Jeff Bridges in True Grit
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Ten lessons from 2010:
• Most of the films that made a lot cost a lot; only Despicable Me ($69 million) had a budget under $100 million. In 2009, three mid-budget movies made the top 10.
• Why bother trying something new? Sequels and remakes again dominated, with Inception the only original live-action film in the top 10. And Toy Story 3's first-place finish means that, for eight of the last nine years, a sequel has been the top-grossing film. The one exception: Avatar.
• Oh, Avatar, Hollywood misses you so. If you were to divide the revenue of the all-time top-grossing movie into the money earned in the two weeks after its release in December 2009 ($283.6 million) and then its play-out in all of 2010 ($466.1 million), James Cameron's eco-epic would be the fourth-best earner of 2009 and the absolute winner of 2010.
• There are no more movie stars. Yes, Johnny Depp helped sell Alice In Wonderland, but he and Angelina Jolie together couldn't make a hit of The Tourist (though it has earned $100 million abroad). Leonard Di Caprio was the front man for Inception, and his Shutter Island collaboration with Martin Scorsese was a midsize success, but those were the actor's first $100-million domestic grossers since 2006. Hollywood is deep into its first-ever post-star era.
• A megahit movie is bigger than ever. In the 100 years of feature films, only seven pictures have topped the $1 billion mark worldwide. Three did so last year: Avatar, Alice in Wonderland and Toy Story 3.
• The 3-D fad may have abated as 2010 wore on — with some films made in (or converted to) the process flopping, and directors and the more observant moviegoers increasingly resistant to the distorting and darkening of the screen image — but 3-D had wide appeal, especially abroad. So you can expect to wear goggles at big films for another while yet.
• It was a year of movies for kids. Toy Story 3 is the first G-rated film to be the year's top-grosser since 1995's — wait for it — Toy Story. And for the first time in a quarter-century, six of the top 10 films (whether the last place is taken by The Karate Kid or the PG Tangled) were rated G or PG, replacing the previously favored PG-13.
• Cartoons forever! If Tangled nabs the No. 10 slot, 2010 will be the first year with five animated features in the top 10.
• All these PG hits meant that no guy comedy made the top 10; Adam Sandler (Grown Ups), Will Ferrell (The Other Guys), Johnny Knoxville (Jackass 3D) and the bromance Due Date all finished out of the money.
• Grownup women lost out too. The only top-10 films with female leads were Alice in Wonderland, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Tangled, where the three heroines were teenagers. No Blind Side this year.
So what does the recent past teach us about the future? Essentially, that nothing will change. Movies will be jack-in-the-box pop-out toys for kids; adults will be their children's in-theater babysitters, because there's nothing for them to see; and virtually all the big films will be remakes or sequels of stuff we've already seen.
Happy moviegoing, everyone!