The summer movie season came and assaulted the senses and
poof, it's gone. The Labor Day weekend signals the end of that special parcel of time when Hollywood throws all its bombast in our faces, but the sign posts have been there for a few weeks now, evident by the dominance of
Lee Daniels' The Butler solid box office play and three week straight strangle hold as the number one film of the nation. It's not so much that the Forest Whitaker-Oprah Winfrey Civil Rights drama has posted the most significant numbers in the stratosphere (they certainly are impressive, especially given the subject matter) but more so because the dog days of August are when Hollywood typically gives up and regroups for fall. It may be too early to tell how the cinematic offerings of the past few months will hold up and where there legacy lies, but first impressions are typically all that matters (especially in today's climate where a film lives or dies based on opening night grosses), but there's always takeaways, residual damages and lessons to be learned. Here's Musings and Stuff's rundown of the good, bad and ugly of the 2013 Summer Movie Season.
First off, seventeen of Hollywood's offerings raked in over $100 million at the box office, which is a healthy sign that the theater-going habit isn't quite dead yet. The top of the charts, unsurprisingly is
Iron Man 3, which joined the worldwide billion dollar club and started summer 2013 with a bang, thanks to
The Avengers afterglow. The Marvel machine is healthy enough it hardly matters the film, strangely critically accepted, wasn't all that. The real test, however, should be found in the grosses and the critical impact made by lesser Marvel standalone vehicles
Thor and
Captain America as each will have individual offerings in the next 365 days. The remaining sixteen films tell a startlingly different story.
