The Life! section in Saturday's Straits Times (19 Jan) listed the Top 100 grossing movies of 2007 in Singapore. The results were predictable if somewhat depressing. Spider-Man 3 and Transformers were the highest grossing films of the year respectively, and set a local record by being the first movies to gross over S$7 million with Spider-Man 3 taking in a cool S$7.8m. The previous gross record was unsurprisingly held by Titanic which rode on a wave of teenage infatuation to S$6.2m at the box office back in 1997.
As expected, the Top 10 was full of the usual blockbuster fare. Besides the two movies mentioned above, the latest Harry Potter installment placed third, number four was Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the new Fantastic Four movie, the Rise of the Silver Surfer, ranked seventh, Rush Hour 3 was eight and Shrek The Third was ninth. Mr Bean's Holiday also did very well, raking in close to S$4m to rank sixth, just behind Pixar's latest offering Ratatouille. The local film industry can be buoyed by the fact that 881, Royston Tan's ge-tai offering, raked in a cool S$3.5m to round up the top 10.
The results clearly show yet again the dominance of big-budget blockbuster sequels - six in the top ten alone not to mention National Treasure: Book Of Secrets (14th), The Bourne Ultimatum (20th), Die Hard 4.0 (21st), Ocean's Thirteen (23rd), Resident Evil Extinction (24th) as well as comic book or television adaptations - besides Spider-Man, Transformers and The Fantastic Four in the Top 10 we also had Alvin and the Chipmunks (15th), Ghost Rider (16th), 300 (17th), The Simpson's Movie (22nd), Resident Evil: Extinction (24th), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (32nd) among others.
The sum total of the above is a rather depressing situation for those who love critically acclaimed, art house and independent films. We might have Cinema Europa and the newly re-opened Picturehouse but the reality is that it is the blockbusters that the major cinemas are going to plumb for - the brainless action flick and latest Hollywood adaption of a Japanese/Korean horror movie rather than a movie that is truly interesting and creative.
It does pain me that a truly amazing movie like Pan's Labyrinth is way down in 72nd place on the list with a gross of only $475,000 (or 6% that of Spider Man 3), not to mention the critically acclaimed Letters from Iwo Jima (77th - 439,000). Gallingly, Balls of Fury (36th place) grossed more than those two movies combined. Even more depressing is the enormous list of excellent independent films that didn't even make the list of the Top 100.
Not to sound elitist, someone with taste is so defined precisely because he has preferences that differ from the unwashed masses (would classical music and ballet be considered high class if they were as popular as say MTV and rock music?). This no doubt applies to film too, as evidenced all readily by the thermometer of unwashed mass popularity - box office receipts.
Addendum: One interesting thing I noted was that the R21 version of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution grossed twice as much as the NC-16 version (without the much hyped up sex scenes).
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2 comments:
haha! falling asleep was neither the movie's nor your fault...It WAS a lovely movie, and oddly soothing despite deaths occuring here, there and everywhere
and SOME people are very free huh...*snarls*
in Feb I'LL be the one who'll be super free (:
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