One Year Ago--August 9, 2019:
#1 Movie:
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw--$25.3 million
New Wide Releases:
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark--2/$20.9 million/$69 million/42/78%/61--The staple of campfires and sleepovers is brought to life in this horror thriller that adapts several tales from the book, and includes a wraparound story in which a group of teens discover a book filled with scary stories in an abandoned mansion. As strange things begin to happen, they realize that new stories are appearing in the book--with them as the unwitting main characters. Thanks to good reviews and solid box office, a sequel is in the works.
Director: Andre Ovredal
Dora and the Lost City of Gold--4/$17.4 million/$60.5 million/47/85%/63--Wisely deciding that a movie aimed at pre-schoolers was a bad idea, this film is instead set 10 years after Dora the Explorer and aimed squarely at the kids who watched the show five to ten years ago. Dora (Isabela Moner) is now 16, live action, and enrolled in an American high school, from which she, her cousin Diego, and several of her classmates are kidnapped and taken to Peru, where they have to find Dora's missing parents (Michael Pena and Eva Longoria) before mercenaries who want to raid the titular city and steal the treasure within get to them first. Benicio Del Toro and Danny Trejo provided voices. Critics, expecting a cheap knockoff, were pleasantly surprised, and the film was a minor success.
Director: James Bobin
The Art of Racing in the Rain--6/$8.1 million/$26.4 million/89/43%/43--The third movie of the year to be narrated by a dog, this comedy-drama starred Milo Ventimiglia as a race car driver, Amanda Seyfried as his wife and the voice of Kevin Costner as his loyal canine. This one managed to outgross A Dog's Journey by a few million, but fell well short of A Dog's Way Home.
Director: Simon Curtis
The Kitchen--7/$5.5 million/$12.2 million/126/23%/35--August is not Melissa McCarthy's month. A year after the R-rated puppet mystery comedy The Happytime Murders crashed and burned, another project of hers that looked promising on paper went down the tubes. In this 70s-set crime drama, she, Tiffany Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss play mob wives who, after their husbands are sent to prison, take over the neighborhood and the crime family. Critics were largely appalled at the film squandering a potentially winning idea, and the three stars couldn't convince anyone to come see the film.
Director: Andrea Berloff
Bring the Soul: The Movie--10/$2.3 million/$4.8 million/160/NA/NA--The latest concert film from South Korean boy band extraordinaire BTS, this managed to place in the Top 10 despite there only being limited showtimes each day at most theaters. Most of their fans showed up this first weekend, as business fell to nearly nothing during its second (and apparently final) weekend.
Director: Park Jun-Soo
Brian Banks--11/$2.2 million/$4.4 million/167/61%/58--Perhaps the environment wasn't right to release a film about a man falsely accused of rape, even if it was based on a true story. Aldis Hodge played Banks, a promising young football player whose life is derailed when he is accused and pleads guilty on the advice of his attorney. After being released, he attempts to clear his name with the help of the Innocence Project, which was run by Greg Kinnear. Morgan Freeman has a cameo as a speaker who motivates Banks while in jail. This marks the first narrative film of Tom Shadyac, who during the 90s and early aughts was Hollywood's go-to guy for directing wacky comedies, since 2007's Evan Almighty.
Director: Tom Shadyac
New Limited Releases:
The Peanut Butter Falcon--$20.5 million/105/96%/70--One of the summer's bigger indie hits, this comedy drama starred Zachary Gottsagan as a young man with Down Syndrome who escapes his group home in order to attend the wrestling school run by his favorite pro wrestler (Thomas Haden Church). While hiding from authorities and his sister (Dakota Johnson), he persuades a down-on-his-luck fisherman (Shia LaBeouf) to take him to Florida and the school. Bruce Dern played Gottsagan's roommate at the home, John Hawkes played another fisherman with a vendetta against LaBeouf, and there were cameos by former pro wrestlers Mick Foley and Jake "The Snake" Roberts.
Director: Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz
Five Years Ago--August 7, 2015:
#1 Movie:
Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation--$28.5 million
New Wide Releases:
Fantastic Four--2/$25.7 million/$56.1 million/53/9%/27--A mere decade after the beginning of Fox's first attempt at a Fantastic Four franchise, the series rebooted with a new, (slightly) younger team. After the harsh reviews and dismal box office, the studio probably wishes they had brought the 2005 team back again. The film is mostly an origin story, explaining how Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, and Jamie Bell became Mr. Fantastic, The Human Torch, Invisible Girl, and The Thing respectively. Critics found it too dark, and plans for a sequel were cancelled. The franchise is expected to be rebooted as part of the MCU at some point.
Director: Josh Trank (Stephen E. Rivkin directed reshoots)
The Gift--3/$11.9 million/$43.8 million/64/91%/77--The debut film from new distributor STX was this surprise moderate hit about a couple (Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall) who run into an old acquaintance (Joel Edgerton, who also wrote and directed), who begins to drop by and leave presents, much to Bateman's chagrin. Needless to say, Bateman and Edgerton have a past. Critics gave the film strong reviews,
Director: Joel Edgerton
Ricki and the Flash--7/$6.6 million/$26.8 million/89/64%/54--A struggling bar singer in L.A. (Meryl Streep) is called back to the midwest by her ex-husband (Kevin Kline) after their daughter (Mamie Gummer, Streep's real-life daughter) attempted suicide. There, she finds herself torn between her life in L.A. and the family she abandoned. Audra McDonald played Kline's current wife, Sebastian Stan played Streep and Kline's son, Rick Springfield, in his first theatrical movie since 1984, played Streep's boyfriend, and a pre-Tony Ben Platt played a bartender. This would be the final film of Jonathan Demme.
Director: Jonathan Demme
Shaun the Sheep Movie--11/$4 million/$19.4 million/102/99%/81--This family film from stop-motion specialists Aardman Animation, a spinoff of a British animated series, had the titular character head into the big city chasing after the his farmer, who had gone missing. There, Shaun and the rest of the sheep from the farm try to blend in, posing as humans and avoiding an obsessed animal control officer. Despite its weak opening, this proved to have surprisingly solid legs throughout August and into September. It would be nominated for Animated Feature at the Oscars.
Director: Mark Burton and Richard Starzak
New Limited Releases:
Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection "F"--$8 million/132/83%/NA--The ever-popular Dragon Ball Z anime series had a successful foray to the big screen with this entry, which sees the franchise's arch-nemesis, the supremely powerful Frieza, brought back from the dead in order to once again battle the show's hero, Goku. The film was praised by fans of the show.
Director: Tadayoshi Yamamuro
Ten Years Ago--August 6, 2010:
New Wide Releases:
The Other Guys--1/$35.5 million/$119.2 million/21/78%/64--Five years before The Big Short, director Adam McKay's interest in financial chicanery found an outlet in an unlikely source: a buddy cop comedy starring McKay's longtime partner Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, in their first matchup. Wahlberg played a New York cop being punished for having shot Derek Jeter (cameoing as himself) by being partnered with by-the-book Ferrell, a forensic accountant. Together, they stumble across a scheme by a British financier Steve Coogan to steal billions to cover his financial losses, and have to fight to take him down, along with the creditors who will stop at nothing to recover their own losses that Coogan caused. Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson played the precinct's supercops, Michael Keaton was the captain, Rob Riggle and Damon Waynes, Jr. as two other cops in the precinct, Eve Mendes as Ferrell's wife, and Ice-T as the narrator. Thanks to strong reviews and the lead duo's popularity, this became a late summer hit.
Director: Adam McKay
Step Up 3D--3/$15.8 million/$42.4 million/76/47%/45--A college kid has to decide between dancing and studying. A girl has to figure out how to tell her new boyfriend that her brother is his arch rival. Dance crews compete for a $100,000 grand prize that could solve all their financial troubles. Clearly, the screenwriters just grabbed handfuls from the Big Bag O'Cliches to cobble together stuff to happen between the dance sequences, even though no one bought a ticket to see Step Up 3D for any reason other than the dance sequences (how they forgot to include an evil developer wanting to tear everything down for a mall, I don't know). By most accounts, however, the dance sequences were spectacular, making good use of the 3D technology. That was enough to earn the franchise yet another entry two years later.
Director: Jon M. Chu
Expanding:
The Kids Are All Right--10/$2.6 million
Fifteen Years Ago--August 12, 2005:
New Wide Releaeses:
Four Brothers--1/$21.2 million/$74.5 million/31/52%/49--In this violent actioner, the four adopted sons (Mark Walhberg, Tyrese Gibson, Andre Benjamin, and Garrett Hedlund) of Fionnula Flanagan return home after her seemingly random murder, only to discover that her death was just the tip of the iceberg of a conspiracy involving crooked cops and a local crime lord (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Terrence Howard and Josh Charles played cops, Taraji P. Henson played Benjamin's wife, and Sofia Vergara played Gibson's girlfriend. While critics were mostly underwhelmed, audiences made it a late summer hit.
Director: John Singleton
The Skeleton Key--2/$16.1 million/$47.9 million/61/38%/47--A hospice aide (Kate Hudson) gets a job taking care of a recent stroke victim (John Hurt) at an old backwoods Louisiana plantation house. There, she becomes increasingly convinced that Hurt was the victim of a hoodoo curse--and that his wife (Gena Rowlands) might be responsible. Peter Sarsgaard played the couple's attorney, who can't believe Hudson's story. This supernatural thriller was poorly received, but did OK business.
Director: Iain Softley
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo--5/$9.6 million/$22.4 million/109/9%/23--The idea that Rob Schneider might have one time been a viable movie star seems just bizarre today, but thanks to the surprise success of 1999's Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, he got several starring vehicles during the early aughts, with his career coming full circle with this sequel, which would be his final solo starring film to get a wide release. As the title suggests, Deuce is off to Europe, where he is tasked with trying to figure out who is assassinating other gigolos. Eddie Griffin, whose own career wasn't exactly going gangbusters either, reprised his role from the first film as Schneider's pimp, and respected character actor Jeroen Krabbe hopefully got a nice paycheck for playing the investigating cop. Norm MacDonald and Adam Sandler prove just how good friends they are to Schneider by appearing in cameos. Roger Ebert would take the final line of his review of the film, "Your Movie Sucks", and use it for the title of one of his books.
Director: Mike Bigelow (in what is literally his only IMDB credit)
The Great Raid--10/$3.4 million/$10.2 million/146/38%/48--In the waning days of World War II, American soldiers undertake a risky mission to liberate POWs from a Japanese camp in the Philippines, before the Japanese execute them all. This action drama, which starred Benjamin Bratt and James Franco as the leaders of the American team and Connie Nielsen as a nurse who assisted in getting necessary supplies to the prisoners, was shot in 2002, then sat on the shelf for three years before getting dumped.
Director: John Dahl
Twenty Years Ago--August 11, 2000:
#1 Movie:
Hollow Man--$13.1 million
New Wide Releases:
The Replacements--3/$11 million/$44.7 million/57/41%/30--When his team goes on strike, a pro football coach (Gene Hackman) has to assemble a team out of has-beens and never-weres, including former Heisman-winning quarterback Keanu Reeves. Perhaps the greatest movie ever made celebrating scabs, the film, which opened at a time with sports labor disputes were a relatively common occurrence, proved to have solid legs. This would prove to be the final film of Jack Warden, who played the team's owner.
Director: Howard Deutch
Autumn in New York--4/$11 million/$37.8 million/65/19%/24--Aging restauranter Richard Gere falls for Winona Ryder, despite him being more than twice as old as her. But their relationship is destined to be short-lived, as one of them is dying (the title's symbolic!). This achieved a bit of notoriety when it opened as it wasn't screened in advance for critics, a fate usually reserved for cheap comedies and horror movies, not prestige dramas with A-list stars. The critics didn't much care for it when they did get to see it. Elaine Stritch played Ryder's grandmother, Anthony LaPaglia played Gere's friend, J.K. Simmons played a doctor, and in one of her first films, Vera Farmiga played Gere's daughter. This was directed by actress Joan Chen, who had previously directed a well-received Chinese-language drama, and who has yet to direct another narrative feature.
Director: Joan Chen
Bless the Child--7/$9.4 million/$29.4 million/84/3%/17--The second half of 1999 had its share of supernatural thrillers seemingly timed to the turn of the millennium, including End of Days, Stigmata, and The Sixth Sense. This one, about a young girl who might have been sent by God, and the Satanic cult determined to murder her before she can fulfill her destiny, seemed to arrive a year too late. Kim Basinger played the girl's aunt, with Jimmy Smits as an FBI agent also trying to protect the girl and Christina Ricci as a former cult member.
Director: Chuck Russell
Twenty-Five Years Ago--August 11, 1995:
New Wide Releases:
Dangerous Minds--1/$14.9 million/$84.9 million/13/28%/47--Michelle Pfeiffer starred in this late-summer smash, based on a true story, which was one of the year's bigger disconnects between critical and audience response. Pfeiffer played a former Marine who gets a job teaching at an inner-city high school, where she eventually learns she needs to relate to the kids on their level in order to motivate them to learn. Courtney B. Vance played the school's principal. The movie's success led to a short-lived TV series. The song also produced the huge hit single "Gangsta's Paradise", but because musician Coolio sampled an earlier Stevie Wonder song, it was ineligible for the Oscars.
Director: John N. Smith
A Walk in the Clouds--2/$9.5 million/$50 million/37/44%/54--Alfonso Arau, whose previous film Like Water for Chocolate had become the highest grossing foreign language film in the US until Il Postino passed it that summer, did not equal his success with his first English-language film, a romantic melodrama set shortly after the conclusion of World War II. Keanu Reeves played a returning solder whose agrees to pretend to be the husband of the daughter (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) of a traditionalist owner of a vineyard (Giancarlo Giannini) after she reveals she is pregnant. He quickly becomes enamored with her and her family, but he does have a wife (Debra Messing) he married right before shipping out. Anthony Quinn played the girl's much-less-stuffy grandfather.
Director: Alfonso Arau
A Kid in King Arthur's Court--9/$4.3 million/$13.4 million/101/5%/34--Thomas Ian Nicholas, two years after Rookie of the Year and four years before American Pie, played the titular kid, who during an earthquake, falls through a crack in the ground and ends up...well, read the title. Luckily, he was able to grab his backpack, which contained his portable CD player and rollerblades, which he used to dazzle the court and romance Arthur's younger daughter (Paloma Baeza) and protect the king (Joss Ackland) from an evil usurper (Art Malik). Also co-starring, before they were stars, were Kate Winslet (as the king's rebellious older daughter) and Daniel Craig (as the king's most loyal knight). Ron Moody, who played Merlin, previously played the same role in Disney's last update of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, 1979's Unidentified Flying Oddball. Nicholas would reprise the role in a straight-to-video sequel two years later.
Director: Michael Gottlieb
New Limited Releases:
The Brothers McMullen--$10.4 million/115/89%/73--Edward Burns went from Entertainment Tonight intern to filmmaker with his low-budgeted debut film, which won critical acclaim out of Sundance and became a modest hit when it opened. Burns and his brothers (Michael McGlone, Jack Mulcahy) confront love, sex, and relationships as they try to navigate the way forward after their father dies and their mother moves back to Ireland. Connie Britton made her film debut as Mulcahy's wife.
Director: Edward Burns
Thirty Years Ago--August 10, 1990:
New Wide Releases:
Flatliners--1/$10 million/$61.5 million/18/48%/55--Five up and coming actors (Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt) play medical students who decide to fool around with death by flatlining themselves and seeing what's on the other side before being revived. As it turns out, death doesn't like being played with, as all of them bring back dark memories and hallucinations. Hope Davis made her film debut as Baldwin's girlfriend. The big draw here was Roberts, coming off the phenomenal success of Pretty Woman, which helped this rather dark thriller become a big hit. The Sound Editing would be nominated for an Oscar. A remake, which featured Sutherland in a small role, flopped upon release in 2017.
Director: Joel Schumacher
Air America--3/$8.1 million/$31.1 million/37/13%/33--This Vietnam-set black comedy, based (very) loosely on a true story, starred Mel Gibson as a longtime pilot for Air America, a CIA front that delivers necessary supplies out in the field, and Robert Downey, Jr. as a new recruit. The two realize that the service is being secretly used to smuggle heroin, and try to figure out how to avoid being set up to take the fall if/when the smuggling is discovered. Nancy Travis played an official running a refugee camp. Not even Gibson's starpower was enough to overcome the lousy reviews.
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
The Two Jakes--7/$3.7 million/$10 million/100/68%/56--Jack Nicholson, in his third and final film as a director, took over for the long-exiled Roman Polanski in this sequel to Chinatown. Nicholson becomes involved in a murder when his client (Harvey Keitel) kills his wife's boyfriend, who turns out to have been Keitel's business partner. While trying to figure out if the whole adultery angle was merely a cover for a cold-blooded murder, Nicholson has to deal with the police, the dead man's widow (Madeleine Stowe), and Keitel's wife, who might have a connection with a long-ago case. While Chinatown had been a huge hit in 1974, the sixteen-years-later sequel generated almost no interest, even though it was Nicholson's first film since Batman.
Director: Jack Nicholson.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--August 9, 1985:
#1 Movie:
Back to the Future--$8.1 million
New Wide Releases:
Summer Rental--2/$5.8 million/$24.7 million/36/17%/38--The summer's second disastrous vacation comedy starred John Candy (who appeared in the predecessor of the summer's first disastrous vacation comedy) as a guy who rents a beach house for his family for a few weeks, only to have multiple mishaps befall him. Richard Crenna played a champion boat racer that Candy runs afoul of, and Rip Torn played a local who helps train Candy for the end-of-movie boat race he found himself involved in. John Larrroquette played a fellow vacationer, and Candy's kids are played by Kerri Green, in her second movie of the summer (after The Goonies) and 9-year-old Joey Lawrence, in his first film role. This would be the first of two straight movies Carl Reiner would direct with "Summer" in its title.
Director: Carl Reiner
Real Genius--7/$2.6 million/$13 million/66/73%/71--A extremely intelligent college student with a laid back attitude toward life (Val Kilmer) takes an equally intelligent high school kid (Gabriel Jarret) under his wing as they work to put together a laser project that, unbeknownst to them, is for the CIA in this campus comedy. Reviews were mixed at the time, and with a little-known cast (Kilmer was only in his second film, and the biggest name in the cast might have been William Atherton as Kilmer's evil professor, in his second consecutive role as the bad guy in a sci-fi comedy), and lots of competition (9 of the top 10 that weekend were comedies), this ended up being little-noticed when it was released. However, its reputation has endured and is now fondly thought of as a cult hit.
Director: Martha Coolidge
My Science Project--14/$1.5 million/$4.1 million/121/13%/38--Speaking of getting lost amid the competition, here's the weekend's other sci-fi comedy, about a high school kid (John Stockwell) who finds a long-abandoned contraption on a military base, and when he plugs it in, discovers that it can manipulate time and space--and can't be unplugged. Fisher Stevens played his best friend and Dennis Hopper played a teacher. Coming off as a poor man's Back to the Future, this one flopped hard, and unlike Real Genius, has yet to have a critical re-evaluation.
Director: Jonathan R. Betuel
Expanding:
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure--3/$4.6 million
Forty Years Ago--August 8, 1980:
New Wide Releases:
The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu--$10.7 million/59/17%/NA--The previous December, Being There, one of Peter Sellers's finest films with one of his best performances, opened. If Sellers had taken the last six months of his life off, that would have been a magnificent career capper. Alas, Sellers, who of course had no idea he would succumb to a heart attack in July, made this rather racist comedy (which opened two weeks after his death), in which the very English Sellers portrayed the (white man created) Chinese supervillian Fu Manchu, who needs to steal a large diamond from the Tower of London in order to replicate the youth formula keeping him alive. Sellers also appeared in a dual role as the Scotland Yard detective who plans to stop him. Helen Mirren played a policewoman who ends up helping Manchu's gang, Sid Caesar played an FBI agent, and David Tomlinson, whose final film this also was, though he would live until 2000, played the head of Scotland Yard. Even with the success of Being There and the publicity surrounding Sellers's death, this film still bombed. While this was the final film of Sellers to include newly shot footage of him, he did "star" in 1982's Trail of the Pink Panther, in which all of his scenes were outtakes from films shot in the 1970s.
Director: Piers Haggard (Sellers directed reshoots)
New Limited Releases:
Xanadu--$22.8 million/28/27%/35--Olivia Newton-John took her time making a follow-up to Grease, though perhaps she might have been better off waiting a bit longer. She played one of the nine ancient Greek muses who appears in modern Los Angeles to inspire a struggling artist (Michael Beck) and a former musician-turned-construction company owner (Gene Kelly) to turn a long abandoned auditorium into a glittering nightclub, while Beck and Newton-John fall in love, which, given that she's an immortal goddess, creates issues. While the film wasn't the box office disaster its been remembered as, it did underperform, and reviews were nearly all negative. The soundtrack, however, was a huge hit. This would be Kelly's final film, though he would do some work on TV. The film was adapted into a hit Broadway musical, which also serves as a parody of the film.
Director: Robert Greenwald
Expanding:
The Hunter
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