Hindsight: March 1990
By Daron Aldridge
October 27, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Can the box office rebound from a rather unimpressive February that was dominated by the eventual Best Picture winner? Given that three films released in March 1990 ended up as the fourth, fifth, and sixth highest grossing movies of the year, the answer is obviously "YES." This month also saw a six-year old box office record fall one week, followed by the release of two forgettable Latin-themed dance movies the next. We also saw the first major box office success for a future star. March 1990 definitely came in like a lion but didn't go out like a lamb.
To kick off the month, Paramount launched the first Jack Ryan film in the form of The Hunt for Red October. Apparently, the expectations of powerful box office scared away all competition as this was the only film released during this weekend. As expected with Sean Connery as the headliner, despite his questionable "Russian" accent, the film cruised into the number one spot with $17.2 million ($28.9 million adjusted to 2008). While these are not figures that blow away our jaded box office perspectives of 2008, this debut amount was a new record for a non-summer or non-Thanksgiving opening, which was previously held by 1984's Beverly Hills Cop and its $15.2 million (released on December 5th). When you couple that record with a very robust screen average of $14,010 from 1,225 screens, The Hunt for Red October seemed to be the only movie of consequence in theaters. Curiously, this would be the only outing for Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan, but of the four Ryan films, his film would be the second highest grossing, unless you count Air Force One, which pretty much felt like an unofficial sequel.
Unfortunately for Driving Miss Daisy, it took a Russian nuclear submarine to permanently unseat her reign at number one, but she would have to settle for number two with $5.1 million ($8.6 million adjusted). This was only a slip of about 16% but Miss Daisy's total was just too feeble to compete against a summer movie released in the spring. While Steven Seagal's Hard to Kill slipped 22% to $4.2 million ($7 million adjusted), Madhouse with John Larroquette and Kirstie Alley barely moved with a drop of 9% to $3.1 million ($5.2 million adjusted). Born on the Fourth of July continued to hold on for Oliver Stone with another fifth place finish of $2.1 million ($3.5 million adjusted), down 16% like Jessica Tandy's film.
Jack Ryan's freshman outing actually faced a trio of releases in week two that all ended up in the top five but thanks to none of them being very powerful at the box office, The Hunt for Red October retained the number one spot. With the addition of another 440 screens and a slip of only 18%, the Clancy film sailed away with another $14.1 million ($23.7 million adjusted).
The second place finish belongs to the first of Tom Hanks' 1990 releases, Joe Versus the Volcano. Warner Bros. apparently believed in the film that is a punchline in and of itself, as Joe Versus the Volcano on over 1,800 screens had the widest release of any film in theaters. Maybe, the studio saw this first pairing of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as a surefire hit, but it didn't exactly explode in theaters. It managed to collect $9.3 million ($15.6 million adjusted), which is a decent haul, except it comes out to only a little more than $5,000 per screen. On a positive note, it would ultimately earn $39.4 million ($66.1 million adjusted).With a supporting cast featuring the male version of the Golden Girls (Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack and Abe Vigoda), Joe Versus the Volcano's box office success sits squarely on the shoulders of Hanks and Ryan, who was hot off the success of When Harry Met Sally.
Undoubtedly, this weekend's true success story was actually the third place finisher and comes in the form of a novelty rap act's inexpensive feature film debut, House Party. Remember, this was 1990 and easily-digestible, mainstream pop rap acts were quite in vogue, such as MC Hammer, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (hard to believe that Will Smith got second billing in this lineup), and Kid N Play. House Party starred Kid ‘N' Play and churned out $4.6 million ($7.7 million adjusted) from only 520 screens, which gave it the highest per screen average in the top five. With a cumulative gross of $26.4 million ($44.3 million adjusted), of course New Line would go back to that well and turn this into a theatrical trilogy over the next four years. Depending upon your opinion, House Party is to be blamed or thanked for allowing Martin Lawrence enough screen time to showcase his talent that would lead to a sitcom and film stardom.
Number four is the forgettable Bad Influence, starring Rob Lowe as stalking sociopath and written by David Koepp, who was a long way away from Jurassic Park and Spider-Man. Despite being released on nearly 1,300 screens, this one eked out only $3.8 million ($6.4 million adjusted). It would soon fade out of the top ten and into oblivion. In contrast, the model of resilience for this year, Driving Miss Daisy fell to number five but still brought in $3.5 million ($5.9 million adjusted) after about three and half months in release.
Over March 16th to 18th, once again, a handful of weak openings failed to unseat The Hunt for Red October from number one. For its third weekend in release, Paramount added another 150 screens for a total of 1,817 screens. The additions likely helped the film only drop 21% to $11.1 million ($18.6 million adjusted). The unfortunate new releases also meant that enough people still wanted to see Josh Baskin battle a volcano for it to stay number two. Tom Hanks' Joe and Meg Ryan's three characters earned another $7 million ($11.7 million adjusted).
The new releases this weekend were led by the latest film adaptation of Sir William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Anarchy didn't exactly reign at the box office as a result. Lord of the Flies opened to $4.4 million ($7.4 million adjusted) on fewer than 1,000 screens for a decent $4,967 average. The Columbia release would have to settle for third place on the chart but a higher place in the hearts of all those high school English literature students who had found reading the Cliff's Notes version too taxing and wanted a quicker fix.
Even though Kid ‘N' Play's feature debut House Party fell 23% to $3.6 million ($6 million adjusted), that was good enough for fourth place.
Fifth place goes to another of the debuts, Blue Steel. If this had been the prequel to Zoolander as the title brings to mind, then it would have likely been a bigger earner. Alas, this was a Jamie Lee Curtis cop/action film that brought in a meager $2.9 million ($4.9 million adjusted) with a sad average of $2,214 per screen. In its second weekend, it would fall 43% and into obscurity.
Far outside the top five was the pair of competing dance films that would be punchlines for years to come -- Warner Bros' Lambada and Columbia's The Forbidden Dance. This dance battle took the occurrence of competing films with the same plot to a new realm by actually releasing them on the same date. Flashback even further to late 1987 and early 1988. The time between October 1987 and April 1988 saw three movies with nearly identical psyche-swatting plotlines in the form of Like Father Like Son with Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron in October ($34.4 million total gross), Vice Versa with Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage in March ($13.7 million total gross), and 18 Again with George Burns and Charlie Schlatter in April ($2.6 million total gross). Since the first one out of the gate was the clear box office winner for this trio of films, it seemed that neither Warner Bros. nor Columbia wanted to relinquish the date to the other studio for the dancing films.
Unfortunately, the movie-going public could hardly have cared less. Lambada debuted in eighth place with $2 million ($3.4 million adjusted) and The Forbidden Dance, which incidentally was originally titled Lambada, The Forbidden Dance, was cold in 14th place with a pathetic $720,000 ($1.2 million adjusted). If only either movie was as entertaining as Tango de la Muerte film that inspired Lisa in the classic "Last Tap Dance in Springfield" from The Simpsons season 11.
The next weekend on March 23rd to 25th produced not only big increases for expected Oscar statue winners but also ushered in the romantic comedy era of Julia Roberts. Under the now defunct Touchstone Pictures banner, Disney released this R-rated heartwarming film embraced by teenage girls and young adults everywhere about a prostitute that finds true love while being paid $3,000 to keep him company. Please pardon a cynical rant but it is astonishing that so many people overlooked a particularly glaring character trait of questionable morality all because it was played by Julia Roberts and she gets a fairy tale ending. Regardless, this film secured Ms. Roberts' place in the box office royal court. Opening in the top spot, Pretty Woman scored $11.3 million ($19 million adjusted) and nearly out-grossed Roberts' only other film with her as a lead, 1988's Mystic Pizza, which had a total gross of $12.8 million. This Gere-Roberts tandem would end up with $178.4 million ($299.3 million adjusted) when it was all said and done after a long run with a spectacular final multiplier of 15.65.
The Hunt for Red October was a close second with $9.1 million ($15.3 million adjusted), off only 18%. Joe Versus the Volcano retained third place but fell 25% to $5.3 million ($8.9 million adjusted).
In anticipation of the Academy Awards the Monday immediately after this weekend, Warner Bros. wisely added 300 screens to its Best Picture and Best Actress contender, Driving Miss Daisy. That addition meant an increase of 28% to $3.7 million ($6.2 million adjusted) and a return trip to the top five with a fourth place finish. This strategy showed that the studio had faith that Tandy and company could pull out the win and then be well-positioned the next weekend with enough screens secured to capitalize on any awards bump in the face of a big debut. The number five slot went to House Party, thanks to its small decrease of 10% to $3.2 million ($5.4 million adjusted).
The Fourth War was the only other new wide release on over 1,000 screens. In 15th place with $776,000 ($1.3 million adjusted), this one was a nonfactor for anyone and admittedly, I had to look it up to see that it was a Cold War drama with Roy Scheider and directed by John Frankenheimer. It would fall off the its already low cliff by 80% in week two and never be heard from again.
The final weekend of this long month saw the phenomenon of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shatter the Hunt for Red October's four-week old record for non-summer and non-Thanksgiving debuts by $8 million. It rode an inescapable wave of pop culture awareness that began in 1984 with the introduction of a limited printing of the original comic book and the Saturday morning cartoon spawned in 1987 that ran until 1993. A live action film was a logical step and New Line happily obliged on March 30, 1990 with a very wide release on over 2,000 screens and gave fans the fun ride they wanted. Splinter and his protégés earned $25.4 million ($42.6 million adjusted), which was only about $2 million less than the rest of the top five combined. Obviously, this was the third big blockbuster of the month, which would earn a total of $135.3 million ($227 million adjusted).
Full disclosure time: My nine-year-old self in 1984 was in a local comic book store with my older step-brothers. I distinctly remember picking up the first issue and making disparaging remarks that included the harsh pre-adolescent criticisms of "this is so stupid" and "why would anyone want to read this?" If only I had a time machine to go back to that day and make that ignorant nine-year old pluck down the money for that comic. This is just proof that I was stupid, stupid kid.
With an added 200 screens, that quintessential "prostitute with a heart of gold" film outperformed its debut weekend with an increase of 11% to $12.5 million ($21 million adjusted). Word-of-mouth was apparently spreading and Pretty Woman began its very leggy journey. The Hunt for Red October dropped another 28% to $6.5 million ($10.9 million adjusted) and was well on its way to a total domestic gross of $120.7 million ($202.5 million adjusted). Fueled by the power of little gold men, Driving Miss Daisy rose 41% to $5.2 million ($8.7 million adjusted) and retained the number four space.
The only other film that dared take on Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo was Opportunity Knocks, a comedy about con men that basically served as an outlet to let Dana Carvey do a variety of impressions. Apparently, the public saw this for what it was - an extended Saturday Night Live skit they could watch at home for free and save themselves about 95 minutes to boot. Opportunity Knocks earned the number five spot with only $3.5 million ($5.9 million adjusted) and a low $11.4 million total gross ($19.1 million adjusted) would result for the comedy.
Here's the final score for March 1990: Despite The Hunt for Red October and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beating Pretty Woman is both opening debut and title word count, Roberts charmed her way through a box office marathon that would be make her film the fourth highest grossing film of 1990. With something at the box office to really write home about in the month of March, will April give us more fresh cinematic blood or would the turtles and a soon-to-be retired prostitute continue to buoy the box office? We shall see.