John Scalzi is an award-winning science fiction writer.With the kids returning to school, Labor Day approaching and the weather ever-so-slightly beginning to turn fall-like, we have come to the traditional end of the summer cinema season. So now is a fine time to look back and see who some of the winners and losers were in science fiction and fantasy films this summer. WINNERS:
Paramount Pictures: Four of the top ten films of the summer (and of the year so far) are this studio's, and three are science fiction or fantasy: Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger. That's a pretty nice summer no matter how you slice it, even if Transformers is shared with DreamWorks.Harry Potter: This decade-old series stuck the dismount, delivering the most exciting and most mature installment at its close and reigniting Pottermania to the tune of $370 million at home and another $900 million elsewhere. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 is the one that finally gets the series a Best Picture nod; Hollywood respects several billion dollars worth of success.
Michael Bay: Credit where credit is due -- after the fetid awfulness that was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, there was every chance that director Bay had a damaged franchise on his hands. But then the man did the smart thing: He owned up to the mess of his previous film and took steps to make sure his next Transformers film was better (at least within the context of the series). It worked: Dark of the Moon kept the franchise a hit at home and made it a bigger hit internationally, becoming the first film of the series to gross a billion dollars worldwide.
Apes: No one expected Rise of the Planet of the Apes to do close to $150 million in domestic box office to date. It's a long-tardy prequel to a series whose most recent (and underwhelming) installment hit a decade ago. So how to explain the success? First: It was a more than decent film, with a good script, good acting, and decent direction. Second: It got lucky in being a standout in an otherwise sleepy late summer. Third: a fantastic performance by Andy Serkis as main chimp Caesar. I've already praised that performance, but mentioning it two times doesn't hurt.
LOSERS:
Cowboys & Aliens: So, how do Indiana Jones, James Bond, and the guy who directed Iron Man fail to open a film? The answer in hindsight appears to be in the question: Harrison Ford wasn't playing Indy, Daniel Craig wasn't playing Bond, and Jon Favreau wasn't directing Iron Man, and Cowboys & Aliens as of this writing still hasn't crossed the $100 million mark at home. It's not a fatal blow for the above -- Craig in particular gets a second shot at the brass ring this year with the upcoming Girl With the Dragon Tattoo film -- but it sure as hell wasn't good for anyone. Plus it nearly got its butt kicked by The Smurfs, which is a real testosterone reducer.
DC Comics: Marvel has done a fine job of transferring its superheroes to the silver screen, but outside of Batman, DC's had a hard time of it. That fact was reinforced this summer by the underwhelming performance of Green Lantern, which worldwide has barely recouped its $200 million production cost. The good news for Warner Bros (which owns DC) is that Batman's coming to the rescue in 2012, and then Superman will be back in town the year after that, courtesy of director Zack Snyder. But the DC superhero bench is a lot deeper, and if the studio can't convert, in the long run they'll end up leaving a lot of box office on the table.
Superhero Films: Wait, what? I hear you say. And yes, Thor and Captain America did fine this year, and the latest X-Men film clicked along to just short of $150 million domestically. But none of them got close to the $200 million domestic box office benchmark, which is realistically where these films, with their budgets and hype, should be getting in order to justify their existence. This subgenre seems to be cooling, which is not necessarily what the studios want to hear, with both the next Batman and the first Avengers films taking flight in 2012.
Pixar: Cars 2 is Pixar's first sub-$200-million-grossing film in 13 years, and likely the first of its films where the majority of reviews were not rapturous. It's also the first Pixar film where you get the feeling that the reason for its existence really is to sell more toys, the Cars line being a merchandising bonanza for Disney. This is mitigated somewhat by the knowledge that the Cars films are the special pets of Pixar head John Lasseter, so it's not all about the merchandising. That said, Pixar holds a place in people's hearts and heads because they don't just crank out barely-sufficient films. Here's hoping Cars 2 is an aberration, not a harbinger.
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