Common Sense

Showing once again that my taste in movies is superior, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest ruled the box office again for the second week in a row.

Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” reaped the most bounty at the North American box office again this weekend, a week after smashing industry records to set the highest grossing debut ever.

“Pirates” brought in an estimate of 62.2 million dollars over the weekend, according to estimates released Sunday by Los Angeles- based box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.

The booty brings the film’s 10-day box office take to about 258. 2 million dollars.

Ha, take that Superman… you pansy! Wait, did they really just say “the booty?”

Anyway, the movie is doing well financially, making the studio execs breathe a sigh of relief. They invested a lot of money into the sequels in this franchise and this makes for some good vindication. Right now, both movies have made enough to support what they did, so even if the third installment doesn’t do as well, they’ve still reaped a considerable profit.

Which makes this post at Lukeisback all the more cryptic.

Even mainstream actors face $$$ cutbacks

By John Hiscock

Hollywood stars are being forced to take pay cuts as the major studios are pulling the plug on big-budget projects.

With last year’s box office takings down 5.2 per cent and the cost of making movies ballooning because of added expenses for digital enhancement and global marketing, studios are refusing to meet stars’ financial demands. In addition, several high-profile films due to go into production have suddenly disappeared from view.

Studios have taken note of the fact that only three of the 10 highest-grossing films last year - War of the Worlds, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Mr and Mrs Smith - were star-driven. The rest of the major hits - such as Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and The Chronicles of Narnia - had no stellar names, or fat salaries, to speak of.

Does that mean that I should dare to hope they’ve cancelled Ghost Rider? (God I hate Nicholas Cage)

What big-budget movies have they cancelled? After box office boons like Pirates, would they really consider dumping stars in favor of story? Have we finally beaten them into submission? And who are they?

Questions, questions, tons of questions. First of all, I don’t see Hollywood reversing 30 years of policy because of one bad year. That just doesn’t make sense business-wise. Number two, these big-budget, star-driven movies are still earning money. The studios are never ahead of the curve, they can’t possibly see the future or the demise of these summer tent pole pictures. Just like Big Oil, they will milk what they can while they can before considering a change.

Besides, there’s no way anyone, even me, can figure out which low-budget movies are going to be hits. You can’t pin all the studios’ profits on something like Brokeback Mountain happening every year. That’s unrealistic. Studios need those big-budget movies to make the box office that they do so that they have the disposable money to risk on these “independent” kinds of movies.