If you took all the money made by "Click," "Mission: Impossible III" and "Talladega Nights," it still wouldn't match the booty from "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."
Peter Mountain, Disney EnterprisesJohnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."
Click photo for larger image.
Charts: Summer movies: Top 10 grosses, Historical box office
The seaworthy sequel has grossed $407 million and counting, making it the No. 1 movie of the summer and the year in North America.
It inherits the summer crown from these recent chart toppers: "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" (2005); "Shrek 2," (2004); "Finding Nemo" (2003); "Spider-Man" (2002); "Shrek" (2001); and "Mission: Impossible 2" (2000).
"Pirates" may not have earned the sorts of reviews that "Superman Returns" garnered, but the audience couldn't get enough of returning stars Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley and franchise newcomer Bill Nighy, with a wriggling face that only a mother, an octopus or a special-effects wizard could love.
"It opened with $135 million. It's a juggernaut, and it just keeps going," Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co., said this week of "Pirates."
His company has been studying the box office since 1974, when no one dreamed that a movie could be compressed onto a wafer-thin silver disc and that ordinary people could accumulate a library of them.
Dergarabedian pronounces the summer of 2006 a solid season, not a record-breaker, but one that was a darn sight better than 2005, the summer of discontent and doldrums. Although the books aren't closed yet, he projects a summer gross of $3.85 billion (up 6 percent from last summer) and attendance of more than 582 million (up 3 percent).
That's better than last year by more than 17 million tickets but still below the 600 million-plus tickets sold in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, before the crash of 2005.
Still, no one would complain if every summer had the trajectory of '06, Dergarabedian says. The top five movies of the year have all come from the summer: "Pirates," "Cars," "X-Men: The Last Stand," "The Da Vinci Code" and "Superman Returns."
Although a rising tide lifted "Pirates" but not "Poseidon," a super summer has elevated the overall box office. Year to date grosses are $6.44 billion, compared with $6.02 billion at the same time last year. Attendance since January is up, too.
"What I liked about this summer vs. last summer was there were a lot of doubles and triples," Dergarabedian says, borrowing some baseball lingo to describe movies that weren't home runs but weren't bunts or singles, either.
"The box office cannot sustain itself just on the strength of two or three blockbusters. You have to have a bunch of solid films in between the films that underperform and the films that perform beyond expectation.
"You need films like 'The Break-Up,' 'The Devil Wears Prada,' 'Click,' and 'You, Me and Dupree,' even at $73 million. 'RV' was another one that just really surprised me because it got horrible reviews, but it just kept playing and playing," and satisfying a need for lighthearted fun. As did "Nacho Libre" and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby."
"What was also great about the summer was the diversity. Any given weekend, you could find a horror film, a comedy, an action film. You pick a genre, and it was there for the audience. It's like the equivalent of a magazine rack," with something for everyone.
It may have been that rare summer, however, when there were too many family films -- including "Over the Hedge," "Cars," "Nacho Libre," "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties," "Monster House," "Barnyard," "Ant Bully" and "How to Eat Fried Worms" -- competing for megaplex screens and moviegoers' time, attention and dollars.
"The complaint last summer was that there just wasn't enough quality, and I don't know if that's necessarily true. I think it's about the appeal of the movies," Dergarabedian says.
"I think the lesson to be learned is that you have to keep the momentum going. You cannot let the box office slip too much because then, if you don't have films that appeal to the audience and films underperform, then everyone jumps on the bandwagon that going to the movies is a passe thing to do, and that starts affecting audience behavior."
This summer, it was hip to talk about "Pirates" or "An Inconvenient Truth." But more people chatted (online or elsewhere) about "Snakes on a Plane" than actually paid to see it.
"I bet that movie will make more on DVD than in the theaters," the Exhibitor Relations head says. "The hype became bigger than the movie, and the expectations became bigger than the hype and the box office was lower than everybody expected."
Summer is the equivalent of fast food while the fall brings fine dining. Still, the summer box office brought a few surprises.
"Every summer, there seems to be some movie -- whether it's 'Greek Wedding' or 'Little Miss Sunshine' -- that proves that people do not just want to see blockbusters in the summer. They get burned out on that and want to see something more character driven."
"The Illusionist," arriving in Pittsburgh today, and "Little Miss Sunshine" fall into that category. "There's a way to take advantage of that audience burnout, the blockbuster fatigue and take advantage of that by putting out a terrific film like 'Little Miss Sunshine.' "
Some final thoughts on the summer that took that old "Mod Squad" line about one Black, one white and one blonde and put them in capes (Jack Black, Brandon Routh and Uma Thurman).
Movie best watched at a drive-in: "Cars."
Movie best watched after a beer or two (when someone else is driving, of course): "Beerfest."
Movie best watched while dieting: "The Devil Wears Prada," in which first assistant Emily Blunt says she's one stomach flu away from her goal weight. Yes, we know that sends a horrible signal to girls, but it's still funny.
Funny but freaky special effect: "Little Man" takes the head of 6-foot-2 Marlon Wayans and digitally attaches it to the body of a 9-year-old actor. That allows Wayans to play a 2-foot-6-inch man pretending to be a toddler so he can retrieve a stolen diamond.
Underachiever, blockbuster category: "Mission: Impossible III." It opened the season at No. 1 but made "only" $133.4 million -- still besting "Kingdom of Heaven," which kicked off the summer last year, notes Dergarabedian. But it didn't live up to expectations.
Underachiever, Internet category: "Snakes on a Plane." Had the producers stuck with original plans for a PG-13 rating, instead of ratcheting up the language and including a sex scene, they might have packed the seats with squealing tweens and teens. Instead, they opted for an R, which just means all those potential ticket buyers will have to wait until it lands at Iggle Video.
Barnyard blunder: Were Oliver and Lisa Douglas advisers to "Barnyard"? We realize that "Green Acres" and its stars are long gone, but someone should have asked a farmer about cows and bulls and which ones have udders (that would be cows) and which ones don't (bulls). It's a huge distraction for adults watching "Barnyard," but their kids have made it No. 20 on the summer hit parade.
Comedy still king but family friendlier: Last summer brought R-rated "Wedding Crashers" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," but this year, more comedies were G, PG or PG-13.
Docu delight: It has been a particularly rich period for documentaries from unlikely sources or featuring unlikely subjects: electric cars, 1970s soccer sensations, a Seattle girls' basketball team, Iraqi war footage, Leonard Cohen, architect Frank Gehry, crossword puzzlers, Shakespeare behind bars and global warming. Winners all.
Chick flicks: In very short supply. Other than "The Lake House," "The Devil Wears Prada," "The Descent," "Little Miss Sunshine" (which men also enjoyed), "Step Up" and the excellent documentary "Heart of the Game" about a Seattle girls' basketball team, there wasn't much for women although there generally isn't during the summer.
MVP or Most Valuable Pair: Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in "Pirates."
MVP or Most Versatile Player: Meryl Streep, who played half of a sister singing act in "A Prairie Home Companion," the boss from hell in "The Devil Wears Prada" and queen of the colony in "The Ant Bully." Wanda Sykes gives her a run for her money, with voice work in "Barnyard" and "Over the Hedge" and small roles in "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" and "Clerks II."
Summer losers: Critics, branded irrelevant or dinosaurs in today's blog-mad world. "Lady in the Water" even killed one off in a particularly nasty way. They join Tom Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner, Mel Gibson, M. Night Shyamalan for "Lady in the Water," and the "Poseidon" crew, which apparently didn't count on the kids having seen the NBC remake in November.
Hide and seek: Studios regularly are declining to preview movies for critics or are screening them so late in the week (10 p.m. Thursdays) that getting a review into the Friday newspaper is nearly impossible. This week, "Wicker Man" and "Crank" are opening cold, and last month, "Material Girls," "Zoom" and "Pulse" arrived the same way.
Most unlikely movie star: Al Gore, whose documentary about global warming is both educational and entertaining, not to mention timely during a hot summer.
Scene stealers: Any such list must include Ian McKellen in "Da Vinci Code," Emily Blunt in "The Devil Wears Prada," Nighy in "Pirates," Rainn Wilson in "My Super Ex-Girlfriend," Cindy Cheung in "Lady in the Water," Jonah Hill in "Accepted" and Abigail Breslin in "Little Miss Sunshine."
MIA and much missed: Will Smith, who used to be Mr. Fourth of July. He will turn up in mid-December in what sounds like a potential heartwarming hit, a factual story about a homeless dad who turned his life around. It is called "The Pursuit of Happyness" (yes, that is the correct spelling).
Double dipping: The list is long. Owen Wilson in "Cars" and "You, Me and Dupree." Paul Giamatti in "Lady in the Water" and "The Illusionist." John C. Reilly sings in "A Prairie Home Companion" and drives in "Talladega Nights."
And almost everyone in "Little Miss Sunshine" is doing double duty. Toni Collette is also in "The Night Listener," Greg Kinnear plays Dick Vermeil in "Invincible," Steve Carell does a vocal turn in "Over the Hedge," and Paul Dano turned up in "The King."
First Published: September 1, 2006, 4:00 a.m.
