Putting the B.O. in box office

How things work now
These days almost every weekend brings us a new No. 1 movie. Take the beginning of this year (please). For the first eight weekends we got eight different No. 1s: “Hostel,” “Glory Road,” “Underworld: Evolution,” “Big Momma’s House 2,” “When a Stranger Calls,” “The Pink Panther,” “Eight Below” and “Madea’s Family Reunion.”

What’s the cause of this rapid turnover? Studios and distributors — populated more than ever with marketing gurus and Harvard M.B.A.’s, according to Variety’s Peter Bart — are simply targeting niche audiences with niche films: horror (“Hostel”), action horror (“Underworld: Evolution”) and horror thriller (“When a Stranger Calls”). Also sports drama (“Glory Road”), and the ever-popular urban comedies (“Big Momma’s House 2,” “Madea’s Family Reunion”). They blitz the media with ads, dump their product into 2,000 to 3,000 theaters and cross their fingers. I’m reminded of nothing so much as Prof. Harold Hill from “The Music Man”: these movies arrive noisily and leave quickly, before anyone realizes that the “boys band” can’t play.

But a niche audience, by definition, doesn’t last. The horror fans, or sports drama fans, show up the first week but there’s no second wave. Thus the per-screen average drops 50-plus percent and another niche movie takes its place. And on and on, world without end.

Meanwhile the national movie conversation — if there is one — is elsewhere. During this No. 1 churn, “Brokeback Mountain” never reached higher than fourth, but people talked about it. And it wound up making more money domestically ($83 million) and internationally ($95 million) than any of the eight No. 1 movies mentioned above.

This is generally how things work now. Hollywood’s a divider, not a uniter.

How things don’t work
So does it matter that our No. 1 movies these days seem so ... forgettable? So disposable? So divisive?

I suppose it depends upon your definition of movies. If you think of movies as commodities, in which “When a Stranger Calls” is interchangeable with “Brokeback Mountain,” then, no, it doesn’t matter. As long as somebody’s selling and somebody’s buying. In this regard the film industry is just another aspect of our sped-up, bottom-line culture. Fashions used to last longer, news cycles weren’t so quick, our parents stayed at their jobs longer. Even the cavalier way we dismiss the outdated has sped up: “That’s so last year” became “That’s so last week” became “That’s so five minutes ago.” Popular culture zips by so fast it gives us less and less to hold onto. No wonder we’re all confused. No wonder so many of us turn to the solace of absolutes.

If, however, you think of movies as stories, as, in fact, the most popular storytelling form of the last 100 years, and that stories help define who we are, and what we are, and why we are, then, yes, I guess it matters a little.

George Lucas made “Star Wars” in 1977 to be the cinematic equivalent of the Force: it was supposed to bind all of us together with a new kind of mythology. You can argue all you want about that mythology, but the movie did bind us together. Everyone went to see it. Everyone knew the reference points. It became part of our culture.

Since then, so the argument goes, Hollywood has had a “blockbuster mentality” trying to imitate “Star Wars’” success. I would argue the opposite: that all of those marketing gurus and Harvard M.B.A.’s in Hollywood don’t have enough of a blockbuster mentality. Their thinking, in comparison, is rather small.

Erik Lundegaard used to bullseye womp rats in his T-16 back home. He can be reached at:

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