George Lucas made the bold claim that Red Tails, the action film he produced (and at least partially directed) about the Tuskegee Airmen, would be a barometer for how Hollywood treated any future big budget film featuring a largely black cast. In essence, George Lucas believed that Red Tails' success or failure would be an indictment of the movie-going culture. If we let Red Tails fail, we were essentially telling Hollywood that big movies with black actors don't matter to us. That's a lot of pressure.
The end result might come across as something of a mixed message to Hollywood, then. Red Tails didn't fail, exactly, coming in second place with an entirely decent $19.1 million in ticket sales. At the same time, it was beaten by warmed-over vampire-Matrix sequel Underworld: Awakening, which took the top spot with the tidy sum of $25.4 million. So, essentially, the world told George Lucas and Hollywood the following: We're totally cool with black actors in big budget movies; we'd just prefer it if they featured hot vampire ladies killing shit in slow motion.
Message heard, movie-goers. Message heard.
Incidentally, Underworld and Red Tails were not the only movies to open this weekend. Steven Soderbergh's skull-cracking ode to MMA fighter Gina Carano, Haywire, had a bit of trouble keeping up with all the racial politics and vampire asses, limping into fifth place with just $9 million. Also, this weekend marked the wide release of cloying post-9/11 fairy tale Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. After languishing on just six screens for the last few weeks, it exploded onto more than 2,500, and placed fourth overall, with $10.5 million. That sounds about right when you factor in the number of old Midwestern people who clearly HAD to go see this, now that it was readily accessible. They're always good for about $10 million in ticket sales. Easy.
And with that, we move onto this week's top 10 list which, for the first time in a while, looks pretty different than the last few weeks prior. Goodbye Chipmunks! Goodbye Satan! Don't let the door hit you on the way to...oh who am I kidding, they already made oodles of money. There's no satisfaction to be had here...
 | 1. Underworld: Awakening $25.4 million / NEW |
 | 2. Red Tails $19.1 million / NEW |
 | 3. Contraband $12.2 million / $46.1 million |
 | 4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close $10.5 million / $11.2 million |
 | 5. Haywire $9 million / NEW |
 | 6. Beauty and the Beast $8.6 million / $33.3 million |
 | 7. Joyful Noise $6.1 million / $21.9 million |
 | 8. Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol $5.5 million / $197.4 million |
 | 9. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows $4.8 million / $178.6 million |
 | 10. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo $3.8 million / $94.8 million |
Dropped Out: The Iron Lady; War Horse; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked; The Devil Inside
Source: Box Office Mojo
I would see Underworld Awakening but it's not in 2D. Also Yay! The Devil Inside and the Chipmunks both dropped out of the top ten! Also which one of you guys is going to review Red Tails?
@CrimsonAvenger: I am. Probably today, I guess. Didn't get to see it until late on Friday and then the weekend happened.
It's...not good.
Okay, Cuba Gooding Jr.? Really? What, Idris Elba or Michael K. Williams were ill or something? Or read the fucking script?
I don't think Red Tails is going to make back its budget especially if what the studios say is true and black actors don't sell well overseas. Either way, the made-for-cable movie, Tuskegee Airmen is pretty good. I'll stick with that one.
The Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close ads make it sound pretty good, so I'm not surprised that it's doing well. I had to talk my wife down from forcing us to go see that last weekend. Fortunately the "why not just wait until it's on OnDemand" argument never fails for anything that's not a blockbuster.
I don't give a shit about black actors in Red Tails. I'm not seeing it because the movie doesn't look good. And I liked Underworld. So ha!
@Alex said:
Hmmm. How did you feel about Memphis Belle? I feel like that's the definitive World War II plane movie.
I would rather have seen Red Tails than Underworld by a pretty wide margin, but its showtimes in my local theaters did not facilitate my ability to see it. Really disappointing, as I actually think I would've enjoyed Red Tails even though it's not as good as it could be.
I'm not "in the know" as far as Hollywood is concerned, but are Will Smith (the other one), Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington still considered black people?
Hey Alex just because you don't like Red Tails, doesn't mean everyone else does. It had a huge raise from Friday to Saturday, which means it had "good word of mouth". And it's no surprised that it lost to a franchise, especially one that finally features the return of it's central character.
Haywire failed because it had horrible word of mouth. I read people left their seats booing.
Sure audiences can be stupid, but that doesn't your own opinion is still your own opinion.
I didn't go see anything this weekend. Am I still a racist?
@Moviemaniac said:
Red Tails is at 33% on Rotten Tomatoes, so obviously Alex wasn't the only one who didn't like it.
@WilliamHenry:
Critics don't count. I was talking about the movie-going public (the one that studios care most about), and the movie going public (no matter how stupid it can be) seems pretty enthusiast about the film.
@PatVB: More racist.
The Laurence Fishburne movie covers all of my Tuskegee Airmen needs, thank you. Also, I can get hot vampire ass anywhere. I have the internet.
@PenguinDust: Yeah, I saw that one in high school a couple of years ago and I thought it was pretty good. Fun fact: Cuba Gooding Jr. is in both.
Long live the Queen (but if you get a chance, please make better movies. Cheers).
It's good to know that people will always continue to support their fond memories of an abusive jerk-off kidnapping and imprisoning a girl away from her father and the village she grew up in while furniture sings to her.