DAILY DOSE OF HOPE – BLOG – NAIMA LETT
Summer Box Office Off With Bang!
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© Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, Star Trek into Darkness, The Wolverine, After Earth & M.U.

The summer box office is off with a bang!

Hollywood is celebrating today because Marvel’s Iron Man 3 had the 2nd largest box office opener in history – hauling in $175.3 million in the U.S. and $680.1 million worldwide. The biggest box office opener to date is last year’s The Avengers at $207.5 million, which included Iron Man, and went on to become the worldwide 3rd highest grossing film of all time ($1.5 billion) after Avatar ($2.7 billion) and Titanic ($2.1 billion).

This 3rd installment of the Iron Man franchise stars Academy Award nominee Robert Downey Jr. and Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley, whom I got to take a master class from at Oxford in England.

Summer Blockbusters

Iron Man 3 is just the beginning of the summer tent poles.
Star Trek into Darkness with Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana opens May 17.
After Earth with Will Smith and son Jaden Smith opens May 31.
Man of Steel, the Superman reboot, opens June 14.
Monsters University, by Disney & Pixar, opens June 21.
The Wolverine, starring Hugh Jackman, opens July 26.

In between these expected blockbusters are sequels like Fast & Furious 6, Hangover Part III, Grown Ups 2, Despicable Me 2, Smurfs 2, another 300, and another Percy Jackson. There’s also The Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maquire, The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp, World War Z with Brad Pitt, The Internship with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson , and White House Down with Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx.

What’s Missing?

There’s not a whole lot of great films for the young kiddos this summer. Besides Monsters University, there’s Epic, which I’m not sure about since it hasn’t been rated and then there’s Disney’s Planes… also not yet rated, though it looks like Planes takes after Pixar’s Cars. I didn’t see the first Despicable film, mainly cause I didn’t really dig the name. But, did you like it?

Also missing this summer is the blockbuster chick flick i.e. 2011’s The Help and 2012’s The Hunger Games. We’ll have to wait until November for The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire, as it’ll try to make a run for an Oscar. I suppose the adult comedy The Heat with Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock and Academy Award nominee Melissa McCarthy from the director of Bridesmaids would be considered a chick flick; but will it have the universality of the others? Probably not.

Blockbuster Secret

I went to a media conference here in the LaLa on Saturday and one of the speakers was Will Smith’s script doctor Stanley D. Williams, Ph.D., the author of The Moral Premise.

He stated that “unless a film has a moral premise, it will not be a blockbuster”. In other words, all blockbuster films have some sort of moral premise. Avatar, The Titanic, The Avengers, and Iron Man 3 all broke records because at their core, they still have a moral premise.

Williams says, “The basic form of the moral premise is simple: Vice leads to defeat; but virtue leads to success.” In other words, evil has a bad end. Good has a good end. The psalmist King David sang it like this, “Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it…” Psalm 34:14. We can pretty much bet that every blockbuster film (blockbuster = $100 million+) this summer is going to have a hero whose virtues lead him/her to success and a villain whose vice leads him/her to defeat.

What Will You See?

So, which blockbusters are you looking forward to?
Have you seen Iron Man 3?
Will you check out Man of Steel?
Let me know your thoughts!

Onward & upward, Fam!
Naima

Rev. Naima Lett, D.MIN, ABD
Author of coming release Confessions of a Hollywood Christian

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