January continues to be Hollywood's most prominent dumping grounds, as low-budget, lowbrow comedies, low-budget horror films, and failed Oscar bait compete with leftover holiday movies and expanding, potentially successful Oscar bait for box office dollars.
*--four day gross
One Year Ago--January 10, 2020:
#1 Movie/Expanding:
1917--$37 million
New Wide Releases:
Like a Boss--4/$10 million/$22.2 million/14/21%/33--Best friends and business partners Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne lose their cosmetics business to unscrupulous industry titan Salma Hayek, so they set out to get revenge. Despite a solid cast, including Billy Porter and Jennifer Coolidge as Haddish and Byrne's employees and Lisa Kudrow as Hayek's former partner, critics realized there was a reason this was being released in early January, and audiences largely stayed away.
Director: Miguel Arteta
Underwater--7/$7 million/$17.3 million/19/47%/48--This thriller, in which a group of survivors of a rapidly-collapsing deep-sea research and drilling facility, including Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, T.J. Miller, and John Gallagher, Jr., try to escape to the surface while fighting off an unknown species that seems determined to kill them, rather awkwardly blended disaster and horror elements together. Still, the film was better received by critics than January horror movies usually are. This was shot in 2017 (as belied by the presence of Miller, whose career had been sidelined since 2018 after accusations of sexual misconduct).
Director: William Eubank
New Limited Releases:
Les Miserables--$0.3 million/124/88%/78--Not an adaption of Victor Hugo's masterwork, but clearly inspired by it, this French thriller, set in the present day, chronicles a set of two bad cops (Alexis Manenti and Djebril Zonga) and a morally conflicted recent transfer (Damien Bonnard) as they attempt to chase down a teenager (Issa Perica) who stole a lion cub from a circus. The film was not a big hit in the US, but did get an Oscar nomination for International Film.
Director: Ladj Ly
Expanding:
Just Mercy--5/$9.7 million
Five Years Ago--January 8, 2016:
#1 Movie:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens--$42.4 million
New Wide Releases:
The Forest--4/$12.7 million/$26.6 million/96/10%/34--The new year's first new wide release was this Japan-set horror film, in which an American woman (Natalie Dormer) venters deep into the country's Aokigahara Forest, notorious as a common suicide spot, to find her missing twin sister (also Dormer), only to encounter spooky happenings. Taylor Kinney played a reporter helping her with the search. This opened to terrible reviews, but was low-budget enough that it earned a profit, even if, like most horror movies, business dried up very quickly after opening weekend.
Director: Jason Zada
Expanding:
The Revenant--2/$39.8 million
Ten Years Ago--January 14, 2011:
New Wide Releases:
The Green Hornet--1/$33.5 million/$98.8 million/32/44%/39--A franchise-starter that wasn't, this update of the old radio and TV shows starred Seth Rogan as the estranged playboy son of Tom Wilkinson. After his father dies, he and his father's valet (Jay Chou) decide to become vigilante superheroes posing as supervillains. Cameron Diaz played the researcher Rogan hired, Edward James Olmos played a newspaper editor, David Harbour played the local DA, Edward Furlong (in his first major movie in a decade) played a drug dealer, Rogan's friend James Franco cameoed, and Christoph Waltz played a gangster Rogan is determined to take down. Even though this was much bigger than the usual January fare, it got the reviews of a January film, and its failure to top $100 million domestic explains why there was no follow-up.
Director: Michel Gondry
The Dilemma--2/$17.8 million/$48.5 million/68/24%/46--The weekend's other movie that, at least on paper, shouldn't have been a January release, starred Kevin James and Vince Vaughn as best friends and business partners whose important new project threatens to be derailed after Vaughn discovers James's wife (Winona Ryder) is having an affair with Channing Tatum. Jennifer Connelly played Vaughn's longtime girlfriend and Queen Latifah played the executive who hired the duo. This film started a career slide for both Vaughn and director Ron Howard, neither of whom has had a financially successful wide release since.
Director: Ron Howard
New Limited Releases:
Barney's Version--$4.4 million/160/78%/67--This Canadian comedy-drama covers 40 years in the life of Barney (Paul Giamatti), a hard-drinking writer and soap opera producer, through three marriages (to Rachelle Lefevre, Minnie Driver, and Rosamund Pike) and three divorces. Dustin Hoffman played his father, and Hoffman's real-life son, Jake, played Giamatti's grown son. Scott Speedman played Giamatti's best friend, Mark Addy played a cop, Saul Rubinek played one of his fathers-in-law, and Bruce Greenwood played a platonic friend of wife #3 Pike, who arouses Giamatti's jealousy. There were also cameos from famous Canadian directors Atom Egoyam and David Cronenberg. The film opened in early December in Los Angeles for a one-week Oscar-qualifying run before re-opening in January. For that trouble, it got a sole nomination for Makeup.
Director: Richard J. Lewis
Fifteen Years Ago--January 13, 2006:
New Wide Releases:
Glory Road--1/$13.6 million/$42.7 million/72/55%/58--In 1965, Don Haskins, the new basketball coach at tiny Texas Western College in El Paso, decides to adopt a colorblind approach to recruiting. That results in a team that is more than half African-American, a rarity in those days outside of historically Black universities. Haskins and his team overcome extreme racism as they put together a dream season, one that leads them to the NCAA Finals. Among the actors playing team members were Derek Luke, Mehcad Brooks and Austin Nichols, with Emily Deschanel playing Haskins's wife and Jon Voight playing Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp, whose all-white team played Texas Western in the finals. The film was compared with another true basketball story Coach Carter, which had opened a year earlier, but ended up making roughly $25 million less.
Director: James Gartner
Last Holiday--2/$12.8 million/$38.4 million/81/56%/52--After being told that she had a terminal illness, Queen Latifah decides to cash in her life savings and have one final blowout trip to a luxury hotel in the Czech Republic, where she ends up charming both the hotel's staff and guests, except for Timothy Hutton, who owned the department store where she was a low-level employee. LL Cool J played Latifah's co-worker, on whom she had a crush, Giancarlo Esposito played a U.S. Senator visiting the hotel, Alicia Witt played Hutton's mistress, Jane Adams played another co-worker, and Gerard Depardieu played the hotel's chef, who befriends Latifah. In addition, Smokey Robinson and Emeril Lagasse have cameos. While not a blockbuster, the film did decent business.
Director: Wayne Wang
Hoodwinked--3/$12.4 million/$51.4 million/53 in 2005/46%/45--This animated retelling of Little Red Riding Hood had a frog police inspector (David Ogden Stiers) trying to figure out exactly what went down at Granny's (Glenn Close) house. Anne Hathaway played Red, Patrick Warburton played the Wolf, Jim Belushi played the Woodsman, Anthony Anderson and Xzibit played other cops, Chazz Palminteri played a sheep, and Andy Dick played a bunny. The film's script was praised, but the cheap animation, which looked far worse than the animation in the decade-old Toy Story was criticized. Nevertheless, it became a moderate hit, and would lead to a 2011 sequel. The film had a brief run in December 2005 in Los Angeles in hopes of end-of-year animation awards.
Director: Cory Edwards, Todd Edwards, and Tony Leech
Tristan & Isolde--8/$6.6 million/$14.7 million/135/31%/49--In this adaption of a British/Irish legend dating back to at least the 12th century, James Franco played the adopted son of Rufus Sewell, who wants to unite the island of Great Britain. After being presumed dead after a battle, he is nursed back to health by Sophia Myles, and they fall in love, at least until she is arranged to be married to Sewell. Mark Strong played a rebel leader who hopes to bring down Sewell, Henry Cavill played Franco's friend, and Thomas Sangster played the young Tristan. The teenage audience this was marketed to largely ignored it, and critics weren't much more approving.
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Twenty Years Ago--January 12, 2001:
New Wide Releases:
Save the Last Dance--1/$23.4 million/$91.1 million/25/53%/53--A somewhat unexpected smash, this starred Julia Stiles as a ballet dancer whose dreams of Julliard are seemingly crushed after her mother dies in a car accident. Moving in with her father (Terry Kinney) in a tough Chicago neighborhood, she eventually beings a relationship with classmate Sean Patrick Thomas (who had just turned 30 when this opened), who is trying to escape the gang lifestyle and encourages her to put some hip-hop into her ballet moves. Kerry Washington, in her second film, played Thomas's sister, and Fredro Starr played a gangbanger who Thomas is friends with. Critics weren't kind, but teen girls turned out in droves.
Director: Thomas Carter
Double Take--4/$11.7 million*/$29.8 million/80/12%/25--Ahhh, the days when Eddie Griffin and Orlando Jones could headline a major motion picture. Based on, of all things, a Graham Green story, this action comedy starred Jones as an investment banker who gets involved with, and eventually forced to switch identities with, street hustler Griffin after Jones gets unwittingly mixed up in a drug cartel money laundering scheme. Like most January action comedies, critics were underwhelmed.
Director: George Gallo
Antitrust--12/$5.5 million*/$11.3 million/127/24%/31--2001's first big bomb was this rather ridiculous technothriller in which young programmer Ryan Phillippe is hired by rich and famous tech guru Tim Robbins (made up to look exactly like Bill Gates), only to realize that he's in the middle of a giant conspiracy and that he can't trust anyone. Rachel Leigh Cook played a co-worker, Claire Forlani played Phillippe's girlfriend, and Richard Roundtree played a government official. While Phillippe would continue to appear in major films, this, with a couple of exceptions, largely marked the end of his leading man career.
Director: Peter Howitt
Expanding:
Thirteen Days--6/$9.8 million
Finding Forrester--7/$11.1 million*
Twenty-Five Years Ago--January 12, 1996:
#1 Movie:
12 Monkeys--$10 million
New Wide Releases:
Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood--2/$8.1 million/$20.1 million/84/31%/NA--Shawn and Marlon Wayans, at the time mostly known for their work on their brother Keenen's In Living Color, wrote and starred in this spoof of the numerous urban dramas that had come out over the last five or so years in the wake of 1991's Boyz N the Hood. The plot, such as it was, was largely lifted from Boyz, with new arrival Shawn getting involved in cousin Marlon's gang and meeting a girl (Tracey Cherelle Jones). Keenan made a few appearances throughout, Vivica A. Fox had a cameo as Shawn's mother, a largely unknown Bernie Mac had a small part as a racist cop, and there were appearances from urban film vets Omar Epps, Faizon Love, Antonio Fargas, LaWanda Page, and Paula Jai Parker. Critics responded the way they usually did with spoof films not directed by Mel Brooks or a member of the ZAZ team, though it would be a minor hit. This is the only feature film directed by prolific TV and music video director Paris Barclay.
Director: Paris Barclay
Eye For an Eye--3/$7 million/$26.9 million/57/8%/NA--A possible Oscar bait film that was quickly shuffled to January once execs got a look at it, this melodrama starred Sally Field as a wife and mother who has to listen over the phone as her daughter (Olivia Burnette) is raped and murdered by Kiefer Sutherland. When he is released on a technicality, she begins plotting her revenge. Ed Harris played her husband, Joe Mantegna played a cop, Phillip Baker Hall played a member of the support group Field joins, and Beverly D'Angelo played Field's friend. Despite the talent in front of and behind the camera, critics hated it.
Director: John Schlesinger
Bio-Dome--9/$5 million/$13.4 million/107/4%/1--Pauly Shore finally wore out his welcome with this woebegone comedy, bad even by his standards, in which he and Stephen Baldwin, flushing all the goodwill from The Usual Suspects down the toilet, play slackers who, for stupid reasons, get themselves sealed into the titular dome for a year with a team of scientists. Hijinks ensure. Joey Lauren Adams and Rose McGowen play the boys' girlfriends on the outside, Kylie Minogue and Henry Gibson play two of the scientists trapped with Shore and Baldwin, then-First Brother Roger Clinton played a professor, Patricia Hearst played Baldwin's mother, and Jack Black and Kyle Gass appeared as Tenacious D. This would be Shore's final leading role in a wide-release film.
Director: Jason Bloom
Two if by Sea--10/$4.7 million/$10.7 million/121/11%/NA--Not even the presence of Sandra Bullock could get anyone interested in this romcom, in which she and Dennis Leary play a bickering couple hiding out after he stole what he thinks is a largely worthless painting. Turns out it's a $4 million Matisse, and they have to dodge FBI agent Yaphet Kotto as well as their fence's goons (including Mike Starr and Michael Badalucco). A young Johnathan Tucker played a local kid Leary befriends. In a running theme this week, critics hated it.
Director: Bill Bennett
Dunston Checks In--13/$3 million/$9.9 million/127/12%/54--In 1996, with Seinfeld the second-highest rated show on TV, Jason Alexander (who owns a Tony) decided that his best chance to become a movie star was to star in a film opposite an orangutan. Well, it worked for Clint Eastwood, but not for Alexander, who played the manager of a fancy hotel whose son (Eric Lloyd) finds and befriends the monkey, which is owned by jewel thief Rupert Everett. Of course, this is right before a huge society ball, which the hotel's snooty owner (Faye Dunaway, who owns an Oscar) insists must go perfectly. Paul Reubens played an animal control expert. Amazingly, this wasn't the only 1996 movie where an NBC Thursday night star decided that co-starring with a monkey was the best way to movie stardom, as Ed, starring Matt LeBlanc, would open in March.
Director: Ken Kwapis
Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace--17/$1.4 million/$2.4 million/177/11%/29--1992's The Lawnmower Man did OK business, but not enough to really warrant a sequel. It got one anyway, though no one went to see it (it was the third-lowest wide release of 1996). Once and future Max Headroom Matt Frewer took over for Jeff Fahey as the titular Lawnmower Man, now living entirely online and threatening world chaos. Patrick Bergin plays a scientist trying to stop him, Austin O'Brien, the only cast member returning from the first film, played a teenager who had befriended Frewer/Fahey in the first film, and Molly Shannon, who joined the cast of Saturday Night Live after filming this, had a small role as a homeless woman.
Director: Farhad Mann
New Limited Releases:
French Twist--$1 million/201/55%/NA--Wacky French sex comedy (whose French title is a pun relating to pubic hair) about a married couple (Victoria Abril and Alain Chabat) whose lives change when she begins an affair with a lesbian (Josiane Balasko, who also directed) who promptly moves in with them, much to his chagrin. This was a critical and commercial hit back home, but in the US, critics were considerably less approving and the film failed to break out of art houses.
Director: Josiane Balasko
Thirty Years Ago--January 11, 1991:
#1 Movie:
Home Alone--$9.8 million
New Wide Releases:
Lionheart--3/$7.1 million/$24.1 million/56/31%/41--Typical Jean-Claude Van Damme flick from the era, as he played a French Foreign Legion deserter who gets involved in LA's underground street-fighting circuit in order to support his widowed sister-in-law (Lisa Pelikan). This was, at the time, his biggest-grossing starring vehicle in the US.
Director: Sheldon Lettich
Not Without My Daughter--7/$3.8 million/$14.8 million/83/50%/57--Almost 5 years to the day before Eye For an Eye opened, Sally Field starred in this other family melodrama, based on a true story. After accompanying her Iranian husband (Alfred Molina) back home to Iran to visit his family, Field learns that he never intended to return to the United States, and that she and her young daughter (Shelia Rosenthal) are now trapped. As Molina becomes ever more abusive, she plots a way for her and Rosenthal to escape back home. This got mixed reviews and ended up flopping at the box office.
Director: Brian Gilbert
Expanding:
Awakenings--2/$8.3 million
Thirty-Five Years Ago--January 10, 1986:
#1 Movie:
Out of Africa--$5.1 million
New Wide Releases:
Black Moon Rising--7/$2.8 million/$6.6 million/94/43%/53--This complicated-sounding thriller, co-written by John Carpenter, starred Tommy Lee Jones as a master thief who has to get a computer disk he stole on behalf of the FBI back from where he hid it, on a prototype sports car that is now in the hands of a car theft ring. Linda Hamilton played the car thief who agrees to help Jones, Robert Vaughn played the head of the theft ring, Richard Jaeckel played the car's designer, Lee Ving played a rival thief who also wants the disk, Bubba Smith played Jones's FBI contact, Keenan Wynn, in his final appearance in a major film, played a contact of Jones, and Nick Cassavetes played one of the car thieves. Critics were mostly confused, and the audience chose to skip it.
Director: Harley Cokeliss
Forty Years Ago--January 9, 1981:
New Limited Releases:
Mon Oncle d'Amerique--NA/NA/92%/NA--French director Alain Resnais, known for experimenting with narrative in his feature films, directed this comedy-drama about the intertwined lives of three people, an executive with a faltering career (Gerard Depardieu), a politician (Roger Pierre) and an actress-turned-fashion consultant (Nicole Garcia). Intertwined with the (fictional) stories is commentary by real neurosurgeon and philosopher Henri Laborit, who explains how the encounters and events of each life shape what decisions they make. This all sounds complicated, but critics loved it, and the film became a box office success in both France and the US. It would get an Oscar nomination for Original Screenplay.
Director: Alain Resnais
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