Thumbnail: Annie is strictly for kids, which makes sense considering, well, it's Annie.
The Box Office:
Annie will be opening on Friday, December 19th, in wide release. The film comes courtesy of production companies Village Roadshow and Overbrook Entertainment, with the film officially being distributed via the Columbia brand. The producers include a number of famous faces, including Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter. Obviously the film is the fourth adaptation of the 1977 Broadway musical and the first theatrical version since the John Huston film which was released in 1982. Sony will be attempting to carve a sizable niche in the year-end box office parade not just in the realm of kids-centric fare (Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb opens from 20th Century Fox on the same day) but also in musicals (Walt Disney's Into the Woods opens on Christmas Day).
Point being, it's going to be a crowded final two weeks at the domestic box office. There is actually a mini-history of big-screen musicals dropping on Christmas day, although of course the other musical is the one dropping on Christmas, but close enough, no? Sweeney Todd opened on Christmas Day back in 2007 and ended up with $152m on a $50m budget, but that one was an R-rated gore fest that didn't exactly play to the kids (or the unsuspecting moviegoers who didn't realize it was a musical).
Warner Bros.' The Phantom of the Opera is held up as a famous flop, but that $70m Joel Schumacher adaptation, which also launched on Christmas 2004 ended up with a not-terrible $154m worldwide. Dreamgirls, which also starred Jamie Foxx by the way, didn't get the Oscar glory it was chasing in 2006 but did pull $154m worldwide after opening on this weekend just before Christmas. For the record, I wouldn't remotely expect the film to approach the $441m worldwide cume for Universal's (Comcast Corp.) Les Miserables in 2012, but these are the comparisons that Annie (and Into the Woods) will be dealing with.
I'm leery of making any "box office predictions," so I will only add that I'd just assume not to make a mistake of underestimating the box office potential for this big-scale release among the African-American community. Sony isn't exactly drowning in positive PR in terms of race relations right now, but they are distributing an adaptation of Annie starring Quvenzhané Wallis, for what that's worth.
Wallis of course broke out in 2012 in Beasts of the Southern Wild, where she received an Oscar nomination (and arguably should have won, give or take your thoughts on Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty). The film had been in pre-production since January 2011 with Willow Smith set to star. But the months turned into years and Ms. Smith arguably aged out of the role, and Ms. Wallis snapped up the part almost moments after the 2013 Oscar ceremony. Come what may, I'm rooting for the film on principle, and I'm happy that Wallis was able to follow up her star-making lead role with... another lead role.
If I were honest, I would admit that I'm not a huge fan of the original Annie musical. I've seen bits and pieces of the 1982 movie version and I saw the show on stage back in late 2000. It's harmless and occasionally charming, but it's never been my cup of tea. So when I tell you that the film didn't do all that much for me, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad film so much as it's an adaptation of source material that I was never that crazy about. There are hints and threats of a more interesting film with some worthwhile subtext, but at the end of the day it's just another Annie movie for better-or-worse. I make a point to take my kid(s) to movies like this for situations just like this. My daughter liked it just fine, and I'd imagine she's more the target audience than I am.
The film opens with a reference to the original play, both in terms of who used to play Annie and the time period in which it was set. There is a moment, just a moment, when the film teases the possibility that it will be examining the possibility that the plight of impoverished children hasn't improved all that much since the 1930's, but that's just a throw-away line in the prologue. In fact, the most frustrating thing about the film is that the film doesn't really examine the potentially interesting issues at its core.
The film updates the plot so that Daddy Warbucks is now Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx), who is a germaphobic telecommunications tycoon who is running for mayor of New York City arguably to expand his empire. The picture kicks into gear when young Annie, an orphan living in foster care with the bitter and alcoholic Colleen Hannigan (Cameron Diaz), is saved from being hit by a car by Mr. Stacks, and his handlers see the caught-on-YouTube rescue as a chance to improve his public image. The rest of the story goes according to plan, with Annie coming to live with Mr. Stacks in his super-duper penthouse and warming the hearts of all who she meets.
That's really all there is, with no real updating of the film beyond an inclusion of social media and some slight character changes. On one hand, there are lost opportunities to explore how much or little has changed in the lives of the underprivileged over the last seventy years, something akin to the heartbreaking (but hilarious) satire of Black Dynamite. There is no real examination of what is a painfully cynical political story, where an otherwise unlikable and relatively indifferent campaigner shoots up in the polls as a result of what everyone all-but-admits is a political scheme to pony up false sentiment or manufactured "likability." The film ends up like Batman Returns except you're rooting for The Penguin and/or Max Schreck.
Truth be told, there is nothing "new" to the story save for the fact that the lead actress playing Annie and the lead actor playing the super-rich benefactor happen to be African-American. On the other hand, if I may rebut my own criticisms, this is a kid-centric adaptation of a kid-centric musical aimed at younger audiences. You can make an argument that the world doesn't need a "dark and gritty" version of Annie or one that wallows in the misery of its orphans or the cynicism of its power brokers.
Cameron Diaz is noticeably overacting, especially in the first act, but the film doesn't necessarily ignore what amounts to neglectful behavior while also not reveling in what amounts to child abuse and/or presenting a more realistic version of what life for foster kids is like for those whose guardians aren't necessarily looking out for their best interest. And the film flirts with acknowledging the cynicism of its political ploy, even while it ignores what would arguably be the real-world implications of what occurs. Again, this is relentlessly upbeat musical for young kids opening around the Christmas holiday, so perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree looking for Short Term 12 meets Wag the Dog.
As far as the racial switch, I would argue, considering the paucity of such mainstream entertainment for African-American kids, that merely changing the race of the two main characters is perhaps enough to justify the movie being made. I talk about the ebbs-and-flows of mainstream releases starring actors of color, but it occurs to me that most (but not all) of those releases are geared toward adults. You can make the case, as Candice Frederick of Reel Talk did back in August, that black audiences and female audiences of all colors deserve more than rehashed franchises with a change of skin color or gender. But at this point, with Hollywood spending so much time and money on rehashed franchises period, I think stuff like this is the best bet we've got for a while in terms of big-screen entertainment for kids.
Putting aside the notion of a more politically-relevant Annie and putting aside what I feel is the need for movies of this sort aimed at minority audiences, Will Gluck's Annie is... well, it's okay. The cast is game and everybody sings as well as they can, with varying degrees of success. I could have done without a romantic subplot that turned Rose Byrne from Stack's right-hand woman to his love interest, but I made the same complaint about Iron Man. The film is a little too in love with the things that money can buy and the songs are not particularly memorable.
But Annie is never boring, Wallis is charming in a somewhat more conventional starring role, and there are more than enough moments of amusement. I wish it were a better film, especially considering how much I enjoyed Easy A, but its heart is in the right place and my daughter enjoyed it. Now I cannot judge a kids flick purely by whether my children enjoyed it, but nor can I completely ignore that fact. I am not a huge fan of the original play that Annie is based on. If you happen to be, you're probably going to get more out of this one than I did.
