The summer movie selection offers viewers its fair share of big name actors – Tom Cruise, Ewan McGregor, Angelina Jolie. But, possibly the most notable performances this year come from an unlikely source. Measuring in at an average 2.5 feet and 34.2 pounds, the penguins of Antarctica waddled their way onto the screen through a traditionally unpopular medium, the documentary.
In fact, documentaries have attracted growing audiences, while current mainstream Hollywood is struggling to draw large numbers of people into theaters. Six of the top 10 highest-grossing documentaries ever made were released within the last two years.
Now, with a cumulative gross of $48 million to date, “March of the Penguins” has moved into second place. No foreign film has broken the $1 million mark this year, but documentaries other than “Penguins” have been doing so with regularity – “Mad Hot Ballroom” ($7.3 million), “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” ($4 million), “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” ($2.8 million), “The Aristocrats” ($2.7 million) and “Murderball” ($1.2 million), with “Grizzly Man” poised to break the mark in a week or two.
“There have been some really good documentaries that have come into the theaters in the past few years,” said Judy Irving, director and producer of “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.” Her film is based on the true story of a homeless musician in San Francisco who finds meaning in life after befriending a flock of parrots.
“A lot of documentaries have opened up people’s minds to real-life stories. And movie tickets are so expensive these days that they want something substantial, and they aren’t getting that from Hollywood. Audiences want something good and memorable, and people see that documentaries aren’t just cookie-cutter versions of older Hollywood movies.”
Though several major blockbusters were released over the summer season, it is documentaries that have received consistent major critical acclaim. According to www.rottentomatoes.com, a Web site that compiles film reviews, the top five most critically acclaimed films of the year have all been documentaries.
And despite their modest returns compared to large studio films, documentaries are successful films in their own right considering the amount of money spent to make the films. For example, the fast food eye-opener “Super Size Me,” had an estimated production budget of $65,000, according to www.boxofficemojo.com. The film grossed $11.5 million after hitting theaters – a 17,952 percent profit.
Investment in Hollywood films has proved riskier. The production budget for a huge hit like “War of the Worlds” was approximately $132 million, according to the same Web site, but the film grossed $231 million, resulting in a 75 percent profit.
“The reason that documentaries are doing so well right now, while Hollywood is not, is because mainstream production companies go for the lowest common denominator, trying to get away with whatever they can,” Brian Roddy, the general manager at Laemmle’s Santa Monica Fourplex, said.
“If they put in 80 percent brain power to make a film this year, next year they’ll put in 70 percent. It’s the downward spiral of Hollywood. People are just not interested in making the ‘Casablanca’ or ‘Citizen Kane’-quality film that doesn’t cater to the 15-year-old who will go to watch a film three or four times. They are looking to make an entertaining film, not a quality film.”
Looking at the summer crop alone, most of the largest so-called blockbusters have been either sequels or remakes, showing a lack of creativity in Hollywood.
“Hollywood has a lack of substance in its films and releases movies looking only to make money,” said third-year anthropology student Jarred Heinrich, who has seen this year’s “Penguins” documentary. “If you even just look at the sequels that have come out, they are just going for the blockbuster. Documentaries have more significant information. People want to see something real, instead of the fake garbage that Hollywood is trying to put out.”
That need has resulted specifically in the success of “Penguins,” which has been a hit with students this summer.
The film spread from art houses like the Fourplex to the AMC Theatres Avco Cinema on Wilshire, and has now made its way into Westwood’s Mann Theaters, screening at the National, which has not screened a documentary since “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
In addition, documentaries may have attracted audiences not only because of originality, but also because of a change in presentation and topic.
“When I released ‘Dark Circle’ about 20 years ago, it was a tougher sell because it’s about something wrong that needs to be fixed, whereas ‘The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill’ is just a story about a man searching for his path in life,” Irving said. “It’s a good story with some of the dramatic film elements in it. People just light up when they hear about it.”