Highs and lows of Universal films
Having a long memory about Hollywood isn’t always a good thing.
It can prompt you to waste precious brain cells trying to recall the last time Adam Sandler starred in a good movie (I’m guessing Punch-Drunk Love in 2002) or how many versions of Spider-Man there have been or will be (I’ve lost track; thank goodness for IMDb.com).
But usually it’s a fascinating exercise to connect the dots between what is now and what was then in Tinseltown, which are often two very different things.
A case in point is the champagne corks popping for Universal Studios, which is enjoying seriously boffo box office this summer, to use Variety-speak. How times have changed. As Anne Thompson reported on Indiewire earlier this week, the studio is the first one this year to pass $5 billion (U.S.) in worldwide ticket sales. It’s also the fastest time in history that a studio has notched such a figure, which combines $1.71 billion in North American receipts with $3.3 billion in international ones.
Jurassic World accounts for a big chunk of this. The dino-soaring blockbuster opened last month to the largest box-office take ever, beating records set by rival Paramount’s The Avengers, and currently stands at an awesome $209 million (and counting) in the U.S. and Canada alone.
This followed the heavy motor revving of Furious 7, a franchise sequel that almost didn’t happen, owing to the tragic death of star Paul Walker. The film has grossed $1.5 billion worldwide since its April release, the fastest ever to get to $1 billion.
Universal is raking in the long green in a variety of genres. These include the animated comedy Minions ($625 million worldwide to date), sex drama Fifty Shades of Grey ($570 million), musical laugher Pitch Perfect 2 ($280 million) and the espionage parody Spy ($227 million).
The rom-com Trainwreck, meanwhile, opened last weekend past $30 million domestic, a very good figure and great launch to the movie career of comic Amy Schumer.
You don’t have to be a Universal shareholder (and I’m not) to be impressed by these numbers, and also to note the strong female participation behind them. The films mentioned above all have women in major roles; two of them were directed by women ( Fifty Shades of Grey and Pitch Perfect 2) and Universal has a female chairman (Donna Langley).
You might, however, need a good memory, or Google skills, to recall when Universal was in the doghouse rather than the penthouse, and both the films and media reports associated with the studio were dismal.
Go back to the summer and fall of 1998, when the press was playing “Taps” for the once-mighty studio, which was suffering from a string of bombs such as the Brad Pitt-starring Meet Joe Black, the Johnny Depp-starring Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the Bruce Willis-starring Mercury Rising.
The studio couldn’t help but lose even when it was winning — there were criticisms about the $10 million paid to George Clooney to star opposite Jennifer Lopez in Steven Soderbergh’s crime drama Out of Sight. The film is now considered a high point in the careers of its principal talents, but it likewise tanked.
The casualty list ran long for Universal and it included then-chairman Frank Biondi, Jr., who was forced out of his job after Meet Joe Black rapidly faded to black.
But many thought the person who should have walked the plank back then was Canada’s Edgar Bronfman, Jr., heir to the Seagram Co. liquor fortunes, who had acquired Universal as part of his aggressive empire building in Hollywood and beyond.
Bronfman seemed distinctly out of place in the movie business, especially when he commanded his subordinates to try to figure out the magic formulae that would guarantee box-office success.
Bronfman is no longer in charge of Universal; Wikipedia tells me he’s now the board chair of Endeavor, a non-profit development organization to aid emerging entrepreneurs.
You have to smile, though, at something the Wall Street Journal snickeringly said of him after he boldly sold off Seagram’s major stake in chemical giant DuPont so he could buy his way into controlling Universal: “The first film the company makes ought to be Dumb & Dumber 2.”
It took some time, but Universal finally did make Dumb & Dumber 2, although the “2” was written as “To” when the Jim Carrey/Jeff Daniels comedy sequel was released last November. The film grossed $170 million worldwide, another of Universal’s recent successes.
Who’s laughing now, but more important, who’s remembering? TIFF’s home for talent: TIFF Bell Lightbox is about to become more than just the home of quality cinema.
Thanks to a new residency program named after celebrated Canadian screenwriter Len Blum — his diverse output includes Meatballs, Stripes and Heavy Metal — filmmakers will be able to reside in Festival Tower, the upscale living quarters attached to TIFF’s headquarters at King and John Sts.
The Len Blum Residency program, funded by Toronto filmmaker/ distributor Ron Mann, is designed for filmmakers who need a place to live for up to three months while developing their next projects.
The first recipient will be announced during the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival (Sept. 10-20), said TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey, who is “excited to begin this journey of creative collaboration.” phowell@thestar.ca