Boxoffice® Pro - February 2014

BIG PICTURE > THE MONUMENT MAN: GEORGE CLOONEY
FROM THE RIDICULOUS TO THE SUBLIME
THE CLOONEY SCORECARD
The Thin
Red Line
$36,400,491
Return to Horror
High
$1,189,709
Three Kings $60,652,036
Return of the Killer
Tomatoes
unavailable
The Perfect Storm $182,618,434
From Dusk
Till Dawn
$25,836,616
O Brother, Where
Art Thou?
$45,512,588
One Fine Day $46,151,454
Ocean’s Eleven $183,417,150
Batman
and Robin
$107,325,195
Solaris $14,973,382
The
Peacemaker
$41,263,140
Confessions of a
Dangerous Mind
$16,007,718
Out of Sight $37,562,568
Intolerable Cruelty $35,327,628
2011’s The Ides of March again reinforced
Clooney’s range of skills. He starred opposite
Ryan Gosling, cowrote, and directed the political
thriller which garnered strong reviews
and positive word of mouth. The film’s $41
million domestic earnings look modest, but
for its genre, the pic was a welcome success
and gave the director Clooney his top grosser
thus far. Clooney shared his second Oscar
nod for writing with Heslov.
2011’s more standout success, The Descendants,
came from writer-director Alexander
Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt). Critics and
audiences adored Clooney’s performance as
a man coping with his wife’s inevitable death
amid the discovery that she had been having
an affair. The role earned Clooney another
Oscar nomination as leading man, while
giving him his first win in the same category
at the Golden Globes.
One year later, Clooney was back on
Oscar’s stage. This time, he was winning
as a producer for Argo, sharing the Best
Picture trophy with Heslov and director Ben
Affleck. Clooney was instrumental in Affleck’s
selection as the film’s director despite initial
reports that had him set to make it his fifth
directorial feature.
As we write, another film involving our
profiled actor is gearing up for what promises
to be a host of nominations from the Academy
in January: Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity.
The blockbuster sci-fi film just wrapped up
a stellar run, netting almost $256 million in
North America and another $408 million
overseas. Clooney’s limited screen time means
he’s unlikely to get any Oscar attention this
year, but nevertheless, the film is easily the
top box office earner on his résumé—even
if he’s merely the supporting character to
Sandra Bullock’s widely praised lead.
That brings us to February 7’s The Monuments
Men, and movie fans are again anticipating
an all-star collaboration, this time featuring
the man himself, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett,
Bill Murray, and John Goodman. Clooney
shares producing and writing credits with Grant
Heslov, and for the fifth time in his career,
Clooney calls the shots behind the camera.
The Monuments Men had originally been
slated for a December 2013 release until a
late-autumn delay pushed the film out of
awards season and into a potentially less competitive
winter slot—similar to what happened
with Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island a few years
ago. The film is adapted from the Robert M.
Edsel book of the same name, which chronicles
a World War II platoon’s attempt to rescue
cherished works of art from the hands of the
Nazis before they’re lost forever.
Trailers pitch Monuments as something
of a mash-up between Saving Private Ryan,
Inglourious Basterds, and Ocean’s Eleven itself.
That potentially winning combination will
very easily help it to become Clooney’s highest-grossing
directorial effort yet. At publication
time, BoxOffice’s official forecast is for
$78 million from the domestic market alone.
Strong word of mouth could send that figure
even higher as adults have very few options
to choose from in theaters toward the end of
winter and early spring.
Clooney won’t have much lined up on the
directing, writing, or producing sides again
until after he’s completed work on Monuments
Men, but he’ll venture into another blockbuster-hopeful
in 2015 when he headlines
Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland. The Disney flick
opens three weeks after the studio’s own
Avengers sequel.
When looking back on George Clooney’s
box office résumé, some will mistakenly interpret
the disappointing commercial performances
as having weighed down an otherwise
successful career. That’s unfair, though. Clooney’s
talent as an actor and filmmaker has
contributed heavily to the successes he’s been
a part of, and that’s one reason he commands
consistent respect among his peers. More
notably, his contributions outside the world
of film through philanthropic endeavors are
further examples of how Clooney has avoided
a stuck-up reputation and other pitfalls of
celebrity. That’s something to be celebrated,
as is the impressive body of work he’s awarded
his fans with so far.
24 BoxOffice ® Pro The Business of Movies FEBRUARY 2014