By Melissa Silverstein
Building on this thread over at cinematical Will 'Sex and the City' Quietly Become Summer's Biggest Hit?, I must respectful disagree about the word quiet. There is nothing quiet about this movie. People are going nuts. (Update- heard from the folks at Fandango and Sex is the top selling film, selling more tickets than Indiana Jones -- which comes out earlier -- and is the most visited page on the site.) In fact, they've been going nuts since the film was shot, where people were lining the streets during the shoot.
The only thing that's been quiet is the fact that none of the plot details have been revealed. I'm on the internet all day long and I have found nothing. I've never seen anything like it for a film about women. It's like people actually want this film to succeed. Writers like ones in the NY Post and the NY Daily News have written reviews without revealing anything; bloggers and who are usually so keen on breaking news about plots are not writing anything either. I bet that part of it is that the guy bloggers who are usually the news breakers really don't care much about the film film because it is well, about women.
The film is ironically being released by New Line which is going out of business and will be subsumed (after the requisite job losses) by Warner Brothers run by Hollywood's resident admitted sexist, Jeff Robinov (see my earlier posts on him: Do Women Matter to Hollywood?)
So I'm thinking, can this be the biggest women's film ever?
What's interesting to note is that in the summer one really big film opens on each weekend. Women's films are never considered really big, but this film is, because there is no real competition opening on its weekend. Granted, Indiana Jones opens the week before and there will be many people still wanting to see that film, but Sex and the City has its own weekend. That is a story in itself.
I've looked at the numbers of how other women's films have opened and I really think this movie can break the records. I think that the film (depending on how many screens it opens on) can open with 50 m.
The top grossing opening weekends of movies starring women are:
* Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - 47 m (Angelina Jolie)
* Charlie's Angels- 40 m (Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Lui)
* Sweet Home Alabama- 35 m (Reese Witherspoon)
* Panic Room- 30 m (Jodie Foster)
* The Devil Wears Prada- 27 m (Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway)
* Erin Brockovich- 28 m (Julia Roberts)
* V for Vendetta- 25 m (Natalie Portman)
* Flightplan - 24 m (Jodie Foster)
* Mean Girls- 24 m (Lindsay Lohan)
* Double Jeopardy- 23 m (Ashley Judd)
* 27 Dresses- 23m (Katherine Heigl)
* Princess Diaries- 22 m (Anne Hathaway)
* Freaky Friday- 22 m (Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis)
So, as Oprah said on her lovefest for the film last week, (and she also said that she has never not shown the ending of the film to the audience) take your girlfriends and head to the theatres on May 30th.
Women will make or break this film. Because of the big buzz and hype this film can be a changemaker. We have the added bonus in that the film is supposedly really good.
I am psyched, a movie about women, the celebrates women, that's actually a good movie. Can't wait.
Stay tuned for part 2 - a discussion of Sex and the City and feminism
Melissa Silverstein is a member of the Women Film Critics Circle.
Melissa Silverstein
Women And Hollywood
Womenandhollywood.blogspot.com
AGORA: Dragged from her chariot by a mob of fanatical vigilante Christian monks, the revered astronomer was stripped naked, skinned to her bones with sharp oyster shells, stoned and burned alive as possibly the first executed witch in history. A kind of purge that was apparently big business back then.
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ReplyDeleteThe atttraction of this film is not women but sex. This is a common confusion. It happens in history where women's liberation movement is decussed in terms of the sexual revolution when in fact it was the change in the birth control agenda that allowed women to be free of the constant fear of pregnancy and to gain control over their lives while being " sexual human beings"
Sex and the City is not about women per se. It is about Sex(women) and about the City(new york city) It will help to stimulate business for The City just as sex sells cars and houses and whatever the ad industry is trying to put into the minds and hands of its consuming public.,
that's what I think
Linda Zises