April has never been a particularly hot time to release new movies. Certainly, the month has seen its share of big releases, but its usually the home of smaller films that the studios hope can make some money before they get crowded out by the summer blockbusters.
One Year Ago--April 3, 2020
#1 Movie:
The Invisible Man
Five Years Ago--April 1, 2016:
#1 Movie:
Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice--$51.3 million
New Wide Releases:
God's Not Dead 2--4/$7.6 million/$20.8 million/110/10%/22--For some reason waiting until the week after Easter to come out, this sequel to the surprise 2014 Christian hit starred Melissa Joan Hart as a Christian teacher whose brief mention of how the teachings of Jesus influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. (a non-controversial statement of fact, given that Dr. King was a pastor whose doctorate was in theology) somehow lands her in legal jeopardy (in Little Rock, no less). Ray Wise played the prosecutor, Ernie Hudson the judge, Jesse Metcalfe Hart's defense attorney, Robin Givins the school's principal, Pat Boone as Hart's father, and former senator Fred Dalton Thompson, in his final role, as a pastor. Critics howled, and while the film did OK, it ended up making only a third of what its predecessor made, and it finished well behind Risen and Miracles From Heaven. Another sequel would follow in 2018.
Director: Harold Cronk
Meet the Blacks--8/$4.1 million/$9.1 million/150/17%/26--For whatever reason, Mike Epps found himself starring in not one, but two flop spoof films in the spring of 2016 with the word "Black" in the title. Unlike Fifty Shades of Black, whose target is self-evident, this one spoofed The Purge, as Epps moves his family to Beverly Hills just in time for the annual celebration. Hijinks ensure. Charlie Murphy, in his final film, played a drug dealer, George Lopez played the president, and Mike Tyson and Snoop Dogg had cameos. Critics liked this only slightly more than they liked God's Not Dead 2. Despite being a flop, a sequel would be released in 2021.
Director: Deon Taylor
Expanding:
Eye in the Sky--9/$4 million
Ten Years Ago--April 8, 2011:
#1 Movie:
Hop--$21.3 million
New Wide Releases:
Hanna--2/$12.4 million/$40.3 million/75/71%/65--Joe Wright, whose previous movies had been the literary adaptions Pride & Prejudice and Atonement and the human drama The Soloist, does a 180 into action territory with this thriller. Saoirse Ronan, who had gotten an Oscar nomination for Atonement, played a teenage girl trained from birth to be an assassin by her father (Eric Bana) because they're being hunted by a ruthless CIA agent (Cate Blanchett) who wants both of them dead. Michelle Dockery played another agent, and Olivia Williams and Jason Flemyng played a vacationing couple whose RV Ronan stows away in. Despite generally solid reviews, this ended up being an underperformer. A TV spinoff of the movie would premiere on Amazon in 2019.
Director: Joe Wright
Arthur--3/$12.2 million/$33 million/96/26%/36--Russell Brand, who was also heard (and briefly seen) in Hop, starred in the weekend's other new movie named after the lead character, a remake of the 1981 Dudley Moore comedy about a rich alcoholic (Brand) who falls for a free-spirted woman (Greta Gerwig, in the Liza Minelli role) even though he's engaged (lovelessly) to another woman (Jennifer Garner), an engagement he needs to keep because otherwise he'd be disinherited. Nick Nolte played Garner's father, Luis Guzmán played his chauffeur, and Helen Mirren had the John Gielgud role as Brand's nanny. With this being a critical and commercial failure, Brand would not have another leading role in a major Hollywood film.
Director: Jason Winer
Soul Surfer--4/$10.6 million/$43.9 million/72/45%/53--True story about a teenage surfer (AnnaSophia Robb) who loses her arm in a shark attack, but after miraculously surviving and fearing she'll have to give up competitive surfing, learns to embrace what happened to her when she realizes she can use it to help other people. This inspirational Christian drama co-starred Helen Hunt and Dennis Quaid as Robb's parents, Carrie Underwood (in what is her only movie acting performance to date) as her church's youth leader, Kevin Sorbo and Jeremy Sumpter as family friends, and Craig T. Nelson as Robb's doctor. Reviews weren't great, but the film ended up having good legs, eventually outgrossing the two films that opened above it.
Director: Sean McNamara
Your Highness--6/$9.4 million/$21.6 million/114/27%/31--On paper, this medieval stoner comedy seemed like a good idea--a strong cast, including recent Oscar winner Natalie Portman and recent nominee James Franco, and direction by David Gordon Green, whose last film had been the critical and commercial stoner success Pineapple Express, starring Franco and co-star/co-writer Danny McBride. Alas... Two princes (McBride and Franco) join forces with a warrior (Portman) to save Franco's bride (Zooey Deschanel) from an evil sorcerer (Justin Theroux). Hijinks ensure. Charles Dance (who would have a much better medieval experience when he debuted on Game of Thrones about a month and a half later) played the king, Toby Jones a slave, and Damian Lewis a knight.
Director: David Gordon Green
Fifteen Years Ago--April 7, 2006:
#1 Movie:
Ice Age: The Meltdown--$33.8 million
New Wide Releases:
The Benchwarmers--2/$19.7 million/$59.8 million/52/13%/25--An Adam Sandler movie without Adam Sandler (he only produced), this comedy starred Sandler's friends Rob Schneider and David Spade, along with interloper Jon Heder, as three adults who attempt to recover from childhood bullying by entering a Little League baseball tournament for kids. Sandler friend Jon Lovitz played a billionaire who befriends the team, Craig Kilborn and Sandler friend Tim Meadows played opposing coaches, Terry Crews as a grown-up bullying victim, 12-year-old Patrick Schwarzenegger made his film debut as a Little Leaguer, and small parts and cameos from Sandler friends Nick Swardson, Bill Romanowski, Dan Patrick, not to mention Sandler's wife Jackie and his then-pre-teen nephew Jared. James Earl Jones and William Daniels had vocal cameos. Sandler may not have been in it, but critics treated it like one of his typical starring vehicles, but the film still managed to become a moderate success. It was directed by Sandler friend Dennis Dugan. A straight-to-DVD sequel, with Lovitz returning, came out in 2019.
Director: Dennis Dugan
Take the Lead--3/$12.8 million/$34.7 million/91/44%/55--Standard-issue inspirational teacher drama starred Antonio Banderas as a dance instructor who volunteers to teach ballroom dancing to a bunch of detention kids in a New York City high school. Will they protest at first, but then get into it, and does it all lead up to a big dance competition? Of course it does! Alfre Woodard played the school principal, and Banderas's students included Rob Brown, Elijah Kelley, and Laura Benanti. Reviews were mixed, and the film did OK business.
Director: Liz Friedlander
Lucky Number Slevin--5/$7 million/$22.5 million/112/51%/53--While staying at a friend's apartment, Josh Hartnett learns the hard way that said friend (Sam Jaeger) is up to his eyeballs in gambling debts to two rival mobsters (Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley), and said mobsters, mistaking Hartnett for Jaeger, demand that he pay up. Of course, Things Are Not As They Seem. Bruce Willis played another mobster, Stanley Tucci a cop, Lucy Liu Jaeger's suspicious neighbor, Mykelti Williamson (also co-starring in ATL at the time) and Corey Stoll as thugs, with cameos by Danny Aiello and Robert Forster. Despite the overstuffed cast, critics thought it was yet another Pulp Fiction wannabe and audiences mostly ignored it.
Director: Paul McGuigan
Phat Girlz--9/$3.1 million/$7.1 million/170/21%/36--This vehicle for comedian and future Oscar winner Mo'Nique cast her as an aspiring fashion designer who doesn't understand why an attractive Nigerian doctor (Jimmy Jean-Louis) would prefer her over her much skinnier cousin (Joyful Drake). Eric Roberts played a department store buyer. Reviews were awful, and so was the box office.
Director: Nnegest Likké
New Limited Releases:
Friends With Money--$13.4 million/140/72%/68--Those would be Joan Cusack, Frances McDormand, and Catherine Keener, all of whom have a lot more money than fourth friend Jennifer Aniston, who has to waitress in a coffee shop and skip Hootie and the Blowfish concerts clean houses in order to make ends meet. However, life isn't great for the other three, either, as Keener's marriage to Jason Isaacs is falling apart, and McDormand is growing angrier and angrier as she gets older. Greg Germann played Isaac's husband, Simon McBurney played McDormand's husband, Scott Caan played a suitor of Aniston's, and Ty Burrell played McBurney's friend. Reviews were good, though not as strong as the reviews of director Nicole Holofcener's previous films Lovely & Amazing and Walking and Talking (both of which co-starred Keener), but the all-star cast helped make this an art-house hit.
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Expanding:
Thank You For Smoking--10/$2.3 million
Twenty Years Ago--April 6, 2001:
#1 Movie:
Spy Kids--$17.1 million
New Wide Releases:
Along Came a Spider--2/$16.7 million/$74.1 million/30/32%/42--In this sequel to 1997's Kiss the Girls, Morgan Freeman reprises his role as psychologist and detective Alex Cross, who teams with a Secret Service agent (Monica Potter) to track down the kidnapper (Michael Wincott) of the daughter (Mika Boorem) of a U.S. Senator (Michael Moriarty). Dylan Baker (also in The Tailor of Panama) played an FBI agent, Billy Burke played another Secret Service agent, Jay O. Sanders played the head of the FBI, Penelope Ann Miller played Boorem's mother and Moriarty's wife, and 11-year-old Anton Yelchin (in his second poorly received crime thriller of the spring, after 15 Minutes) played another potential kidnap victim. The film did well commercially, but critics thought it was predictable. Despite its success, Freeman didn't ever return to the role, though the series was rebooted in 2012 with Cross starring Tyler Perry.
Director: Lee Tamahori
Blow--3/$12.4 million/$53 million/47/55%/52--This biopic starred Johnny Depp as George Jung, who started out as a marijuana dealer before eventually becoming the top American importer for Pablo Escobar's cocaine cartel. Of course, everything eventually comes crashing down. Penélope Cruz played Depp's wife, Ray Liotta and Rachel Griffiths played his parents, Ethan Suplee played a childhood friend who is Depp's first partner, Paul Reubens played a pot dealer who sets Depp up in the drug business, Bobcat Goldthwait played a customer, and 11-year-old Emma Roberts and James King both made their film debuts playing Depp and Cruz's daughter at different ages. This would be the final narrative film directed by Ted Demme, who would die less than a year later.
Director: Ted Demme
Pokémon 3: The Movie--4/$8.2 million/$17.1 million/107/21%/NA--Three Pokémon movies in less than 18 months proved to be overkill, as this one's final gross couldn't even top the opening weekend of Pokémon the Movie 2000, released the previous July, let alone Pokémon: The First Movie from November 1999. Young Pokémon trainer Ash (Veronica Taylor) and his Pokémon, including Pikachu, has to save a young girl and his mother from mysterious Pokémon. The handful of critics who reviewed it wasn't impressed. This would be the final Pokémon movie to get a wide theatrical release in the U.S. until Pokémon: Detective Pikachu in 2019.
Director: Kunihiko Yuyama
Just Visiting--12/$2.3 million/$4.8 million/150/33%/38--The 1993 comedy Les Visiteurs was a huge hit in its native France, but when it finally reached American audiences three years later, it made almost no impact. Instead of deciding that the storyline was of no interest to the U.S., the powers that be instead decided to remake it, recruiting Jean Reno and Christian Clavier, the two stars of the French version, to reprise their roles and the director Jean-Marie Poiré (billed, for some reason, as Jean-Marie Gaubert) to make his English language directorial debut, remaking his own film. A knight (Reno) and his servant (Clavier) take a time travel potion provided by a wizard (Malcolm McDowell) to prevent a tragedy, but instead, somehow end up in 2001 Chicago, where Reno befriends a distant descendent (Christina Applegate) and Clavier falls for Tara Reid. Bridgette Wilson-Sampras and George Plimpton also pop up. Critics panned the film, and audiences ignored it, as it ended up the second-worst-grossing wide release of 2001. Poiré promptly went back to France.
Director: Jean-Marie Gaubert (really Jean-Marie Poiré)
Twenty-Five Years Ago--April 5, 1996:
New Wide Releases:
Primal Fear--1/$9.9 million/$56.1 million/27/76%/47--A prominent defense attorney (Richard Gere) volunteers to defend a teenager (Edward Norton, in his film debut) who is accused of murdering the archbishop of Chicago (Stanley Anderson). Laura Linney played the prosecuting attorney, Alfre Woodward the judge, Frances McDormand a psychologist, Andre Braugher and Maura Tierney as Gere's associates, and John Mahoney and Terry O'Quinn as Linney's corrupt bosses. Critics generally liked this twisty courtroom thriller, giving most of their praise to Norton, in the first of three major films he'd be in in 1996. Audiences also responded, making it a moderate hit. A bit less than a year after it opened, Norton would be Oscar nominated for Supporting Actor.
Director: Gregory Hoblit
A Thin Line Between Love and Hate--2/$9.3 million/$34.8 million/43/12%/NA--Martin Lawrence directed his first and, to date, only feature film in this poorly received dark comedy about a womanizer (Lawrence) whose ex-girlfriend (Lynn Whitfield) proves dangerously unstable and out for revenge. Regina King played Lawrence's new girlfriend, Della Reese his mother, Bobby Brown (yes, that Bobby Brown) and Daryl Mitchell (also in Sgt. Bilko) as friends of Lawrence, and Tracy Morgan, in his film debut, as a bartender. Despite the critical disdain, Lawrence was enough of a star to help make this a minor hit.
Director: Martin Lawrence
New Limited Releases:
Faithful--$2.1 million/179/7%/NA--This massive misfire, based on a play by co-star Chazz Palminteri, who also wrote the screenplay, starred Cher as a bored, suicidal housewife whose will to live returns when she's attacked by a hitman (Palminteri, in the second of three spring flops) hired by her husband (Ryan O'Neal). Director Paul Mazursky played a psychiatrist. Outside of the barely released 1982 film Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, this is easily Cher's lowest-grossing film.
Director: Paul Mazursky
Expanding:
Flirting With Disaster--10/$1.8 million
Thirty Years Ago--April 5, 1991:
#1 Movie:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze--$7.8 million
New Wide Releases:
The Marrying Man--3/$4 million/$12.5 million/88/10%/NA--In this poorly received romcom (written by Neil Simon), playboy Alec Baldwin, happily engaged to Elisabeth Shue, spends a night with, and then is forced to marry, singer Kim Basinger. The two of them spend the rest of the movie falling in and out of love (and being married to each other). Robert Loggia played Shue's father, Paul Reiser and Fisher Stevens play Baldwin's friends, and Armand Assante played gangster Bugsy Siegel, who was dating Basinger and forced the two to get married (this would be the first of three 1991 films featuring Siegel as a character). Ironically, Basinger and Baldwin, who met on this project, would get married a couple of years later (and get divorced in 2002). Box office wasn't any better than the reviews.
Director: Jerry Rees
New Limited Releases:
Poison--$0.8 million/182/77%/67--Todd Haynes made his feature film debut with this trilogy of interrelated short films, each shot in a different style, about the aftermath of a young boy shooting his abusive father and flying away (shot in the style of early 90s tabloid TV), a scientist who drinks a forbidden elixir and becomes a monster (shot in the style of a black and white sci-fi feature), and a prisoner who falls in love with a fellow inmate, shot in low light and color. John Leguizamo, who appears briefly in the prison segment and is billed under a pseudonym, is the only cast member familiar to audiences. Critics were very positive, though the queer aspects of the story attracted controversary, which helped it become a modest art-house success, despite its NC-17 rating (the film has since been re-rated R).
Director: Todd Haynes
Expanding:
Defending Your Life--5/$3.3 million
Thirty-Five Years Ago--April 4, 1986:
#1 Movie:
Police Academy 3: Back in Training--$5.1 million
New Limited Releases:
P.O.W.: The Escape--$2.5 million/136/NA/NA--In this Vietnam-set drama, U.S. Army colonel David Carradine strikes a deal with the commander of the P.O.W. camp (Mako) where he's being held where Mako will help him and all the other prisoners escape to American-held territory, and in return, Carradine will help Mako immigrate to the United States. Action hijinks ensued. Yes, this was a Cannon film.
Director: Gideon Amir
Desert Hearts--$2.5 million/137/96%/67--Helen Shaver, staying in Reno for six weeks in 1959 to obtain a quick divorce, finds herself unexpectedly falling for the vivacious Patricia Charbonneau, the adopted daughter of the owner (Audra Lindley) of the ranch she is staying at. One of the first movies to depict a lesbian relationship in a positive light (complete with happy ending), this became an unexpected art house success, helping to pave the way for the future successful works focusing on LGBTQ issues.
Director: Donna Deitch
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo--NA/NA/NA/NA--The brutal military dictatorship that had ruled Argentina from 1977 until 1983 was responsible for the disappearance of up to 30,000 people, suspected to be leftists who opposed the regime. This acclaimed documentary focused on a group of female activists, many of whose own adult children were among the missing, and their brave protest demanding a full accounting of the government's actions and the whereabouts and final fates of the missing. The film had been nominated for Documentary Feature at the then-recent Oscar ceremony.
Director: Susana Blaustein Muñoz and Lourdes Portillo
Forty Years Ago--April 3, 1981:
New Wide Releases:
Hardly Working--NA/NA/10%/NA--Jerry Lewis, who hadn't been in a movie since his disastrous, never-released Holocaust drama The Day the Clown Cried in 1972, attempted a comeback by directing himself in this slapstick throwback to the type of comedies he was churning out in the late 50s and early 60s. He played an out of work clown who accepted, and proceeded to comically screw up, a series of jobs. Critics felt the film hardly worked, but it did decent business (according to Wikipedia, it grossed a solid $24 million in the U.S.) and did lead to Lewis working regularly in TV and film for the next decade and a half.
Director: Jerry Lewis
New Limited Releases:
Atlantic City--$12.7 million/56/100%/85--An aging retired gangster (Burt Lancaster) agrees to sell a large batch of cocaine as a favor for the estranged husband (Robert Joy) of the young casino waitress (Susan Sarandon) he has had a longtime crush on. When the coke turns out to be stolen, though, Lancaster and Sarandon find themselves possibly over their heads. Robert Goulet cameoed as himself, and Wallace Shawn, who would star in Louis Malle's other 1981 film My Dinner With Andre, would also cameo. This highly acclaimed romantic crime drama, Malle's second English-language film after 1978's controversial Pretty Baby (also starring Sarandon) would be a moderate hit. In the spring of 1982, it would be Oscar nominated for Picture, Actor for Lancaster (the last of his four nominations), Actress for Sarandon (the first of her five nominations to date), Director for Malle, and Original Screenplay.
Director: Louis Malle
Modern Romance--$2.9 million/88/82%/NA--In this romcom, co-written, directed, and starring Albert Brooks, he played a guy who loves his longtime girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold), but can't help but wonder what else is out there, leading him to put off commitment. Bruno Kirby played his best friend, James L. Brooks, who at the time was still primarily known for his TV work, played a movie director, and George Kennedy played himself. Critics greatly liked the film, but it failed to do much business outside of art houses.
Director: Albert Brooks
Expanding:
La Cage Aux Folles II
The Postman Always Rings Twice
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