WiHM, Box Office Retrospective: 2007

This was a frustrating year to work with, because so many movies that I'd rather talk about fell outside the parameters I set for this project. Such as movies that grossed somewhere in the $20 million range (Grindhouse, The Reaping), movies that had either a very limited release or went straight to video (Trick 'r Treat, Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door), or were big overseas but never had a theatrical release in the US (Inside, [REC]).

Here's what did fall inside my parameters:

(Halloween - $63.3 million)
Resident Evil: Extinction - $50.6 million
(Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem - $41.8 million)
The Messengers - $35.4 million

So I'm slightly annoyed. But like I said in my introduction, these are what packed the theaters, and that's not always the mark of quality. For the record, the highest-grossing horror movie this year was I Am Legend, at $256.4 million. Now, it's not lost on me that, this being February, it's also Black History Month, and somehow I Am Legend is the first movie I've so much as mentioned with a black protagonist. The fact that it's Will Smith, who comes with his own box-office-friendly fanbase no matter what he stars in, isn't lost on me either. I'm stretching my own rules (grossed over $30 million domestically AND starring a woman) bringing him into the discussion at all. That bothers me. I'll come back to this in the Honorable Mention.

( Moving on... )

Here is one of the trickiest things about being a fan of horror movies: no matter how many awesome characters you get, you can never be sure until the credits roll whether they'll survive. The reason the Women In Horror project exists, and the reason Black History Month exists, are because representation and visibility are lacking for both of them. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but have the numbers actually gone down since the turn of the century? We like to think that as the years progress, we're automatically progressing in other ways too, but I don't believe that's true. We have to keep having these conversations, and really look at what the trends are doing from one year to the next, to see if anything's changing. Not to mention, even with the female characters I've managed to find so far, I still haven't found many female or POC screenwriters and directors. I might be able to draw a more solid conclusion when I get to the end of the month, but what do you guys think? How far have we come? Are we still moving forward, or have we taken several steps back? Also, going back to one of my previous questions, since this is a niche genre we're talking about, when you do find feature films that tell the stories of minorities and women, why is it so hard to find them in the top box office spots?

Just some food for thought. Share your opinions with me in the comments, and I'll be back with 2008 next time!