You’ve experienced quite a few Hollywood entertainment offerings from May 7 through Sept 6 this year.
“Shrek 2,” “Spider-Man 2” and “Harry Potter,” “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” “I, Robot” and “The Day After Tomorrow” were among the big winners both critically and monetarily.
20th Century Fox enjoyed one of their best non-Star Wars year ever with a powerhouse line-up.
Movies such as “Alien Vs. Predator,” “Dodgeball,” “I, Robot” and “The Day After Tomorrow.” Disney (“Around the World in 80 Days,” “King Arthur”) didn’t make much of a box office impact.
Meanwhile, DreamWorks (“Shrek 2,” “Collateral,” “The Terminal,” “Anchorman”) and Universal (“Bourne Supremecy,” “Van Helsing”) did.
Audience reactions ranged from boisterous (“Fahrenheit 9/11”) to confused (“The Village”) to numb (“Open Water”).
Biggest surprises (good or bad)
Fahrenheit 9/11
The Village
Napoleon Dynamite
Hero (Ying xiong)
Catwoman
Best Music
De-Lovely
Garden State
Hero
Spider-Man 2
Kings of Comedy
Anchorman
Dodgeball
Napoleon Dynamite
Shrek 2
Solid films that underperformed at the box office
King Arthur
The Manchurian Candidate
The Stepford Wives
The Terminal
The Village
Flops you hardly noticed
Benji, Off the Leash
Breakin’ All the Rules
Sleepover
Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2
High profile, unprofitable flicks you did notice, but just didn’t go see
Around the World in 80 days
Chronicles of Riddick
Little Black Book
Suspect Zero
Thunderbirds
Sleeper hits
Cinderella Story
Dodgeball: A True Underdog
Story
Garfield
The Notebook
Super Size Me
Stars were born.
Rachel McAdams –
The Notebook, Mean Girls
Emmy Rossum –
The Day After Tomorrow
Zach Braff –
Garden State
and remade
Jet Li –
Hero
Jamie Foxx –
Collateral
Mark Ruffalo –
Collateral, 13 Going on 30,
We Don’t Live Here Anymore
The Babes of Summer
Kate Beckinsale –
Van Helsing
Halle Berry –
Catwoman (can’t we just
watch her and not the movie)
Kiera Knightley –
King Arthur
Thandie Newton –
Chronicles of Riddick
Zhang Ziyi – Hero
Notables that never came to the area (yet) You can catch some of these flicks on video already and any others soon.
Baadasssss!
Before Sunset
The Blind Swordsman:
Zatoichi
Coffee and Cigarettes
The Corporation
Danny Deckchair
Festival Express
A Home at the End of the
World
Maria Full of Grace
Mean Creek
Metallica: Some Kind of
Monster
Riding Giants
Shaolin Soccer
She Hate Me
Best of Summer 2004
Expert filmmakers and stellar casts in these films made your summer entertainment worthwhile.
1. Spider-Man 2
2. Hero
3. The Bourne Supremecy
4. The Terminal
5. Collateral
Worst of Summer 2004
There’s a good reason why studios didn’t let critics see Paparazzi, The
Cookout or Catwoman on opening weekend.
1. Superbabies: Baby
Genuises 2
2. Yu-Gi-Oh!
3. Catwoman
4. New York Minute
5. Raising Helen
