This week's new release, Tammy, doesn't seem to be generating much enthusiasm.
Hopes were high. The title character is played by Melissa McCarthy, the scene-stealing, plus-sized actress in 2011's Bridesmaids and The Heat last year. McCarthy and her husband wrote the script, a road-trip comedy, and he directed. Susan Sarandon joined the cast to play Tammy's drunken grandmother.
The ingredients apparently didn't gel. Some critics thought it was okay, but more seemed to second the Hollywood Reporter reviewer, who called it "a waste of a good cast as well as a serious trip wire for McCarthy."
Since its release, Tammy ticket sales have lagged well behind those for the second week of Transformers: Age of Extinction, which everyone seems to hate except the the target demo of young adult men who like their cinema with lots of crashes and explosions. They can't get enough of it.
In fact, Transformers is a worldwide phenomenon. It now has sold more tickets in China than in the United States. It's even outselling Avatar for the same period in China.
Meantime, Jersey Boys, a Clint Eastwood film based on the smash Broadway hit, seems to have crashed and burned.
The speculation is that the movie had too much "heaviosity," as Woody Allen might say. Or maybe everybody who was interested in Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons already had seen the play in New York or on one of its national tours. It's rare when an Eastwood film doesn't earn out; he seems to have a good sense of the market.
I always want to go to the movies in the summer. Oh well!
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