Hollywood is in a huff that Americans are staying away from the movies in droves. It just can't seem to make the connection between the horrible quality of its recent releases and the disastrous box-office figures.
Critics as well as Joe and Jane Sixpack have been holding their noses at such duds as "The Butterfly Effect," "Paycheck," "The Perfect Score," "Torque" and "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton."
"The year got off to a frigid start as the national box office in January registered an anemic $628.8 million - the lowest gross in the past four years. And worse yet, admissions for the month could only muster a bleak seventh-best showing," Hollywood Reporter fretted today. (Make that "muster only.")
"Estimated admissions for January were 103.5 million - a decrease of 3% from last year's 106.8 million and down nearly 10% from the 114.5 million tallied for the month in 2002. Essentially, it was the lowest attendance registered in the past seven years. And compared with the record for the month, total ticket units were down a grim 18% from the 126.1 million counted in 1998, when 'Titanic' was on its unprecedented maiden voyage through theaters."
January is a notorious time for Tinseltown to dump some of its worst fodder, but this year's lineup is stinky even by those low standards.
"Pure disaster," Robert Butler of the Kansas City Star said of "The Big Bounce," which rated a miserable 15 percent at rottentomatoes.com and made only $3.3 million to tank at 12th place in its debut.
Many readers have written to NewsMax that they don't give their hard-earned money to Hollywood anymore because they're sick of actors' political posturings and hateful remarks about the president.
The only bright news at the box office: the decent leftovers from last year's batch. Although released in December, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" was January's most popular movie.
Editor's note:
James Hirsen’s "Tales from the Left Coast" - Find out the real story behind Mel Gibson’s "The Passion," and more!
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