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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

What's A Thriller?

The remarkable success of Paranormal Activity is good reason for Paramount and the company that found the movie, DreamWorks, to crow… but is the claim sold to their resident flack/blogger that it is now the highest grossing R-rated thriller of the last decade fair to other films?
Inglourious Basterds $119,973,810
District 9 $115,646,235
Watchmen $107,509,799
Paranormal Activity $100,000,000
Wanted $134,508,551
300 $210,614,939
American Gangster $130,164,645
The Departed $132,384,315
The Matrix Reloaded $281,576,461
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines $150,371,112
The Matrix Revolutions $139,313,948
Bad Boys II $138,608,444
Road to Perdition $104,454,762
Hannibal $165,092,268
Black Hawk Down $108,638,745
Traffic $124,115,725
It is, however, the clear top grosser amongst the R-rate horror films…

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14 Responses to “What's A Thriller?”

  1. bulldog68 says:

    Is the “highest grossing R-rated thriller of the last decade” a direct quote from a Paramount/Dreamworks mouthpiece or is it something that your bff Nikki or someone else made up who was too lazy to do some research and just looking for an attention grabbing headline?
    I say the same phrase on indiewire.com as well, so are they getting their news from the same source?
    If someone from Paramount/Dreamworks actually said this, they should be demoted to car park attendant for such a blatant lie. The movie will go down as one of the most successful movies of all time, related to budgeted spend. Isn’t that enough?

  2. bulldog68 says:

    Should be ‘saw’ not ‘say’ in 2nd paragraph.

  3. Triple Option says:

    Besides the title film in question, I saw all but one of the films on the list and thriller would not have been the first word I would’ve used to describe ANY of them.

  4. Neither Paranormal Activity or most of the films on Dave’s list are ‘thrillers’ in the traditional sense of the term. Most are action, adventure, sci-fi, or horror. But since those genres are not considered ‘mature’, the studios try to label them as thrillers. For example, I remember that Dimension bent over backwards to get people to call Scream a thriller. Paranormal Activity is a horror film, plain and simple. And on that note, it’s second in R-rated fair only to Hannibal (Silence of the Lambs is a thriller/drama in my opinion, but Hannibal is a slasher film with opera in the background). Personally, I’d classify American Gangster and Traffic as dramas. But I know full well that every single person on this thread might have differing opinions on what film is what, which just makes it dumber that Paramount (or whomever started this) had to sully their remarkable achievement by lying about the genre in question.

  5. Rothchild says:

    None of the movies on your list are “thrillers.” The closest is probably Hannibal.

  6. Rothchild says:

    None of the movies on your list are “thrillers.” The closest is probably Hannibal.
    Thriller = horror. That’s what execs and marketing gurus call a movie when they don’t want it to be perceived as trashy.

  7. Rothchild says:

    Sorry for the double — and now triple — post. The thriller genre also spills over into adult movies with people in jeopardy. Basically Paramount’s forte in the ’90s. If there had been any big Ashley Judd/Morgan Freeman movies in the last decade they would count. And technically, you could make an argument for Taken.

  8. The InSneider says:

    I’m with Rothchild. None of those movies are thrillers except for Hannibal and MAYBE The Departed.

  9. a_loco says:

    Yeah, where is Taken? Taken might not be the strictest thriller, but it’s more of a thriller than three quarters of that list.

  10. I wouldn’t argue with Taken, but I would argue with all the titles Dave has listed (inc. Paranormal Activity and perhaps excluding Hannibal).
    Really, if you’re gonna say Wanted is a thriller why not Transformers 2? I’d say Slumdog Millionaire is more of a thriller than Watchmen. Signs definitely more so than The Matrix sequels. What about The Sum of All Fears? etc

  11. jeffmcm says:

    Considering that the movie is only rated R for language, it makes me wonder how much more it could have made if they had made a few insignificant snips to get the PG-13. As it stands, being the 5th highest grossing horror movie of the decade (I’m counting Hannibal, What Lies Beneath, The Ring, and The Grudge as beating it) still ain’t bad.

  12. EthanG says:

    “It is, however, the clear top grosser amongst the R-rate horror films…”
    “Hannibal” isn’t a horror film??? Really??? What in the world is it then…
    Also Everyon, “Taken” is PG-13 not R, and “Paranormal” is going to pass Watchmen,” “Black Hawk Down,” and “Road to Perdition” so I don’t get the point of listing them period DP. Titles it can rightfully claim:
    *2nd-highest grossing R-rated horror of the decade
    *Highest grossing live-action movie released in September since “Sweet Home Alabama.”
    *Highest grossing R-rated Suspense movie of the decade
    *For Paramount, the highest grossing horror movie since “Fatal Attraction.:

  13. EthanG says:

    Oh and for good measure:
    *Higher than the top grossing Michael Mann movie of all time.

  14. Josh Massey says:

    Road to Perdition? You’re willing to stretch that far?

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon