To the editors at "Entertainment Weekly,"
Once again, you guys simply do not get it. In the recent article "Summer Squash" much ado was made about how movies like
Bewitched and
Cinderella Man "both underperformed in spite of their stars." What stars? Surely you don't mean Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe? A quick glance at the filmography of either will reveal them to be little more than highly paid actors with mostly lackluster to middling track records among the American moviegoing populace. I mean, come on, did anybody really think that the woman who appeared in a dud like
Birth was going to be able to pack 'em in to a movie that bastardized a beloved small screen classic; that is, after failing to pack em in a year ago for a bastardized remake of a 70's psychological horror film. Need more proof? Check out the U.S
grosses for
The Birthday Girl and the much publicized
Moulin Rouge! Even Kidman's Oscar winning
The Hours couldn't grow legs at the box office, and neither
The Others nor
Cold Mountain, according to the Internet Movie Database, achieved a domestic gross in excess of $100,000,000. Though Kidman consistently generates a lot of press, the American public has almost
as consistently rejected her as a bona fide movie star. What's not to get about that?
Ditto, the boor named Russell Crowe (whom the press impishly labels a "bad boy," so he'll somehow come across as less of a bully). Crowe got lucky with the likes of
Gladiator and
A Beautiful Mind, but, like Kidman, the rest of his resume is rounded out by movies that, despite lots of acclaim, failed to reach the greater percentage of average moviegoers:
LA Confidential,The Insider, Mystery Alaska, and, yes, even
Master and Commander. Further, all the gossipy speculation about Crowe and Meg Ryan wasn't enough to turn 2000's
Proof of Life into a box office blockbuster. Why? Because most of the average moviegoing public isn't interested in paying good money to see Russell Crowe on the big screen. So why does the media report
his every move? Believe me, if people weren't interested in seeing Crowe in
Cinderella Man before he started throwing phones, they were even less likely afterward. Here again, the general public is smarter than the press.
Also, enough already of the requiem for
Cinderella Man. I worked in the movie exhibition business for over 20 years and the truth is, prestigious, well reviewed movies flop at the box office all the time; likewise, heavily hyped "high concept" pictures flop just as often It's just the crap-shot nature of the business. Why did
Cinderella Man fail? Simple, the marketing campaign
was all wrong. The movie was presented to the American moviegoing public as a prime Oscar contender at a time when most people simply weren't thinking about Oscars. Worse, the last big Oscar winner was also about boxing. The producers of
Cinderella Man should
have waited until fall, utilized a more modest ad campaign, and platformed the movie's release. If they'd done that, instead of being so nakedly greedy for the summer box office dollar, they might have better postioned their picture in the market place--and dodged that business about Crowe's temper tantrum.
Finally, you guys really are fools, you know that? For you to attribute the success of
War of the Worlds more to Dakota Fanning than Tom Cruise is just preposterous. Do you honestly believe that little girl, as good as she is, would have made a difference at the box office if she'd been paired with a less charismatic, less bankable star than Cruise? Or do you just expect your readers to believe that?
The War of the Worlds has taken in over 200 million dollars at the U.S. theatres. It's a personal box office best for Cruise, which seems to indicate the American moviegoing public is more interested in whether he delivers on the big screen, and less interested in what he does on Oprah Winfrey's tv show. So why can't you be a little more gracious, accept defeat, and get over yourselves?
The American public has spoken this summer, and they're not happy. The people at the top of Hollywood moviemaking community would do well to listen. They should do what I used to do when I was in the business: listen to what people are saying when they're in ticket lines, or when they're walking through the lobby after their movie is over, and, especially, go into auditoriums and gauge how people respond to the previews of coming attractions (but beware of focus groups, in which people tend to become self-conscious--and instead keep your eyes and ears open for the unguarded, spontaneous reaction). There's an old saying, "Give the people what they want and they'll show up every time." Well, you know, the reverse of that is true also, as we have seen this summer. But you have to be willing to listen first in order to make any of it work. Meanwhile, you guys at
EW would better serve your readers if you stuck to reporting the trends of the entertainment machine instead of straining, as you now so often do, to dictate them.
Thank you,
Melanie Pruit
"Mysticism doesn't come naturally to an ironist..."
--Pauline Kael
