Posted on 10/02/2005 12:10:18 PM PDT by wagglebee
“Then what is it you want?”
“I want, what they want, and every other guy who came over here and spilled his guts and gave everything he had wants! For our country to love us as much as we love it. That’s what I want!”
Such were the words of Vietnam War veteran and American icon John Rambo at the end of Rambo: First Blood Part II, the second highest grossing film of 1985. But despite the boffo success of Rambo and a few other summer flicks, Hollywood 1985 suffered through the biggest box office slump ever recorded.
Until now that is.
As everyone from Peking to Peoria knows, Hollywood 2005 has had a record breaking year, but the record being broken isn’t one the studios want to announce with a full-page ad in Variety boasting “MOVIE BIZ IN THE PITS: THE NOT-SO--SWEET SMELL OF HOLLYWOOD B.O. ”
With a slump in ticket sales that has surpassed the fifteen week Slump of ’85 (and seems to have much longer “legs”), the question currently on every Hollywood prognosticator’s mind is: what do movie audiences want?
One can only guess. Or take countless polls. Personally, I like to divine my answers the old fashioned way – by using the prescient power of history. Everything we need to know is usually lurking in the past somewhere, and as George Santayana (non-pro) once said, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Or in the case of Hollywood, doomed to remake it...only worse. So let’s fire up the Flux Capaciter, program our DeLorean time machine for 1985, and go in search of lessons to bring back to the future.
Like the bizarre series of similarities found in the Lincoln/Kennedy assassinations, the box office “assassinations” of 1985 and 2005 share some eerie similarities and coincidences.
Both slumps began in a year following the November re-election of a president who was despised by the coasts, the media, and Bruce Springsteen. Both of these re-elected presidents liked to wear cowboy hats and boots. Both presided over ambiguous, hard-to-define wars: the Cold War, the War on Terror. During both campaigns the who’s-who of hip Hollywood actors (who now probably need hip replacement) such as Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Jane Fonda, Barbara Streisand and Ed Asner came out in support of their guy (hint: not the one in the cowboy hat).
The cowboy candidates, then and now, had Chuck Norris. During both campaigns, Bruce Springsteen took a tour on the road to encourage people not to vote for the guy in the cowboy hat. The “bad guys” in the world--Godless Russian commies in the 80’s; Our-God-4-Allah-ya Islamic Terrorists in the 00’s--also didn’t want the guy in the cowboy hat to win. But they didn’t particularly care for Springsteen either.
It doesn’t take Doc Brown to see that the national landscapes preceding the B.O. slumps were as alike as two Rob Schneider movies.
There are also similarities in the reason given for the slumps. The Hollywood-Know-It-Alls in the panic induced by both the Slump of ’85 and the current Slump of ’05, were quick to finger all the new-fangled home entertainment technology as the culprit. In 1985 videocassettes, VCRs, Commodore home computers, and Ms. Pac-Man were allegedly sucking us away from theaters. In 2005 DVDs, plasma screen televisions, chat rooms, and “Destroy All Humans” are supposedly doing the job. In 1985, this proved to be untrue as Hollywood rebounded and had some of the best years of its life in the tech-filled decades to come. It’s untrue now as well.
So what caused the slump of ’85? And what is causing the Slump of ‘05? The eerily similar political climates preceding the slumps have led some to suggest that moviegoers who liked the guy in the cowboy hat were holding a grudge against Hollywood by staying away from the multiplexes. After all, even in a landslide election, the nation is pretty much evenly split between the reds and the blues.
Publicly picking a side is bound to alienate you from half of everyone. If just a small percentage of these moviegoers turned their backs on Hollywood, it could have a devastating effect on the bottom line.
Whether or not the slumps were due to any form of conscious or unconscious backlash is purely speculative. I like to deal in facts. And the most important fact is this: there seems to be no end in sight for the Slump of ’05. The questions Hollywood needs to be asking is not what caused the slump, but what will end it? What brought audiences back to the movies in ‘85? And what is it audiences now want that Hollywood 2005 isn’t delivering? The movies tell the tale.
When the Slump of ’85 began, the Top 10 films included Police Academy 2, Friday the 13th Part V, Porky’s Revenge, and The Care Bears Movie. Given a choice like that I’d stay home with Ms. Pac-Man too. The first major breakout hit during the slump was Code of Silence, the first of All-American hero Chuck Norris’s 1985 two’fer. It stayed at the top of the box office for two weeks and proved to be a modest, yet highly profitable, hit despite the slump. Hmmm. Didn't Norris support Reagan just a few months earlier?
Chuck’s Silent reign at the top of the box office was overthrown by another American Hero: Vietnam War veteran and Purple-Heart recipient John J. Rambo. Rambo:First Blood Part II became a gigantic international hit, stayed at the top of the box office for five weeks, and went on to gross the equivalent of $270,000,000 dollars in today’s market. Slump be damned. In this film Rambo fights evil Russians (the “bad guys” in the real world at the time), and rescues forgotten American soldiers in Vietnam. It was pro-soldier, anti-Commie, and kept its opinions about Vietnam to itself.
Rambo’s b.o. rampage ended, however, when a sweet, optimistic film about a group of old folks in a nursing home in the red state of Florida came to town in Ron Howard’s slump-defying sleeper hit Cocoon.
A week later, a Republican mayor playing a preacher in a cowboy hat rode to the top of the charts: Clint Eastwood in Pale Rider.
Next on top, one of the films that helped make the Slump of ’85 a thing of the past, Back to the Future. The time-travel film (which, incidentally, had Islamic Terrorists for bad guys) became the highest grossing movie of the year, spent 11 weeks at number one, and grossed $377,000,000 in 2005 dollars. What's even more amazing about Back to the Future is that it was made without any big movie stars.
The star of the film, Michael J. Fox, was a television actor known only for his role as Alex Keaton, a Reagan-loving College Republican in “Family Ties.”
The Future’s 11-week run at the top of the charts was briefly interrupted by a film debuting at number one in the week that finally saw the credits roll on the 15-week slump. That film: National Lampoon’s European Vacation. In this outing the Griswalds, a “typical” American family, wreak havoc upon and make a mockery of all those countries that would later refuse to join the “Coalition of the Willing.”
American audiences loved it more than “Freedom Fries” and Hollywood prospered right out of the slump.
For the remainder of the year, Hollywood continued to prosper with more red, white, and blue movies: Invasion U.S.A., an unabashedly pro-American/Anti-Communist film starring, once again, Chuck Norris; Commando, starring Reagan-loving actor Arnold Schwarzenegger; Death Wish 3, a 2nd Amendment-friendly Charles Bronson film; and Rocky IV, a film that personified the American/Russian conflict in a mano y mano boxing match between Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago. This installment of the Rocky franchise was marketed with a picture of Rocky draped in an American flag, contained James Brown’s pro-American anthem “Living in America,” and became the third highest-grossing film of the year. As Rocky beat the Red Hope to a bloody pulp, Hollywood beat its Red Ink into oblivion. The slump remained dead and buried for twenty years.
Our historical field trip back to 1985 reveals that the magical movie ingredients that saved Hollywood’s ass(ets) from the Slump of ’85 were:
• Four right-leaning stars (Arnold, Clint, Chuck, and Sly)
• Russian communist villains (plus one serving of Islamic Terrorists)
• a college Republican in a nostalgic look at 1950’s Americana
• a Christian preacher in a cowboy hat
• a comedic mockery of snotty Europeans
• a gun-loving vigilante
• Rocky Balboa proudly displaying Old Glory
Mix ‘em all together and you get a healthy dose of the ol’ red, white, and blue. This, of course, doesn’t mean that American audiences want preachy red state propaganda by any means. After all Rambo was critical of government indifference to the MIAs, Back to the Future showed us that the innocent 50’s weren’t so innocent after all (and we’ve never looked at Mom the same), Clint Eastwood’s preacher was not above putting a bullet into the neighbor he was supposed to be loving, and the Griswalds weren’t exactly our ideal foreign ambassadors.
But these films were optimistic in a time of fear, and they didn’t endlessly bag on their own country or send a negative message to the world implying that America is full of corrupt, greedy, selfish, dishonest, Capitalist pigs and that the Russians have every right to hate us and nuke us. On the contrary, these films wore the flag proudly, celebrated American valor and the American spirit, and used the real world villains as the reel world villains.
Just as important as the positive effect these films had on Hollywood’s bottom line is the positive effect they had on American’s image in the world. It has been said that American pop culture was as responsible as anything else for bringing down the Berlin Wall. If that’s the case, then what are our current films doing for the world, and for our own security, here and now in 2005?
Hollywood history is not hard to learn. When the studios make movies that leave ticket buyers feeling good about their country, that celebrate the everyday heroes who live among us, and that aren’t afraid to turn the people who want to destroy our way of life (today, Islamic terrorists) into movie villains then moviegoers, red and blue, will flock to the theaters. Yes, Hollywood can and should throw the occasional provocative and controversial bone to the fringes and profit quite nicely (as was proven by The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11 in 2004).
But if all the bones are thrown in any one direction, Hollywood loses the mainstream, the lifeblood of a healthy and prosperous box office. And once lost, they may never come back.
The good news: if they came back in 1985, they’ll come back now. All they need is the right stuff. Just look at the first big hit after the election of ’04 (and one of the last big hits before the Slump of ‘05 began): National Treasure.
The Big Lesson from the Slump of ‘85 is that American movie audiences, like Rambo, know exactly what they want: for the movie studios to love their country as much as they love it. That’s what they want!
- Craig Titley is a Hollywood screenwriter whose credits include Scooby-Doo and Cheaper by the Dozen. He saw Rambo twelve times during the Slump of ’85
Damn right!
Only problem is that The Great Raid bombed at the box office this year!
Wow...what a bad movie. Trite story, shallow characters, steely, cold sets. No I never saw Firefly (the TV precursor). More of the same I'm sure.
At least it had no cursing or sex. But 5 minutes into it I knew I'd made a mistake. Should have seen Lords of War instead. Probably that was not great either but I'm sure it would have been better.
Outstanding article!
America wants to remain patriotic and support the courage of our troops. America does NOT want to hear and see Bruce Spingsteen, Martin Sheehan, George Clooney, and Sean Penn spit on America.
Thank you,
J. Scott Davis
Veteran: U.S. Navy & Persian Gulf War
I don't think the hollywierd girly-men know how to make anything but movies for each other.
Fascinating that Holywood refuses to cut out this cancer of 20th century leftist relativist Mother Goose Marxism. Will they get rid of it before the MSM or academia?
Sorry but discussions of Hollywood and actors always make me sleepy.
There is some justice in the world, the one type of movie
Hollywierd could make to get back in the graces of the public, a movie about an American family that gets caught
up in Islamic terrorism and rises to the challenge,perhaps
losing some family members but still vanquishing the fanatics......they can't bring themselves to make!
A movie that most all of America would plunk down their
hard earned gasolene money for, a movie that would show
Islamic terrorists as they are and that they can be beaten
would be a blockbuster.
Another problem is the ever so small theaters. People not only want to see a good movie, they want to view it in a great atmosphere.
The movie experience just isn`t the same as it was 20 years ago when you could actually walk into a huge theater with and upper balcony. When everyone whispered and didn`t sit there and flap their trap through the whole thing.
The last movie I paid to see was "Total Recall". I don`t think I have even rented a video since then. I have completely turned away from the whole movie scene.
I love movies and have a huge DVD collection but right now I can't remember the last "new release" I purchased. Too much garbage came out over the last year. I am looking forward to the DVD of "Into the West" on Tuesday. Hollywood needs to get with the program. Although there is a small, but loud, "Trash America First" crowd out there, trashing America is still unpopular with that part of the American public that hasn't lost it's mind.
"Hollywood history is not hard to learn. When the studios make movies that leave ticket buyers feeling good about their country, that celebrate the everyday heroes who live among us, and that aren't afraid to turn the people who want to destroy our way of life (today, Islamic terrorists) into movie villains then moviegoers, red and blue, will flock to the theaters."
That is it, exactly. You're completely correct about that and that is that the film industry continues to plummet as to quality of product produced because they are too busy making the films that impress and enthuse their peers...in the film industry. It's a closed society and from my own experiences in it, it is comprised of nearly everyone EXCEPT the average American.
They're just too busy making films and music for one another without regard for who it is that they need to buy tickets and DVDs and CDs otherwise. As in, the awareness of audience as an integral aspect to theatricals has all but disappeared. Instead, you get popularity among the self-identifying already popular and little respect for anyone else.
"I love movies and have a huge DVD collection but right now I can't remember the last "new release" I purchased."
BTT
What comes out of Hollywood is nothing more than rehashed PC versions of works more inspired and more creative than any twenty of these drug- and alcohol-soaked idiots put together could conceive.
It's all cocaine-fueled, self-congratulatory warmed over Marxist BS.
Remember - liberals and democrats are the party of murder, treason and socialism.
Another problem for Hollywood is TV has gotten so much better. It really has. So why spend $12 to go to the movies when you can stay home and see some pretty good fare!
Very cool analysis.
I'm another guy that has cut out nearly all movies, and now that I think about it, it was about 1985 that I went from seeing about three a week to three or fewer a year.
I think the moviegoing population is a little war-movied out, personally. Given all the crap that's going on in the world right now, some good escapism is what's needed.
That's why "Serenity" is going to do so well. A solid, well-told story that is action-packed, funny, and engaging. What more can you ask for?
It's hard for them to cut the cancer out when they're the tumor that the cancer is growing from...
Or maybe the audience is just afraid of getting sucked into another 'the military is evil' movie.
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