Marquee History

Early January - 2016

By Max Braden

January 18, 2016

Like we're not supposed to notice Salma Hayek in the background there.

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Welcome to Marquee History, the weekly column that takes you back to a time when you - or your parents - were younger. Prepare to become nostalgic (and shocked) at how much time has passed when you recall what was new in theaters 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years ago.

January is an awkward time for new movies. The big money comes from movies released in the Thanksgiving-Christmas window, and the high quality Oscar contenders get wider releases as they appear more in the news. There’s little incentive, then, to make early January your movie’s premiere date, resulting in weaker product appearing at this time, and some weeks go without new releases at all. Every now and then, though, we see some hits. The most notable highlight in this week’s history is the 15th anniversary of January record-setter Save the Last Dance.

Here are the movies that premiered on theater marquees...

10 years ago - January 13 & 20, 2006

January 2006 started off with a surprise, with Hostel toppling The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe from the top spot on the January 6th weekend. Hostel more than doubled Narnia’s per-theater average with $19.5 million from only 2,195 theaters. It picked up on the success of torture horror movie Saw II released three months earlier, though Hostel’s $47 million gross didn’t come near the $87 million for Saw II.

Glory Road
This sports film dramatized the story of the Texas Western College men’s basketball team during the 1966 NCAA championship season. Josh Lucas portrayed head coach Don Haskins, who led the first team with an all-black starting lineup. Derek Luke, Mehcad Brooks, and Jon Voight co-starred. Glory Road opened at #1 on January 13th with $13.5 million from 2,222 theaters over three days and $16.9 million over the four-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. It eventually earned $42.6 million overall, short of the $67.2 million earned by Coach Carter released a year earlier.




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Last Holiday
Queen Latifah starred in this remake of the 1950 Alec Guinness comedy. In it, her character is diagnosed with a fatal brain condition and decides to spend her last days on a lavish and adventurous trip to Europe. LL Cool J and Timothy Hutton co-starred. Critics found it lightly amusing. Last Holiday opened on January 13th at #2 with $12.8 million from 2,514 theaters.

Hoodwinked
This animated adventure from Blue Yonder Films told the story of Little Red Riding Hood as a fractured fairytale investigated by a police detective frog voiced by David Ogden Stiers. Anne Hathaway provided the voice of Red, with Granny and the Wolf voiced by Glenn Close and Patrick Warburton. Reviews of the story and the animation quality were mixed. Hoodwinked opened at #3 with $12.4 million from 2,394 and earned $51.3 million overall. A sequel was released five years later but performed poorly.

Tristan and Isolde
This 5th century romance based on the medieval legend starred James Franco as a wounded warrior who is brought back to health by the Irish princess daughter (Sophia Myles) of the enemy of Tristan’s British lord. Rufus Sewell, Mark Strong, and Henry Cavill co-starred. Reviewers were unimpressed. Tristan and Isolde opened at #8 with $6.5 million from 1,845 theaters and went on to gross $14.7 million.

Underworld: Evolution
This sequel to the 2003 horror-action thriller brought back Kate Beckinsale as the “death-dealer” for a coven of vampires and Scott Speedman as Michael Corvin, a hybrid being, in their effort to survive a coup and war between vampires and werewolves. Reviews were poor, but the first movie had generated a following, leading this one to open at #1 on the January 20th weekend with $26.8 million from 3,207 theaters, making it the second-best January opening weekend to that time (excluding the 1997 re-release of Star Wars) after 2002’s Black Hawk Down. Underworld: Evolution grossed a total of $62.3 million, which is the best performance of the series when adjusted for inflation. Two more movies in the series were released in 2009 and 2012.

End of the Spear
This Christian-based film dramatized a 1956 incident in which American Christian missionaries were speared during their attempts to meet with an indigenous tribe in Ecuador, as well as the aftermath and reconciliation. The film opened at #8 with $4.2 million from 1,163 theaters, a strong opening for a faith-based film. It eventually earned $11.9 million.



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