Snapshot: April 21-23, 1995
By Joel West
February 25, 2009
One of 1994's biggest success stories was none other than Sandra Bullock. After paying her dues in little seen crap (Love Potion #9), expensive crap (Demotion Man), and ensemble crap (The Thing Called love), Bullock played the damsel-in-the-distress in the enormously popular Speed ($121 million). Her girl next door demeanor clearly (sarcasm) meant her follow-up would be a romantic comedy, and Sandy didn't disappoint. While You Were Sleeping would be Bullock's first chance to be in a hit without the likes of Stallone or Keanu rescuing her. Whereas America was on the outs with Caruso, it was the exact opposite for Bullock. The romcom is one of Hollywood's safest bets (i.e. reviews don't matter) and the buzz surrounding Bullock was poised to propel While You Were Sleeping to some good numbers - at least until romcom legend Meg Ryan's French Kiss opened on May 5th. Could Bullock charm movie-goers enough until Ryan ended her run?
The film with the smallest amount of expectations (it was only opening in limited release) was Leonardo DiCaprio's The Basketball Diaries. DiCaprio had already rid himself of the Growing Pains stigma with critical turns in This Boy's Life and What's Eating Gilbert Grape (for which he received his first Oscar nomination). However, outside of critics and Teen Beat readers, no one really knew him, as his previous films were little seen. Earlier in the spring, DiCaprio costarred in the aforementioned The Quick in the Dead. Fortunately, little blame was heaved at DiCaprio for the film's commercial failure as the film was already cursed with Sharon Stone's presence. *Tangent Alert – even if the film was released today with the same cast (DiCaprio, Gene Hackman, and Russell Crowe) and director (Sam Raimi), Stone would still doom the film to flop status. Oh yes, she is that powerful.*** However, DiCaprio was now front and center (even though a rapper-turned-aspiring-actor Mark Wahlberg was in a supporting role) in his first lead role and was ready to continue his maturation into leading man status. Despite the misleading title, the film was not an inspirational sports story. Instead it was an autobiographical tale about a teen's decent into drug addiction. Mainstream material this was not. But it was an opportunity to increase his fan base with yet another daring and unconventional performance. If reviews were strong, The Basketball Diaries could expand its release and have a nice little run.
When the final dollar was counted that weekend, While You Were Sleeping woke up in the top spot with $9.2 million followed by previous champ Bad Boys with $7 million. Caruso's bid for movie stardom stalled in third place with an anemic $5 million and way down in 16th place was The Basketball Diaries with just $700,000.
Bullock's romcom was the sleeper of the season as it actually improved commercially in its second weekend (up to $10 million), stomped Ryan's French Kiss ($38 million), and ended with a very healthy $81 million. Bullock knew to play to her strengths and would wait to branch into more serious turns with varying results (1996's A Time to Kill made $108 million, while 1997's In Love and War grossed just $14 million).
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