Late April is a odd time for the movies. With the summer movie season looming, Hollywood frequently cleans out its shelf to release some of their less outstanding work. That said, they also release big-budgeted vehicles with big stars, seemingly as a way to jump-start the season early. Sometime it works. Usually it doesn't.
One Year Ago--April 24, 2020:
#1 Movie:
Trolls World Tour
New Theatrical Releases:
Ture History of the Kelly Gang--$0.03 million/219/80%/75--Yet another telling of the story of Australia's most notorious outlaw, this starred George MacKay as Ned Kelly. Also starring was Nicholas Hoult, Charlie Hunnam, and Russell Crowe.
Director: Justin Kurzel
New Streaming Releases:
Beastie Boys Story--94%/74--Spike Jonze (who made the video for "Sabotage", among others for the group) directed this filmed version of the show where Michael "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, the two surviving members of the iconic rap group, reminisced about their lives, their careers, and their friendship with the late Adam "MCA" Yauch. Filled with lots of clips.
Director: Spike Jonze
Five Years Ago--April 22, 2016:
#1 Movie:
The Jungle Book--$61.5 million
New Wide Releases:
The Huntsman: Winter's War--2/$19.5 million/$48.4 million/67/19%/35--Snow Whiteless sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman has the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) encountering his old love (Jessica Chastain) and his old enemy (Emily Blunt). Charlize Theron and Nick Frost also return from the first film. Without Kristen Stewart and with a plotline that bared a noticeable resemblance to Frozen (being based on the same Hans Christian Anderson story), this ended up making less than a third of what the previous film had earned.
Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan
Compadres--9/$1.4 million/$3.1 million/184/38%/28--This Mexican-American co-production, filmed in both English and Spanish, starred Mexican actor Omar Chaparro as a former cop who reluctantly teams with an American teenage hacker (Joey Morgan) to find the criminal (Erick Elias) who framed him. Eric Roberts and Kevin Pollock co-starred. Like many of these types of movies, this action-comedy did well at theaters catering to Hispanic audiences.
Director: Enrique Begné
New Limited Releases:
A Hologram for the King--$4.2 million/162/70%/58--Tom Hanks starred in his first flop based on a Dave Eggers novel (The Circle would follow a year later), playing a salesman trying to get the King of Saudi Arabia to purchase his company's holographic conference system. Omar Elba (using the name Alexander Black), Sarita Choudhury, Ben Whishaw, Sidse Babett Knudsen, and Tom Skerritt co-starred. Oddly, for a movie starring Tom Hanks, this never went wide, making this his second-lowest-grossing star vehicle, only ahead of 1986's Every Time We Say Goodbye.
Director: Tom Tykwer
Ten Years Ago--April 29, 2011:
New Wide Releases:
Fast Five--1/$86.2 million/$209.8 million/6/77%/66--After four films focusing on street racing, this changed the focus of the franchise to car-based action in exotic locals, which revitalized the franchise. Returning from previous films were Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, and Matt Schulze, with Eva Mendes cameoing. The big addition was Dwayne Johnson as a federal agent who, by the end, has become an ally of the "family". This ended up making over $50 million more than Fast and Furious had done two years earlier, becoming the new high-water mark of the franchise until Fast and Furious 6 two years later.
Director: Justin Lin
Prom--5/$4.7 million/$10.1 million/141/35%/50--Low-budget, low-grossing Disney comedy about a bunch of teens (mostly played by actors who were and are still familiar from TV, including Aimee Teagarden, Cameron Monaghan, and Nicholas Braun) preparing for the big night. A few familiar adults, including Faith Ford, Dean Norris, and Jere Burns, play the various adults in their lives. Since this was PG, there were no drunken or sexy shenanigans.
Director: Joe Nussbaum
Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil--6/$4.1 million/$10.1 million/140/11%/20--Sequel to the surprise hit 2005 low-budget animated comedy had a much bigger budget, but much smaller grosses, as Red Riding Hood (Hayden Panettiere, replacing Anne Hathaway) gets mixed up with Hansel and Gretel (Bill Hader and Amy Poehler). Joan Cusack voices the evil witch, and Glenn Close, Patrick Warburton, David Ogden Stiers, and Andy Dick return from the first film. Newcomers include Martin Short (replacing Jim Belushi), Brad Garrett, Wayne Newton, Heidi Klum, and Cheech and Chong. This opened less than two months after the live-action Red Riding Hood came and went.
Director: Mike Disa
Fifteen Years Ago--April 28, 2006:
New Wide Releases:
RV--1/$16.4 million/$71.7 million/35/24%/33--Robin Williams played an overworked executive who is ordered by his boss (Will Arnett) to attend a business meeting in Colorado instead of his planned vacation, so he rents the titular camper and takes his family (Cheryl Hines, Joanna 'JoJo' Levesque, and Josh Hutcherson) with him. Hijinks ensure. Co-starring Kristen Chenoweth, Jeff Daniels, Hunter Parrish, and Arnett's Arrested Development co-star Tony Hale. Despite awful reviews, Williams helped make this a moderate box-office success.
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
United 93--2/$11.5 million/$31.5 million/96/90%/90--The first of two major films of 2006 to tackle the events of 9/11, this docudrama takes place on the titular doomed flight that crashed in Pennsylvania that morning, after the passengers rebelled against the hijackers. Director Paul Greengrass used mostly unknown actors to play the passengers, crew, and hijackers (including Christian Clemenson, Cheyenne Jackson, and Olivia Thirlby), and told the story in real time. The film was highly acclaimed, and probably grossed about as much as a film about the attack with no major stars could expect. Greengrass would be Oscar nominated for Director, and the Editing would also be nominated.
Director: Paul Greengrass
Stick It--3/$10.8 million/$26.9 million/101/31%/53--Missy Peregrym starred in this drama as a rebellious gymnast ordered by a judge to resume training with elite coach Jeff Bridges, despite her serious issues with the world of competitive gymnastics. Julie Warner and Kellan Lutz (in his film debut) co-starred. This proved to be a minor blip on Bridges's career.
Director: Jessica Bendinger
Akeelah and the Bee--8/$6 million/$18.9 million/119/85%/72--That would be the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which spelling prodigy Akeelah (Keke Palmer) qualifies for, even though she comes from a poor family in South Los Angeles. Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne, and Curtis Armstrong co-star. Despite strong reviews, this failed to break out.
Director: Doug Atchison
New Limited Releases:
Water--$3.3 million*/191/91%/77--This drama, the third entry in director Deepa Mehta Elements trilogy (following 1996's Fire and 1998's Earth) starred young actress Sarala Kariyawasam as an 8-year-old widow in 1930s India sent to an ashram. The highly acclaimed drama would receive an Oscar nomination for Foreign Language Film from Canada, even though the film was set in India, was directed by an Indian, and was shot in nearby Sri Lanka.
*This is the American gross only. The film was released in 2005 in Canada, where it grossed $2.3 million and finished 186 for that year.
Director: Deepa Mehta
Twenty Years Ago--April 27, 2001:
New Wide Releases:
Driven--1/$12.2 million/$32.7 million/73/14%/29--Essentially a remake of Top Gun with race cars (which actually makes it a remake of Days of Thunder), Kip Pardue played a hotshot young CART driver on Burt Reynold's team who begins to be mentored by veteran racer Sylvester Stallone. Til Schweiger, Gina Gershon, and Robert Sean Leonard co-starred. This got mostly terrible reviews and proved to be a financial flop.
Director: Renny Harlin
Town & Country--7/$3 million/$6.7 million/138/13%/34--Maybe the most snakebit movie of 2001, this comedy starred Warren Beatty as a guy whose happily married to Diane Keaton--except for the affair he's having with Nastassja Kinski. This one features a truly impressive cast, including Goldie Hawn, Garry Shandling (in his second consecutive flop expensive, all-star sex comedy, after 2000's What Planet Are You From?), Andie MacDowell, Jenna Elfman, Josh Hartnett, Buck Henry (who co-wrote the script), and Charlton Heston, in his final major film. The North American gross didn't even cover 10% of the film's budget, and Beatty wouldn't make another movie until 2016's Rules Don't Apply (which also flopped spectacularly).
Director: Peter Chelsom
The Forsaken--8/$3 million/$7.3 million/135/7%/35--Standard issue horror thriller that has WB stars Kerr Smith and Brendan Fehr hunting vampire Johnathon Schaech. Simon Rex and Carrie Snodgress co-starred. Unlike the weekend's other flops, this one was fairly cheap to make (though it still lost money). It got the same awful reviews that the others did, though.
Director: J.S. Cardone
One Night at McCool's--11/$2.5 million/$6.3 million/140/33%/46--Three different guys (Matt Dillon, Paul Reiser, John Goodman) mixed up with the same seductive woman (Liv Tyler) all have different accounts of what caused the chaos that enveloped all of them over the past few days. This Rashomon-style comedy also starred Reba McEntire, Richard Jenkins, Andrew Dice Clay (billed under his birth name of Andrew Silverstein), and Michael Douglas. This one got slightly better reviews than the other three films that opened that weekend, but grossed the least amount of the bunch.
Director: Harald Zwart
Twenty-Five Years Ago--April 26, 1996:
New Wide Releases:
The Quest--1/$7 million/$21.7 million/73/14%/NA--Jean-Claude Van Damme made his directorial debut with this martial arts flick, where he played an American who finds himself competing in an underground tournament in Tibet. Roger Moore and James Remar co-starred. This didn't do much to help Van Damme's career, which was beginning to seriously flag.
Director: Jean-Claude Van Damme
The Truth About Cats & Dogs--2/$6.8 million/$34.9 million/42/85%/64--This romcom starred Janeane Garofalo as a host of a pet advice radio show who agrees on a date with caller Ben Chaplin, but gets nervous and gets model friend Uma Thurman to pretend to be her. Jamie Foxx and then-Mr. Show co-stars David Cross and Bob Odenkirk also appeared, and Mr. Show semi-regular Mary Lynn Rajskub made her film debut as a caller. This Cyrano riff was well-received and after a slow start ended up having solid legs.
Director: Michael Lehmann
Sunset Park--3/$4.7 million/$10.2 million/124/13%/NA--Danny DeVito produced this basketball drama, which explains why his wife Rhea Perlman is the star of this serious, basketball-centered remake of Wildcats as a teacher who gets a job as the coach of a boy's basketball team, which includes Fredo Starr and Terrence Howard. Carol Kane also co-starred. Critics felt they had already seen this film many times before.
Director: Steve Gomer
Mulholland Falls--5/$4.3 million/$11.5 million/118/31%/NA--In the 1950s, a unit of the LAPD (Nick Nolte, Chazz Palminteri (in his third flop of the spring), and Reservoir Dogs co-stars Michael Madsen and Chris Penn) investigate the murder of a call girl (Jennifer Connelly) who might have angered powerful forces in the U.S. government. This had an impressive cast, including Melanie Griffith, Treat Williams, Andrew McCarthy, Kyle Chandler, William L. Petersen, Rob Lowe, Bruce Dern, Louise Fletcher, and John Malkovich, but the film still flopped both critically and commercially.
Director: Lee Tamahori
Thirty Years Ago--April 26, 1991:
New Wide Releases:
Oscar--1/$5.1 million/$23.6 million/57/12%/47--Sylvester Stallone tried his hand at farce, playing a 30's Chicago gangster trying to go straight, whose day is interrupted by an embezzling accountant (Vincent Spano), one real daughter (Marisa Tomei), one fake daughter (Elizabeth Barondes), cops, rival gangsters, and bankers. John Landis rounded up a terrific cast, including Peter Riegert, Chazz Palminteri (in his first major film role), Yvonne De Carlo, Don Ameche, Eddie Bracken, Kurtwood Smith, Harry Shearer, Linda Gray, Tim Curry, and Kirk Douglas. Alas, it was largely for naught, as audiences preferred Stallone the action star.
Director: John Landis
A Kiss Before Dying--2/$4.4 million/$15.4 million/75/31%/40--A college student (Matt Dillon) kills his pregnant girlfriend (Sean Young), stages it as a suicide, then assumes a new identity and takes up with her twin sister (also Young), who does not believe her sister actually killed herself. Diane Ladd, James Russo, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz, and Max von Sydow co-starred. Reviews were negative, and this performed poorly.
Director: James Dearden
Toy Soldiers--3/$4.2 million/$15.1 million/77/38%/46--In this rather improbable actioner, a Columbian terrorist (Andrew Divoff) takes a boarding school filled with the sons of the rich and powerful hostage, and it's up to a group of students, including Sean Astin, Wil Wheaton, and Keith Coogan, to take them out. Louis Gossett, Jr., Denholm Elliott, Jerry Orbach, and R. Lee Ermey co-starred.
Director: Daniel Petrie Jr.
New Limited Releases:
Journey of Hope--$0.3 million/212/83%/NA--A Turkish family (Necmettin Çobanoglu, Nur Sürer, and Emin Sivas) decide to illegally immigrate to Switzerland, only to run into a series of extreme hardships along the way. This Swiss drama was the upset winner of the Foreign Language Oscar, beating out the heavily favored Cyrano de Bergerac, even though reviews for this one were somewhat mixed. Even with the Oscar, it didn't make much of an impact in art houses.
Director: Xavier Koller
Chameleon Street--NA/NA/NA/NA--Over a decade before Catch Me If You Can came this low-budget comedy-drama, also based on the life of a real-life con man, William Street (played by writer-director Wendell B. Harris Jr.) who is able to convincingly step into a number of different careers. Despite some industry awards, this slipped in and out of art houses quickly.
Director: Wendell B. Harris Jr.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--April 25, 1986:
#1 Movie:
Legend--$2.6 million
New Limited Releases:
Three Men and a Cradle--$2.1 million/146/72%/44--Three carefree bachelors (Roland Giraud, Michel Boujenah, André Dussollier) sharing a luxury apartment are suddenly pressed into fatherhood when a baby--the product of one of their one-night stands--is left on their doorstep. This comedy was a huge hit in its native France, and didn't do too badly on the art-house circuit in North America. In 1987, it would be adapted into the American remake Three Men and a Baby, which also proved to be a huge hit. The original French movie, which was an Oscar nominee for Foreign Language Film, despite mixed reviews, would produce a sequel, 18 Years Later, in 2003.
Director: Coline Serreau
Expanding:
Violets are Blue...--5/$1.4 million
Forty Years Ago--April 24, 1981:
New Wide Releases:
Heaven's Gate--$3.5 million/94 (in 1980)/59%/57--In Michael Cimino's follow-up to The Deer Hunter, a U.S. Marshall (Kris Kristofferson) reluctantly joins the side of poor European immigrants fighting against rich cattle barons in this epic western, a heavily fictionalized version of the real-life Johnson County War in 1890s Wyoming. Thanks to the success of The Deer Hunter, Cimino was able to attract an incredible cast, including Christopher Walkin, John Hurt, Sam Waterson, Brad Dourif, Isabelle Huppert, Joseph Cotten, Terry O'Quinn, Tom Noonan, Mickey Rourke, a young Willem Dafoe (in his film debut) and Jeff Bridges. However, the film's bloated budget--with Cimino went over by a wide margin--and never-ending editing process--he delivered the film nearly a year after its original release date--led to widespread critical derision and almost no audiences when it opened in New York in late 1980. The film was withdrawn and re-edited, but its nationwide release led to even worse reviews and no business. The film quickly became shorthand for Hollywood disaster, but in recent years, the director's cut has been re-evaluated, and the film's reputation has improved significantly. Despite its then-negative reception, the film was still Oscar-nominated (in early 1982, as it didn't play L.A. until this 1981 release) for Art Direction.
Director: Michael Cimino
New Limited Releases:
Blazing Saddles--NA/NA/88%/73--To compete with Heaven's Gate, Warners re-released Mel Brooks's smash hit western spoof, in which railroad worker-turned-convict Cleavon Little is sent to become the next sheriff of a small town by the dastardly Harvey Korman, hoping to drive the racist townspeople away so he can scoop up the land for cheap before the railroad comes through. It all somehow ends with a shootout outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater in 1974. The script, co-written by Brooks, Richard Pryor, and future The Freshman/Honeymoon in Vegas director Andrew Bergman, is still very funny, as long as you don't mind an abundance of n-words (spoken almost exclusively by racist characters).
Director: Mel Brooks
Cattle Annie and Little Britches--$0.5 million/105/NA/NA--The week's other western that was a heavily fictionalized version of a real story starred Amanda Plummer (in her film debut) and Diane Lane (in her third film) as the titular characters, adolescents girls in 1890s Oklahoma who, enchanted by dime store novels, run away to join an outlaw gang. They end up in one led by Burt Lancaster, which has seen better days. John Savage and Rod Steiger co-starred. Despite the solid cast, this was overshadowed by Lancaster's other spring 1981 release, Atlantic City, which was also rolling out around the country.
Director: Lamont Johnson
Return of the Secaucus 7--NA/NA/81%/NA--John Sayles, who up to this point had earned a living writing screenplays for low-budget genre films (including Piranha, Alligator, Battle Beyond the Stars, and the then-current The Howling), made his directorial debut with this drama about a group of college friends, all activists in the 60s, reuniting roughly 10 years later for a long weekend. Of the then-unknown cast, David Strathairn, who was making his film debut and would go on to work with Sayles numerous times, has become the biggest name, but Adam LeFevre, Gordon Clapp, and Maggie Renzi, Sayles longtime partner, also have had solid careers. The Big Chill, which came out in 1983, has a similar plotline, though that film's writer/director, Lawrence Kasdan, claims to have not seen Sayles film before making that one.
Director: John Sayles
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