The Opening of “Scary Movie” was supposed to fulfill this rational process. The clever parody of the “Scream” films and other recent fright enhancers was going to finish off the teen-horror trend. One problem: at the box office, the spoof has outshined the spoofed.
“Scary Movie,” the brainchild of America’s new first funny family, the Wayans brothers, finished out its fifth week last weekend at $140 million in ticket sales, becoming the largest grossing movie in Miramax history. That’s the same Miramax that was home to recent powerhouses like “Good Will Hunting” (the studio’s previous record-holder), “The English Patient” and “Shakespeare in Love.” And it’s the same Miramax that through its Dimension genre label created the successful “Scream” films that “Scary Movie” mocks.
The film took in $42.3 million in its opening weekend, the biggest R-rated opening in history. So far, it is the fourth highest-grossing film of the summer. Even more impressive, by Hollywood’s standards: “Scary” cost only a reported $19 million to make–chump change by Hollywood standards. “Considering that it wasn’t an expensive movie,” says Martin Grove, a columnist for the Hollywood Reporter online, “if it had been a $70 million gross, people would have still said it’s a success story.”
“Scary Movie’s” draw is the biggest surprise in a season where much of the drama has taken place in the ticket lines. When films like “Me, Myself and Irene” and “Shaft” tanked, Hollywood was ready to pronounce the summer of 2000 dead. But then in July, “The Perfect Storm,” “Scary Movie,” “X-Men” and “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps” each had phenomenal openings on consecutive weekends. “Scary Movie” encapsulates the surprise of this long summer. “It pretty much came out of left field,” says Dave Davis, an entertainment analyst with investment banking firm Houlihan, Lokey, Howard and Zukin.
What no one had expected is that “Scary Movie,” by attracting horror buffs, comedy fiends and spoof aficionados, had crossover appeal–the ability to entertain adults – that most movies starring young people only dream about. “When you get up to $150 million, you’re playing to more than just teenagers,” says Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracking service Exhibitor Relations Co. The success of the spoof is good news for the Disney-owned Miramax, which uses its Dimension unit to expand its base beyond “artsy” or critic-driven films like “The English Patient.” “This shows that they’ve reached the point where they’re as broad-based as any studio, maybe even broader,” says Grove. Plus, it gives Miramax the bucks to continue producing independent fare. “They can basically subsidize a lot of other films with the success of one film,” says Dergarabedian.
For Hollywood as a whole, the potential impact of “Scary Movie” is even more striking. Conventional wisdom says that “popcorn” flicks with big action and big budgets are the only way to hit it rich in the summertime. (Studios figured “The Blair Witch Project” of last summer was an unexplainable one-time event). But Miramax has proven that major studios can make a lot in ticket sales without spending a lot in production.
That feat won’t go unnoticed in Hollywood. “When you have a $19 million movie… outperforming a whole bunch of $80 million to $120 million movies, it should show the industry that they really don’t have to make money in the brute force mechanism,” says Davis. It’s not hard to figure out the formula for summer 2001: satire, satire and satire.
