All Things Must End

Over the weekend, the long-standing opening weekend box-office record set by Spider-Man in 2002 ended, courtesy of a mammoth opening for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. I was sad to see my favorite web-slinger finally relinquish his throne, but nonetheless take comfort in knowing that Spidey's will always be the first movie to have scaled those once-fabled heights. Still, all good things must end.

The summer of 2006 has been one of endings, specifically, for three major movie franchises, at least by my reckoning.

1. The Mission Impossible franchise. Never have I been happier to see a movie bomb than the latest installment of Tom Cruise's favorite vanity projects. It seems that each and every one of these pieces of crap is designed to show off something he can do, whether it's scale a mountain or spin a motorbike around, or even just toss his ridiculous long hair. This third installment, while admittedly made with a little more finesse than John Woo's over-the-top sequel, suffers from this malady. The kicker is that the screenplay presents such an incredibly formidable villain in Philip Seymour Hoffman's Davian that you genuinely wonder how Cruise's Ethan Hunt and the IMF will overcome him. When the script, after over two hours of buildup, went into "Rocky" territory and simply had Hunt pummel his adversary, I knew I'd wasted my money. I really don't give a damn about Cruise's off-screen antics, which many suspect are the real reason behind this movie's failure, for as long as he appears in quality movies. I mean, Russell Crowe may be an asshole, but at least he's still a brilliant actor who does good projects. Now that Tom realizes that his smile alone can't sell his movies, maybe he'll start trying to appear in good ones again.

2. The X-Men franchise. Don't be fooled by the record breaking weekend of X-Men III. After the purgatory Fox execs went through to get the movie made, it's doubtful they'd want to subject themselves to that all over again. It's probably why they called this movie "The Last Stand." Making an ensemble superhero movie presents all kinds of different ordeals, not the least of which is getting all of the stars, literal and figurative, to align. And for every movie that sells, all of the major stars' pay grades get harder to meet. For these and all of the technological requirements, these things just get exponentially more expensive as the years go on, and, less and less profitable. Judging from the way the latest movie's grosses are shaping up, it would appear that the popularity of the franchise has plateaued, so it actually makes sense that they're now splitting it up into spinoffs, although the only character with a real chance of selling movies is Wolverine. I only hope they get competent directors and writers to throw his solo adventure together or we can look forward to more turkeys like Elektra.

3. The Superman franchise. More than Spider-Man's opening weekend record, Superman Returns was the real casualty of Pirates of the Caribbean's runaway success. The strange thing is, this is actually a tough call. All things considered, the franchise had already ended on a rather sour note. This was an attempt to restart it, via a somewhat ill-advised sequel rather than a safer remake. Yet despite all the indicators that reviving this franchise might be more trouble than it was worth, Warner Brothers, buoyed by the success of rival comic book movies, pushed through with it, putting up almost $300 million in what was effectively the biggest gamble in studio (and possibly movie) history. Anything less than a record-breaking weekend would have spelled doom for this attempted revival, and a lot less was what they got. Nevertheless, Warners execs (and the annoying DC fanboys who infest message boards) are still confident that the movie will make back its mammoth investment overseas and on DVD. Honestly, I don't think so. All things considered, they've all but run out of excuses. They had an A-list director and a bottomless budget at their disposal, and a star who was a dead ringer (pardon the pun) for the greatest Superman of all time. Oh, and let's not forget a saturation marketing campaign rivalled only by that for Mission Impossible: 3. If after all this, they still couldn't sell the movie, then it just means that the demand for another Superman movie just wasn't that high. Still, one can't say for sure that they won't try it again in a few years, maybe after swiping Sam Raimi this time...