Seven pieces of conventional wisdom disproved by ‘Fast Five’
As long as we’re talking sequels, Steve Zeitchik at “24 Frames” (LAT) breaks down the ginormous success of Fast Five:
To get an idea of what Vin Diesel’s “Fast Five” pulled off this weekend, consider this: In the three days just passed, the action movie took in about $140 million around the world — more than 2010 award-season hit “The Fighter” and nearly as much as fall blockbuster “The Town” grossed over their lifetimes.
At first glance, this may not seem like that huge a deal: The Diesel-Paul Walker picture is just one more commercial offering with big explosions that drew us to theaters, as so many have done before. But in reversing the box-office slump this weekend (with $83.6 million tallied in the U.S. alone), “Fast Five” subverted a number of Hollywood assumptions about how and why we go to movies.
The seven:
Traditional action and heist movies only hold so much appeal.
Franchises lose steam after their third installment.
New directors can’t turbocharge a flagging franchise.
Hit franchises must bring out the stars.
Don’t mess with a title.
Don’t change genres after you’ve established a brand.
People aren’t going to movies as much as they used to.
What’s your take on the huge success of Fast Five? Does this bode well for summer B.O. 2011?
For Zeitchik’s detailed analysis per each of the above seven pieces of CW, go here.