Robert Zemeckis Top 10

As announced 3/12/2010 - The Walt Disney Studios will close the Northern California based ImageMovers Digital (IMD) by January 2010 and lay off 450 workers there.

There has always been a close connection between Robert Zemeckis and Northern California based Lucasfilm with Industrial Light & Magic having worked on 6 of the top 10 domestic box office Zemeckis directed films (the only ones they did not work on were Cast Away, What Lies Beneath, The Polar Express and Disney's A Christmas Carol) and Skywalker Sound having also worked on 6 of the top 10 (the only ones they did not work on were the three Back to the Future movies and Who Framed Roger Rabbit).

Although ImageMovers Digital's films Beowulf, 2007 and The Polar Express, 2004 helped usher in Hollywood's lateest wave of 3D movies, Walt Disney Studios President Alan Bergman said in a statement "... given today's economic realities, we need to find alternative ways to bring creative content to audiences and IMD no longer fits into our business model."

Alice in Wonderland's Big Winner may be IMAX

Twelve films were converted through the IMAX process and released to IMAX theaters in 2009 versus eight in 2008.  Three of the twelve were the top three domestic box office movies of 2009:  Avatar, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.  As a result, IMAX's 2009 revenues were up $68.5 million over 2008 and they showed a net profit for the first time since 2005.  The success of Alice in Wonderland at IMAX theaters so far should make 2010 another good year for IMAX Corporation.

In November 2002, Star Wars: Ep II Attack of the Clones was released in 58 IMAX theaters.  During the first week, the movie grossed an average of $24,746/per theater.  For its total 26 week IMAX run, Ep II brought in $8.5 million in box office ($10.3 million in 2010 $s).

Fast forward to 2010.  As of 3/10/2010 Alice in Wonderland had already made $12.1 million at IMAX theaters since its initial release 3/5/2010.  Per imax.com Alice can be seen at 172 theaters throughout the US making their first week average approximately $70,349/per theater.

Bicycles and the Movies

According to Outside online, Google maps recently added bike routes. 

East coast bicyclist Doug Mink, who works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has a website for bicycle enthusiasts that includes favorite bicycle movies, including the 5 films featured above

New York City gears up for their 10th annual Bicycle Film Festival this coming June according to bicyclefilmfestival.com

And, according to www.deadline.com,  Paul Reubens, star of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, signs with CAA so we can anticipate more bicycle scenes from him

War Films and the Oscars

If you want to win an Oscar, make a war movie!

Of the top 15 sci-fi movies, in all-release domestic box office in 2010 dollars, 3 were nominated for best picture (Star Wars, 1977; E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, 1982 and Avatar, 2009).  0 won.


Of the top 15 war movies, in all-release domestic box office in 2010 dollars, 12 were nominated for best picture (2 predated the Oscars: The Birth of a Nation, 1915 and The Big Parade, 1925).  The only picture on the top 15 list that was not nominated for a best picture was The Dirty Dozen, 1967.  5 of the top 15 won Best Picture Oscars: Gone with the Wind, 1939; The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957; The Best Years of our Lives, 1946; Lawrence of Arabia, 1962 and Mrs. Miniver, 1942.

The Hurt Locker is the lowest domestic box office revenue war movie and one of the lowest production cost war movies ever to be nominated for Best Picture.  Best Picture Oscar nominated films costing less than The Hurt Locker include Battleground, 1949; Life is Beautiful, 1998; Casablanca, 1943; Platoon, 1986 and Coming Home, 1978.  Despite its low revenue, The Hurt Locker garnered 9 Oscar nominations and took home the Best Picture Oscar. 

War Movies with 9 or More Oscar Nominations in order of Highest to Least Domestic Box Office:
1.  Gone with the Wind, 1939 directed by Victor Fleming (The American Civil War)
2.  Doctor Zhivago, 1965 directed by David Lean (Russian Revolution)
3.  Sergeant York, 1941 directed by Howard Hawks (WWI)
4.  For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943 directed by Sam Wood (Spanish Civil War)
5.  Saving Private Ryan, 1998 directed by Steven Spielberg (WWII)
6.  Lawrence of Arabia, 1962 directed by David Lean (WWI)
7.  Mrs. Miniver, 1942 directed by William Wyler (WWII)
8.  Since You Went Away, 1944 directed by John Cromwell (WWII)
9.  Schindler's List, 1993 directed by Steven Spielberg (WWII)
10. The Deer Hunter, 1978 directed by Michael Cimino (Vietnam)
11. Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961 directed by Stanley Kramer (WWII)
12. The Hurt Locker, 2009 directed by Kathryn Bigelow (2nd Gulf War)

Why Are Good Movies Less Successful Today?

Meryl Streep tops the list of actresses with the most Oscar nominations (16 going into the 2010 Academy Awards season).  But Katharine Hepburn, with 12 nominations, still beats Meryl when it comes to total wins (4 for Hepburn, 2 for Streep (3 if Streep wins for Julia & Julia).

With all those Oscar nominations, Meryl Streep and Katharine Hepburn are good candidates to see how Oscar nominations break out NOW between big box office movies (over $100 million in equivalent 2010 $s) and less financially successful films versus THEN

THEN

58  Percentage of Katharine Hepburn's 12 Oscar nominated films making over $100 million in domestic box office (in equivalent 2010 $s): The Philadelphia Story, 1940; Woman of the Year, 1942; The African Queen, 1951; Suddenly, Last Summer, 1959; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 1967; The Lion in Winter, 1968 and On Golden Pond, 1981

NOW

50  Percentage of the top 10 domestic box office films starring Meryl Streep for which she was nominated for an Oscar

36  Percentage of the 11 films starring Meryl Streep, with 4 or more Oscar nominations, that made more than $100 million in domestic box office

31  Percentage of Meryl's 16 Oscar nominated films making more than $100 million in domestic box office:  Kramer vs Kramer, 1979; The Deer Hunter, 1978; Out of Africa, 1985; The Bridges of Madison County, 1995 and The Devil Wears Prada, 2006

Is Originality Dead or Just Sleeping?

Top 10 Highest Cost -Highest Revenue Movies VS Top 10 Lowest Cost - Highest Revenue Movies

From 1960 through 2009, 60% of the lowest cost (production cost less than $10 million) highest revenue (domestic box office greater than $175 million) movies were released in the 1960s and 1970s.  The only movie on the Top 10 Lowest Cost - Highest Revenue list released from 2000 through 2009 is My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 2002.
Note:  Although Paranormal Activity in 2009 was a big hit on a reported production cost of $15,000 it doesn't make the list with only $108 million in domestic box office

Everything changed in the first decade of the 21st century!  From 1960 through 2009, 80% of the highest cost (production cost greater than $150 million) highest revenue (domestic box office greater than $250 million) movies were released from 2000 through 2009.  The only films with the highest cost and highest revenue released prior to 2000 were Cleopatra, 1963 and Titanic, 1997.  If Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, with its production cost of $250 million, makes $250 million in domestic box office it will bump Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest off this Top 10 list.
Note:  Superman Returns, 2006 would make the list in terms of cost with $337.7 million in 2010 $s, but with domestic box office of only $218 million in 2010 $s it doesn't make the revenue to meet the criteria.

Perhaps of more interest - only two of the 10 lowest cost - highest revenue movies are franchise films whereas seven of the highest cost - highest revenue movies are.  Does that mean originality is a thing of the past?

Lowest cost - highest revenue films (20% Franchise Films)
1.  The Blair Witch Project, 1999
2.  Easy Rider, 1969
3.  American Graffiti, 1973
4.  Psycho, 1960
5.  My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 2002
6.  The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975
7.  Rocky, 1976
8.  Tom Jones, 1963
9.  Porky's, 1982
10.  Airplane!, 1980

Highest cost - highest revenue films (70% Franchise Films)
1.  Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, 2007
2.  Cleopatra, 1963
3.  The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003
4.  Avatar, 2009
5.  The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, 2002
6.  Titanic, 1997
7.  Spider-Man 3, 2007
8.  The Dark Knight, 2008
9.  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 2009
10.  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, 2006

Top 10 Highest Cost - Highest Revenue Movies in 2010 $s

This Top 10 Highest Cost - Highest Revenue Movies graph, restated in equivalent 2010 $s, shows the same ranking (albeit with higher dollars) as the graph below.  Whether adjusted to equivalent 2005 or 2010 dollars (on the basis of the change in ticket price), when taking into consideration Avatar's higher 3-D pricing,  that film comes in behind Titanic in domestic box office revenue (although above it in cost).

Top 10 Highest cost - Highest Revenue Movies

In George Lucas's Blockbusting book, the graph on page 829 does not include the 2009 released films Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince or Avatar since their box office revenues came in after the book's production wrapped.  This graph corrects that.

Notes From a Lewis Carroll Fanatic

--Mark Burstein

     Tim Burton's new Alice in Wonderland is hardly the first filmed adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic tales, though it may be the first to qualify for the "blockbuster" sobriquet.  In fact, technically it isn't an adaptation at all, of course, as it takes on a completely different storyline, based on Alice's return to Wonderland as a nineteen-year-old, and ends up in a titanic battle, which is about as far removed from Alice's gentle Victorian wanderings amid eccentric characters and witty banter as one can get.
     Following is a sampler of some of the more important movie and television versions.  The list is far from comprehensive:  I am not reporting movies that just contain Carrollian segments, not "indy's" with miniscule releases, nor filmed plays (my apologies to Meryl Streep, Richard Burton, and so on) or ice ballets, and so forth.

• The very first production was released just five years after Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)'s death in 1898.  Produced and directed by Cecil Hepworth in the U.K., this 1903 silent ran ten minutes and included some of the very first motion-picture special effects.
• A second was by the film company belonging to the inventor of the motion picture camera, Thomas Edison, in 1910, and was also about ten minutes long.
• The third was a blending (most would say a mixing up) of the two books - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1872) - which became somewhat of a tradition with filmmakers.  Produced by Nonpareil and released in 1915, it ran about fifty mintues long.
• In 1923, Walt Disney had a live-action girl (Virginia Davis) interact with animated characters in Alice's Wonderland.  It had nothing to do with the books save the title, but Disney continued making an "Alice in Cartoonland" series throughout the Twenties.
• In 1931, at long last, a Wonderland talkie was made by the Metropolitan studio in New Jersey, directed by Bud Pollard and starring Ruth Gilbert, who possessed a strong New Yawk accent.  She later went on to fame as Milton Berle's lovesick, scatterbrained secretary, Max.
• The first big-budget effort, by Paramount in 1933, an all-star extravaganza starring Gary Grant, W.C. Fields, Gary Cooper, and so on, was, again, a fabulous mix of the two books.  Most fortuitously, after never having been released on videotape, it is being released on DVD this very week by Universal Studios.
• The next year also saw the cartoon Betty (Boop) in Blunderland from the Fleischer Studios; a few years later Mickey Mouse went Thru the Mirror.
• A fine color film came out of France in 1948, directed by Dallas Bower and produced by Lou Bunin, combining a live-action Alice with stop-motion puppetry.  Rumor has it that Disney did all he could to suppress it, as his film was being planned.
• Released in 1951, Disney's colorful, musical cartoon needs no introduction here.  It was a box-office failure at the time, but found a new life in the late Sixties, followed by great success on video and DVD.
• Popeye's Swea'pea Thru the Looking Glass cartoon sprang forth in 1955, distributed by King Features
• The groovy Sixties found a resurgence of interest in Carroll's otherworld of mushrooms and hookah-smoking caterpillars.  Hanna-Barbera's Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This, voiced by Sammy Davis, Jr., Zsa Zsa Gabor, etc. was shown on television in 1966.  Later that year, Alice Through the Looking Glass, a musical version with Jimmy Durante, The Smothers Brothers, etc., ran on television as well.  Meanwhile, in Britain, the BBC produced a low-key, black-and-white Alice in Wonderland that is arguably the best, certainly the most faithful to the spirit, of all cinematic or televisual adaptations.  It was directed by Jonathan Miller, and starred Sir John Gielgud, Peter Sellers, etc.
• The spirit of the Sixties lasted at least until 1972, when a lavish British musical version of Wonderland starring Fiona Fullerton (later a Bond girl) as Alice, and with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore, and so on came to the big screen.
• A soft-core porno-slash-musical comedy Alice in Wonderland spewed forth in 1976, produced by Bill Osco, directed by Bud Townsend, and distributed by General National Enterprises.  Ah, me.  It's very nearly watchable, but was the first of many subsequent erotic films "based" on the books, all of which lack even the marginal charm of this original one, and are not subject matter for this brief overview.
• The next year, Python Films released Terry Gilliam's eponymous film loosely based on the poem "Jabberwocky."
• Although Dennis Potter's Dreamchild (1985) distributed by Universal, was not a strict adaptation, its frame story about the original Alice (Liddell Hargreaves)'s 1931 trip to America, with puppet flashback segments by Jim Henson, makes it the best and most intelligent of all the movies listed here.  That year also saw the two-part TV extravaganza (one for each book) directed by Irwin Allen, which can only be described as, yes, a disaster.  At least they kept the books apart and had a relatively young (nine-year-old) Alice (most of the actresses before or since then have been in their late teens or twenties; the original Alice was seven in the book).  Can anyone say "Shelly Winters"?
• The year 1987 saw two forgettable animations:  a (loosely based upon) Looking-Glass voiced by the sixty-nine-year-old Janet Waldo as Alice (and Mr. T as the Jabberwock) from Australia's Burbank Films; and Cineplex-Odeon Films' The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland, the less said about which the better.
• A truly watchable (if flawed) surreal live-action and stop-motion film called simply Alice was directed by Jan Svankmajer in Czechoslavakia and released in the U.S. by First Run Features in 1988.
• The Disney Company entered the fray once again in 1991 with their Adventures in Wonderland television series, which was more a spinoff than an adaptation.  Amusing for its surprise guest appearances (such as Willie Nelson, not to mention O.J. Simpson as the White Rabbit).
• In 1999, an unrelated pair of television specials aired:  a Looking-Glass from the UK starring Ian Holm and Ian Richardson, and an overblown Wonderland from Hallmark, with Martin Short, Whoopi Goldberg, Christopher Lloyd and the gang chewing huge hunks of scenery.  Although the script was horrid and Alice (Tina Majorino) overly dour, the special effects were probably the best of any of these films to date (I have not yet seen Mr. Burton's).
• Late last year, the Syfy channel released Alice as a miniseries, "a modern-day spin" on the tale.  Despite the presence of Kathy Bates, Harry Dean Stanton, and other fine actors, no one I know lasted more than half an hour attempting to watch this ill-begotten spawn.
• There are several versions currently buzzing around the rumor mill, including an adaptation of American McGee's louche videogame, and another by Marilyn Manson.

     In this context, perhaps I won't bang my head against the wall too many times after viewing Burton's latest foray.


Mark Burstein is a lifelong Carrollian; presently Communications Director, and formerly Vice President of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America; editor of the Knight Letter, the magazine of that Society, for twelve years; and has a noted collection numbering over three thousand books by or about Carroll.  He can be contacted at wrabbit@idiom.com

See A Movie or Pop A Pill?

TV commercials for cigarettes were banned in 1965, the same year 41.9% of American's aged 18 and older were smokers.  Then, in the late 1980s, drug companies figured out how to run TV ads without breaking FDA regulations.  (see NPR's "Selling Sickness" article by Alix Spiegel).  After this revelation, TV drug ads proliferated and expenditures on prescriptions soared.

Although movie ticket prices have generally risen  faster than inflation, they have been outpaced by the rise in prescription drug costs since 1990.

It's hard to believe this increase in pill popping is really all necessary.  Wouldn't it be healthier to watch a good film?

Smoking statistics and prescription drug expenditures are from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Annual per capita drug costs are calculated by dividing expenditures by the total U.S. population

Greece Before the Invention of Credit Default Swaps

Mrs. Miniver vs Avatar vs Alice in Wonderland

Thriller Novel + Thriller Movie = Optimal Pleasure

Is it 1976 again?

1976

• The movie Rocky is #1 at the domestic box office - about struggling boxer Rocky Balboa who proves he can go the distance against all odds.

• Roman Polanski's movie The Tenant is released in the U.S. - about a life in jeopardy.

• Network is released.  The movie's quote "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" becomes #19 on AFI's "100 Years 100 Movie Quotes" list

2010

• The movie Avatar continues to dominate the domestic box office following its December 2009 release - about crippled marine Jake Sully who takes a stand against greedy corporate interests defending an alien race against all odds.

• Roman Polanski's movie The Ghost Writer is released in the U.S. - about a life in jeopardy.

• Americans are mad as hell:  One commits suicide flying his plane into an I.R.S. building in Austin, Texas while another outside of Cincinnati, Ohio bulldozes his house rather than allow the bank to seize it in foreclosure.

Tim Burton vs Woody Allen

Per my calculations none of the last five films directed by either Tim Burton or Woody Allen made a profit on their theatrical release.  Taking the widest release numbers from boxofficemojo and the production costs from either boxofficemojo or imdb, what's interesting is how the production costs correlate (with some exceptions) to the number of theaters each film is released into.  But, perhaps of more interest, is the fact that Tim Burton's bigger budgeted films mostly star men while Woody Allen's lower budgeted films primarily star women.  Will there ever come a day when women are paid as well as men?

70% of Woody Allen's Top 10 Films Were Released in the 1970s

Can Tim Burton's Alice Beat His Charlie

Can Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland beat Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the box office?  Even if it does that doesn't mean it will make a profit from its theatrical release - making the DVD sales critical to profitability.  Now that distributor Disney has announced a shortened window between the theatrical and DVD release to increase DVD sales, theater owners are revolting.  Per a recent Los Angeles Times blog, two of the U.K.'s three major cinema chains currently have no plans to show Alice in any of their theaters.

Alice in Wonderland - Again

• PRINTED BOOK, 1865
• CEL ANIMATION MOVIE, 1951
• LIVE ACTION/ ANIMATION/ 3-D MOVIE, 2010

Alice in Wonderland, 1951 was one of the Walt Disney Company's least successful animation movies taking in less than 15% of the all-release domestic box office of Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs.  With the Tim Burton directed version scheduled for a March 5, 2010 release, it looks like Disney may get it right this time around.

The story of Alice's adventures were first told by the Oxford mathematician Charles Dodgson to Alice Liddel, the daughter of the head of Dodgson's college, then published in novel form in 1865 under the author's pseudonym Lewis Carroll.  The Disney 1951 film followed the adventures in the book centered around Alice as a young girl. Now age 19, can Alice go back down the rabbit hole and have it be as much fun as the book?

More information on Dodgson, including his fascination with young girls, is available at victorianweb, the website started by Brown University's Professor George P. Landow.

Romantic Movies For Valentine's Day

1.  Titanic, 1997
2.  The Graduate, 1967
3.  Ghost, 1990
4.  An Officer and a Gentleman, 1982
5.  A Star is Born, 1976
6.  The Twilight Saga: New Moon, 2009
7.  Jerry Maguire, 1996
8.  Frenchman's Creek, 1944
9.  A Guy Named Joe, 1943
10. Twilight, 2008
11. The Way We Were, 1973
12. The Electric Horseman, 1979
13. Out of Africa, 1985
14. Ryan's Daughter, 1970
15. Homecoming, 1948
16. Raintree Country, 1957
17. The African Queen, 1951
18. Three Coins in the Fountain, 1954
19. Slumdog Millionarie, 2008
20. The V.I.P.'s, 1963

Olympic Skiing - Downhill Racer Skiing Movie

According to Rotten Tomatoes,  Roger Ebert, in 2004 voted Downhill Racer, 1969 "The best movie ever made about sports -- without really being about sports at all."  The film stars Robert Redford and Gene Hackman.  With the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics just around the corner, maybe it's time to revisit this classic film.


I first met Michael in 1974 when I moved north to Marin County from La Jolla to work for Lucasfilm.  He had an office in the same office/house I was in and was working on Smile, which released in1975.  I always enjoyed him and his films and was sad when he died way too young in 2001.

Photo of Michael Ritchie and his daughter Lauren was taken by me at a 4th of July picnic at Skywalker Ranch, 1981