The View From Here IV

Red Eye, my favorite movie of the year that I haven’t seen yet, now stands as Wes Craven’s highest-grossing non-Scream movie. It also continues the amazing track record of Rachel McAdams. Her five movies in three years have grossed an average of $88 million domestically, an average that will undoubtedly rise, as both Red Eye and Wedding Crashers are still in the top ten.

Wedding Crashers is now at number five for the year and will likely end its run at number three, ahead of Batman Begins and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. With a production budget of just $40 million, it's the only movie in the top five that cost less than $100 million to make.

Over the weekend, The 40 Year-Old Virgin [sic] joined my short list of movies that have achieved domestic profitability this year. Through yesterday, it had grossed $72 million against a production budget of just $26 million. I’ve decided that since I can’t be happy for Universal, I’ll be happy for Catherine Keener.

I haven’t been tracking March of the Penguins -- because it’s a French movie, and my interest is primarily in the U.S. market -- but as everyone knows, this has been quite a profitable venture. Warner Independent Pictures bought the movie for $1 million and then spent $600 thousand adapting it for the States. Pop music was replaced with a more traditional score, narration by Morgan Freeman took the place of actors voicing dialogue for some of the penguins, and about five minutes was cut out. To date, the movie has grossed $63 million and is still going strong.

And maybe Warner Independent should stick to wildlife documentaries, because their track record with narrative movies is pretty poor. No other WIP release has grossed more $7 million domestically, not even last year’s Oscar-baiting epic A Very Long Engagement. And I was particularly disappointed that they didn’t reach a wider audience with Before Sunset, one of 2004’s best movies.