1984: Any doubt that Eddie Murphy was one of the biggest stars on the planet was put to rest thanks to the opening of Beverly Hills Cop. The action comedy, which starred Murphy as Detroit detective Axel Foley, who "vacations" in Southern California in order to investigate the murder of a childhood friend, exploded out of the gate, opening to $15.2 million, the third best opening of 1984, and the best for a non-sequel. Cop would remain the #1 movie in America until March. The film ultimately grossed $234.8 million, edging out Ghostbusters to be the highest grossing film of 1984. Reviews of the film were solid, and its screenplay ended up getting its sole Oscar nomination. Least you think that Cop took advantage of a weak weekend, it more than doubled the gross of the two other high profile openings. 2010: The Year We Make Contact was the highly anticipated sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick, of course, had nothing to do with the sequel, though original cast members Keir Dullea, as vanished astronaut Dave Bowman, and Douglas Rain, who voiced HAL 9000, did return. Roy Scheider played Dr. Heywood Floyd (played in 2001 by William Sylvester), a former NASA boss who agrees to join a joint US-Soviet mission to Jupiter to investigate what exactly happened nine years earlier. John Lithgow played a fellow American scientist, and Helen Mirren played the Soviet captain. The film's critical reception was largely positive, and it did decent business, opening to $7.4 million and grossing $40.4 million by the end of its run. 2010 also got 5 technical Oscar nominations. The weekend's other action comedy about cops, the 1933-set City Heat was, on paper, as much of a big deal as Beverly Hills Cop, since it teamed up Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds, playing former partners-turned-enemies who are forced to work together after coming into possession of a mobster's financial records, which said mobster is very eager to get back. Critics hated it, and so did audiences, despite the star power. City Heat would open in third to $6.3 million, and finish an underwhelming run with $38.3 million.
December 14, 1984: On a crowded holiday weekend, Beverly Hills Cop dominated, easily topping the box office by over $5 million over second place Dune. The David Lynch-directed sci-fi epic, based on the beloved novel by Frank Herbert, starring newcomer Kyle MacLachlan, in the first of numerous projects he'd work on with Lynch, as Paul Atreides, a prince in the family that rules the essential planet of Arrikis, where the all-important "spice" is harvested. Lynch recruited an all-star cast, including Oscar winners Jose Ferrer and Linda Hunt, musician Sting, and future starship captain Patrick Stewart. Unfortunately, unless you were familiar with the source novel, the film didn't make a lick of sense, and was widely panned. It did get an Oscar nomination for Sound, and had a decent opening of $6 million, but faded quickly after the holidays, finishing with $30.9 million. City Heat stayed steady in third, while 2010 fell to fourth. Opening in fifth was another expensive epic, Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club. Richard Gere played a musician who gets involved with mobsters Bob Hoskins, who owns the famous Harlem nightclub where African-Americans performed for the benefit of white audiences. This also featured an all-star cast, including Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, and a young Nicolas Cage. Cotton Club got considerably better reviews than Dune, but was still considered a critical disappointment, and it was an outright flop at the box office, opening to $2.9 million and topping out at $25.9 million. It did get Oscar nominations for its sets and its editing. Opening in sixth, Starman was a change of pace for director John Carpenter, whose previous films were action and/or horror. This one was a sci-fi romance starring Jeff Bridges as an alien who comes to Earth and takes the form of the late husband of Karen Allen. The two then must travel across the country in order to get to his rendezvous point with his pickup spaceship, while being chased by the government. Critics gave the film solid reviews, and Bridges got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, but it was a box office disappointment, opening to $2.9 million and grossing $28.7 million. Opening in 7th was the sci-fi actioner Runaway, written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton. Tom Selleck played a cop specializing in neutralizing malfunctioning robots who goes up against a mad scientist (Gene Simmons--yes, that Gene Simmons) who is trying to program robots to deliberately kill humans. Runaway received mixed-to-negative reviews and was a flop, opening to $1.2 million and ending its run with $6.8 million. Opening in limited release was the period drama A Passage to India. The final film directed by the great David Lean, the epic starred Judy Davis as an Englishwoman who travels to colonial India in the 1920s, whose friendship with a local doctor is marred by an incident in a cave. Passage got tremendous reviews, and earned 11 Oscar nominations, including Picture, Director for Lean, and Actress for Davis. It won 2, for its score and for Dame Peggy Ashcroft's supporting role as Davis's fiancee's mother. The film would do good business when it went wider in January, ultimately earning $27.2 million. Also opening in limited release was, appropriately enough for 1984, 1984. An adaption of George Orwell's widely influential novel, it starred John Hurt as an everyman whose small acts of rebellion and humanity are ruthlessly snuffed out by the all-controlling government. Richard Burton, who had died earlier in the year, made his final screen appearance as Hurt's torturer. Reviews were decent, but the film was largely ignored by year-end awards. Oddly, 1984 didn't get a semi-wide release until 1985, where it did OK business, ultimately grossing $8.4 million.
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