DRIVES YOU UP AWOL
Posted on 04/04/2008 11:27:08 AM PDT by Abathar
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Last weekend, Hollywood offered moviegoers -- particularly younger ones -- a choice.
They options were a glossy movie about a bunch of sexy MIT whiz kids beating the house in Las Vegas and a gritty movie about a bunch of sexy young soldiers who, after completing their tour of duty in Iraq, learn they are being redeployed to the front.
Overwhelmingly, audiences opted for Sony's "21," which opened in first place to $24.1 million, over Paramount/MTV Films' "Stop-Loss," which bowed in eighth place with just $4.6 million.
In a "memo to Hollywood" posted on his site, Fox News talk-show host Bill O'Reilly proclaimed "Stop-Loss" "a bomb, a major disaster at the boxoffice." O'Reilly added, "There is a difference between loyal dissent, a good thing, and trying to make your country look bad. You, Hollywood people, often do the latter. And the folks know it."
Needless to say, the reality is a good deal less black and white.
Although "Stop-Loss" hardly set the box office ablaze, it was more a misfire than a bomb. The opening gross for "21" might have been five times higher than that for "Stop-Loss," but "21" was playing in twice the number of theaters. On a per-theater basis, "Stop-Loss" actually ranked fourth among the weekend's top 10, taking in $3,528 per theater, ahead of fellow rookie "Superhero Movie," which opened at No. 3 with $9.5 million.
The serious-minded "Stop-Loss" inevitably faced an uphill battle when facing off against escapist entertainment like "21." Although the current crop of Iraq movies hasn't yet connected with audiences in the way that the Vietnam movies of the second half of the 1970s did, it's worth remembering that most of those movies weren't blockbusters, either; 1978's "The Deer Hunter" ($49 million in domestic grosses) and "Coming Home" ($32.7 million) paled in comparison to that year's "Grease" (nearly $160 million in its initial release).
Now, the common wisdom in Hollywood is that with the Iraq War still raging, it's too soon to ask moviegoers to revisit the war. After all, Hollywood waited several years after Vietnam ended before approaching that topic.
But it's just as possible that the current Iraq War movies simply are arriving too late.
Consider: Americans remained deeply divided over the Vietnam War even after its inglorious conclusion in 1975. Many regarded Jane Fonda a traitor, vowing never to go near any of her movies, but those who had protested the war eagerly embraced her films. Arguably, a movie like "Coming Home" benefited from that partisan divide.
Today, the majority of Americans have turned against the war in Iraq. The debate is over. A mid-March Gallup Poll found that 59% of Americans said the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq. In a CBS poll, 65% said the war was not worth it. And according to CNN, 66% now oppose the war.
Still, the war drags on. Even the cable news channels have shifted away from covering the endless sectarian fighting in Baghdad and Basra in favor of the never-ending he-said-she-said of the current Democratic presidential contest.
If anything, "Stop-Loss" is an uncomfortable reminder that the war isn't over. Ryan Phillippe plays a man who doesn't want to abandon his country or the men he has fought with but who still sees returning to Iraq as an exercise in futility. As the movie struggles to end on a satisfying note, that's a tough sell to audiences, many of whom already have turned off to the war and would just like to put it all behind them.
You'd think they would have learned their lesson -- but the Reds in Hollyweird are dedicated anti-Americans come hell or high water.
Is he talking about the war or globull warming?
I am confused.
STOP-LOSS = Something I wish Hollywood and it’s ilk would do.
They must be in it for the long haul, over the decades enough liberals will breed that there will be a steady flow of sales to the new crop of American haters they can sell to...
Either, they took a stand on both so that means there can be no other opinion on the matter...
The reason these movies bomb is very simple. We want to see movies about our soldiers bravely fighting a war. We’ve yet to have a movie about Iraq in which soldiers fight terrorists. But Hollywood thinks that our soldiers are fighting the evil DoD, the military industrial complex, and the Republican party.
Why haven’t moviegoers watched war movies since halfway through Vietnam? Because since that time, every movie has been critical of the war. If you look at the movies that HAVE been successful, they were the ones that told the story of the soldiers and their combat. Black Hawk Done, Saving Private Ryan, etc.
We don’t want some producer or writer’s “social dialogue against war” when we go to movies. We want to see soldiers fighting alongside their comrades. The last real movie like that was Black Hawk Done, and go figure it did really well.
Since then we’ve had Jarhead, Stop Loss, etc. And when the movies bomb, Hollywood can’t figure out that we don’t want to see that crap. They think that it’s because the war is unpopular, and keep churning out garbage.
LOL.
how’s “Lions for Lambs” doing ?
I meant Black Hawk Down, btw.
After the Civil war battle of Cold Harbor the numbers of those in the North opposing the war were much worse than those cited above. This is why true leaders don't run wars based on poll numbers.
I don’t even remember seeing it displayed, is it even out in video yet?
The debates over yea and since so many oppose the war Obama,”the only one against it when it started”, should win hands down, but wait,
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1996729/posts
Is he really against the war?
Did he really oppose our presence from the start?
Obama from July ‘04 to the CSM,
“The failure of the Iraqi state would be a disaster,”.”It would dishonor the 900-plus men and women who have already died. . . . It would be a betrayal of the promise that we made to the Iraqi people, and it would be hugely destabilizing from a national security perspective.”
Mrs. Snickersnee is convinced that H’wood grinds out anti-American movies like this because they know they will get good boxoffice abroad — to hell with what American audiences do or don’t do....
Needless to say, the reality is a good deal less black and white.
Although he prints O'R's comment, he doesn't really address it.
*Spoiler alert*
*Spoiler alert*
Was that a war movie? I just remember the movie being about a Polish/Russian wedding, some guy blowing his own head off and a hunter who gave a deer a break at the end./s?
$49 million would be equal to $165.8 million today.
Stop-Loss isn't going to come close to $165.8 million.
The Deer Hunter was made to be anti-war/anti-American?
Well we had ‘The Kingdom’ that came out.
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