By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY
B-list cast? R-rating? Excessive vulgarity?
No problem when you're Judd Apatow. The director of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up scored another hit this weekend with Superbad, which topped the box office with $31.2 million, according to Nielsen EDI.
Produced by Apatow, Superbad was expected to have the smallest debut of his recent films because it featured no real stars, centered on high schoolers looking to get drunk and lucky and featured the prohibitive R rating.
No matter. The film enjoyed a larger debut than either Virgin or Knocked Up.
"Judd has become his movies' seal of approval," says Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com. "But no one expected Superbad to be this big."
Indeed, the comedy exceeded the most optimistic projections by $5 million. Rush Hour 3 was No. 2 with $21.8 million, followed by The Bourne Ultimatum's $19 million. Final figures are due today.
Observers say that, despite Apatow's cinematic obsession with sex and mind-altering substances, his movies are flourishing for a few reasons:
•They embrace the awkward. Apatow writes the way people speak. His sex scenes often are clumsy and involve men struggling with condoms. "His movies are realistic in a way few comedies are," says Rory Bruer of Sony Pictures, which released Superbad.
•They are well reviewed.Virgin, Knocked Up and Superbad earned recommendations from more than 80% of the nation's critics, according to RottenTomatoes.com. "He gets a good story first and builds his movie off of that," Pandya says. "Hollywood could learn a lesson."
•They feature "red band" trailers Apatow releases unrated, obscenity-laced trailers for his movies on the Internet. "They build excitement because people see his characters are realistic," Pandya says. "They know he isn't going to pull punches."
For his part, Apatow says he isn't employing any strategy in making movies.
"I'm just trying to make movies about how people really are," he said Sunday. "Knocked Up wouldn't work if there wasn't sex. This one wouldn't work if kids weren't trying to get drunk. Most of my life is R-rated. I'm just glad it's working for people so I can keep making filthy little films."
5 comments:
So hubby and I are actually giong OUT TO THE MOVIES tonight! We are trying to decide between this and Bourne.
Votes?
Bourne!!! Don't blow $20 on this soon-to-be-on-dvd/rental, go check out Bourne on the big screen - action packed!
Yeah - I'm pretty sure that is what we are leaning towards.
as of yesterday, i've seen both and it's a kind of win-win situation. superbad is pretty charming.
Cool cool cool. I'm glad to see George Michael from Arrested Development get good ink.
And yeah, Apatow's movies are successful because they're, uh, let me see...good. Hollywood, take note, despite the fact you never do.
(Gaw, I live in Hollywood now. That's so weird. I pass Grauman's Chinese Theater, which is playing Superbad right now, when I ride my bike home from work. I rode past the crowds of gawkers for the premiere last week. Sooo weird.)
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