HOLLYWOOD--Several months ago, just before the start of the summer movie season, we profiled a half-dozen of those pictures whose stars and/or directors had something to prove:
They needed a hit.
With Labour Day officially marking the end of the holiday movie-going season, let's see how those hot weather contenders fared.
First, the good news.
Back when filmmaker J.J. Abrams (Mission: Impossible III) first revealed his Star Trek reboot, it was a wonder the news didn't short circuit fanboys' message boards.
After all, it's one thing to want to kick start an aging franchise, but having Kirk, Spock and company played by fresh-faced, relative newcomers?
The audacity paid off, as Trekkies and critics alike hailed the second coming of The Enterprise to the tune of $256-plus million, landing it in the summer's Top Five.
And then there was My Life in Ruins.
It was no surprise that Nia Vardalos' first romantic comedy since her 2002 international phenom, My Big Fat Greek Wedding failed to tickle critics -- one wag dubbed it "My Big Fat Greek Vacation"-- but her fans also failed to come along for the trip, as the film unearthed just $8.6 million.
In her defence, you could argue that Vardalos was just an actor for hire in a comedy that, unlike MBFGW, was written by somebody else.
But that wouldn't be the case of I Hate Valentine's Day, which was both written and directed by Vardalos and reunited her with MBFGW love interest John Corbett.
Released in just a handful of theatres, the rom-com didn't even crack the $10,000 mark, suggesting Vardalos might want to consider a fresh new direction. Like one that doesn't require putting a personal pronoun in the title.
The summer found Eddie Murphy in a similar rut.
With his enviable box office streak coming crashing to an end with last summer's Meet Dave, he hoped to get back on track with the family friendlier Imagine That.
But the comedy failed to capture audiences' imagination, conjuring up a meagre $16 million and landing Murphy back-to-back bombs for the first time in his career.
While it didn't return director Harold Ramis to Groundhog Day/Caddyshack status, the critically savaged Year One did provide him with a reasonably respectable $43 million in b.o. returns, thanks largely to the presence of his two bankable stars, Jack Black and Michael Cera.
In normal circumstances, the $60 million grossed by Bruno would also be considered a modest if insignificant success story.
But given that Sacha Baron Cohen's previous all-out assault on the mockumentary form, Borat, did more than double that amount, perhaps Universal Pictures went overboard with its in-your-face, world-wide marketing campaign.
Could all that uber-hype have caused audiences to grow tired of Cohen's over-the-top Austrian fashionista even before the lights came back up?
With their company in serious financial turmoil, the Weinstein brothers desperately needed a hit, and their original golden boy, Quentin Tarantino, seems to have come through with Inglourious Basterds.
In its first two weeks, the revisionist WWII romp has nabbed a promising $74 million, proving good-old-fashioned, late-summer Nazi butt-kicking escapism still counts for something.
Even if spelling doesn't.
