Top Box Office Movies - Summer 2002 Recap

Summer 2002 Recap

The summer movie season has finally ended resulting in a record-breaking summer that saw the largest opening weekend in cinematic history. As the years go on, the summer movie season tends to extend itself. It used to be the official Summer Movie Season used to commence in mid to late June as school made its’ way out. Then, a couple of years ago, studios used to released films just as June used to come around. And now, for the past couple of summers, studio executives have thrown caution into the wind and have planned major releases even before the Summer air has penetrated movie theatres.

May 3rd, 2002 was the official day that everything we knew about Cinema was thrown out the window. Inside analysts and executives alike could not forecast the immense opening weekend of Sony’s ‘Spider-Man’. That one film alone in a span of three days (Friday – Monday) took in an approximate 114$ Million making it the biggest opening weekend ever. Throughout the summer, it was known no film would come close to the said film’s colossal opening take. But movies sure tried to overcome it, as the summer season commenced with that film, nothing was released for another two weeks when until George Lucas released his second film in new trilogy of Star Wars films, ‘Episode II: Attack of the Clones’. After an opening weekend of moderate proportions, the two biggest films of the summer movie season were released and we hadn’t even reached the end of May.

It seems the month of May is so popular with executives that next summer Fox will be the first studio out of the gate with a movie with Bryan Singer’s ‘X-2: X-Men’. That film is scheduled to be released May 2nd, 2003. Yet as for this past summer’s memorable films, the most engrossing film of the summer was released back in early August and was engineered by a man some are calling the new Hitchcock. M. Night Symalan’s ‘Signs’ was a terribly invigorating film that allowed for a taut shot of adrenaline and suspense in a well crafted, well-written and phenomenal film; not your conventional horror film. This allowed for a thought provoking and memorable film, which completely redefined the genre once again.

Director Sam Mendes followed up his Oscar winning ‘American Beauty’ with a dark and sinister period crime drama in ‘Road to Perdition’. Paul Newman accompanied Tom Hanks in this cinematographically superior film where loyalties are tested and bonds broken. Commercial Director Steven Spielberg presented another authentic piece of filmmaking in ‘Minority Report’. Tom Cruise continues his laudable venture into the unknown as he takes on challenging roles that push his limits. Robin Williams scored one of his greatest performances opposite one of the greatest performers in Al Pacino with the superb ‘Insomnia’. Christopher Nolan’s momentous chef-d’oeuvre proved he has an auspicious taste for atmosphere.

Yet, for every one great film, there are dozens of contrived pieces of trash that are released. One of the worst films in recent memory slowly made its’ way under the radar at the tail end of summer, ‘Fear Dot Com’ is a complete waste of celluloid and a sin to modern day horror fare. In another sense of the word horror, ‘Scooby-Doo’ was horribly bad but still managed to make a ton of money during the month of June. Also another horrible film worth mentioning is the tired Adam Sandler vehicle ‘Mr. Deeds’. Looks like Sandler has lost his Waterboy appeal and certainly is aware of it. His next film is a drama in which he works under the direction of the applauded Director Paul Thomas Anderson in ‘Punch Drunk Love’ (Fall 2002).

Yet not all the summer fare was of a disastrous mature. An early summer surprise took shape in the Eddie Griffin comedy ‘Undercover Brother’. This comedic spy film took a page from the Autsin Powers book of spoofs and was surprisingly better than the latest Austin Powers film ‘Goldmember’. Yet, one of the summer’s most sensuous and adult oriented films was under Adrian Lyne’s direction in ‘Unfaithful’. Richard Gere and Diane Lane presented some interesting performances and conveyed a sense of fragility as a couple torn apart by a torrid affair.

The said film was a pleasant surprise and hopefully as the Fall Movie Season begins to unravel, look for a quiet September and October as November will unleash a wave of cinematic franchises set to take the box office triumphantly. Look for the Complete Fall Movie Preview coming in a few weeks.

Click here to comment on this article or post your own thoughts.

Giancarlo De Lisi
© TheWorldJournal.com

<![if lt IE 4]> <script src="http://servedbyadbutler.com/adserve/;ID=132676;size=120x600;setID=49329;type=js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <noscript> <a href="http://servedbyadbutler.com/go2/;ID=132676;size=120x600;setID=49329"> <img src="http://servedbyadbutler.com/adserve.ibs/;ID=132676;size=120x600;setID=49329;type=img" border="0" height="600" width="120" alt=""></a> </noscript><![endif]>

Top Box Office Movies © TheWorldJournal.com, All rights reserved. Student News Network For the best advertising rates at TheWorldJournal.com (120x600 - new banner format by the Interactive Advertising Bureau), click here. Back to top	e-mail: info@theworldjournal.com sales: sales@theworldjournal.com