The Year of Unconventional Wisdom

If there was a lesson to be learned in topsy-turvy Hollywood last year, it was to expect the unexpected.

The year’s biggest surprise was “The Blair Witch Project,” an $80,000 home-video-style horror movie that, fueled by clever Internet marketing, captured the imagination of young moviegoers. It was the year of anti-hype, as heavily touted summer behemoths from such powerhouse teams as Tom Cruise and Stanley Kubrick (“Eyes Wide Shut”) and Will Smith and Barry Sonnefeld (“Wild Wild West”) were swept aside at the box office by goofball comedies from Adam Sandler and Mike Myers.

And then there was “The Sixth Sense” phenomenon--a pop culture brush fire spread by word-of-mouth. Week after week people kept trooping to the theaters, eager to enjoy the shivers and surprises of a soulfully scary movie.

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, whose previous two films had come and gone without a trace, “Sixth Sense” had five straight three-day weekends in which it did more than $20 million, a string unmatched by any movie since “Titanic.” The $40-million Disney film, which starred Bruce Willis, has already made $275 million in the U.S. alone.

“We’re all so overwhelmed by so many entertainment choices that we really crave something that feels authentic,” says Universal Pictures Chairman Stacey Snider, whose studio had three $100-million hits (“American Pie,” “Notting Hill” and “The Mummy”) in the same year for the first time ever. “I saw so many inspired movies [last] year, whether it was ‘Three Kings,’ ‘Sixth Sense,’ ‘American Beauty’ or ‘American Pie,’ that it really stirred my competitive juices. I kept thinking, ‘I want to work with these people.’ ”

Form Finished Second in Box Office Derby

A year ago, who would’ve guessed that Willis’ unheralded horror film would be a grand slam while his big-budget comedy--remember “The Story of Us”?-with co-star Michelle Pfeiffer and A-list director Rob Reiner--would be a strikeout?

In 1999, Hollywood conventional wisdom was behind the curve. It’s true that “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace,” the movie envisioned as the year’s biggest hit, topped the box-office charts. But it was also the year’s biggest letdown. After months of frenzied fan and media hype, the return of the Force was as anticlimactic as the fourth quarter of a Clippers game.

Instead the movies that left a mark were ones that offered kinetic visual kicks, such as “The Matrix,” “Three Kings” and “The Blair Witch Project,” or packed an emotional wallop, like “American Beauty.” These films made their impact in a variety of ways, but they all bristled with the unbridled energy and intensity of youthful filmmakers.

Even family films, usually a more conservative arena, saw bolder visions, from Disney’s animated “Tarzan,” who swung from the trees like a surfer riding the waves, to the computer-animated pyrotechnics of “Toy Story 2,” to the invasion of edgier Japanese-style animation with “Princess Mononoke.”

“There’ve often been great years for movies, but it was a great year for good movies,” says New Line President Michael De Luca. “You couldn’t help but feel incredibly optimistic, because you could see how the audience rewarded filmmakers for being daring and original. It seemed as if nearly every genre was reinvigorated, whether it was horror, action or the kind of heightened melodrama you saw in a film like ‘American Beauty.’ ”

The reinvention began with horror movies, which made a huge comeback. In addition to “Blair Witch” and “Sixth Sense,” studios had a hit with the scarefest thrills, like those in “The Mummy,” which made $155 million.

Both “The Matrix” and “Three Kings” breathed new life into the action genre with new stars and fresh creative talent. Comedy was king again, most obviously with outrageous youth-oriented fare like “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” and “Big Daddy,” which both topped the $160-million mark.

But adult humor had a surprising revival, with a hit buddy comedy (“Analyze This”) and a pair of Julia Roberts romantic comedies, “Runaway Bride” and “Notting Hill” that combined for $265 million, proving once again Roberts’ value as a leading lady. Thrillers also found a big audience, with both “Double Jeopardy” and “The General’s Daughter,” despite dismissive reviews, topping the $100-million mark.

Teen movies had a measure of success earlier in the year, from the heartfelt “Varsity Blues” and “She’s All That” to the raunchy comedy “American Pie.” But the studios rushed out so many “Scream” and “Clueless” knockoffs that young moviegoers increasingly kept their distance as the year wore on.

Young audiences craved sensation, whether it was the joystick razzle-dazzle of “The Matrix,” the stirring emotion of “Sixth Sense” or the shock-doc believability of “Blair Witch.” Originality was all important. Movies that exuded a “been there, done that” retread feeling, like “EdTV,” “The Mod Squad” or “For Love of the Game,” failed miserably. When studios spent big bucks on safe bets, whether it was reteaming Harrison Ford and director Sydney Pollack in the $65-million “Random Hearts” or reuniting Robin Williams and director Chris Columbus in the $95-million “Bicentennial Man,” the wager didn’t pay off.

Movies are increasingly being shaped by what Artisan Films President Bill Block calls “cross-cultural ideas.” A host of new films, from “Being John Malkovich” to “Run Lola Run” to “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” draw inspiration from hip-hop montage, video games and comic book satire. Just as Farrelly Brothers-style comedy is killing off conventional TV sitcoms, the propulsive blast of video games and TV wrestling is raising the bar for the new generation of action films, which will look a lot more like “The Matrix” than “U.S. Marshals.”

“ ‘Blair Witch,’ the Net and TV wrestling have a lot in common in terms of audience appeal,” says Block, whose company distributed “Blair Witch.” “They’re very participatory and they all have these fully developed universes. But more importantly, they both represent vivid forms of teenage rebellion against the kind of top-down adult entertainment coming from Hollywood corporations.”

Escapist Fun Was In, Grungy Violence Out

Rebellion in 1999 was very different from what it was in 1969--today’s young moviegoers resist darkness and ambiguity, preferring films that offer honest emotion or escapist fun. Anti-violence crusaders could take heart: Moviegoers had little appetite for grungy squalor, staying away in droves from “8MM” and “The Fight Club,” which came off as the ultimate downer--a masochistic $70-million critique of materialism. Comedies could be outrageous, but only if laced with the underlying sweetness or puppy-dog romance found in “American Pie” and “Big Daddy.”

“People are into light entertainment,” says “American Pie” producer Warren Zide. “Just look atpop music--we’ve gone from grunge to Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. And the same goes for movies. Kids didn’t want something ultra-hip or really dark and humorless, they liked something with a lighter attitude.”

Credibility counts. Having grown up in a 500-channel universe, young moviegoers are such sophisticated consumers of visual information that they’re resistant to routine marketing hustles. It’s not that they reject advertising--MTV, their favorite cable channel, is a temple of movie ad tie-ins.

They simply demand attitude and originality. “Blair Witch” owed its surprise success to a brilliantly executed Internet marketing campaign, as well as a spooky mock-documentary that aired repeatedly on the USA Network in the weeks before the movie was released. After seeing the documentary, young moviegoers were convinced that “Blair Witch” was about something very scary--and real.

“It took all of my resources, as a parent and a studio head, to convince my 15-year-old son and his friends that ‘Blair Witch’ wasn’t a documentary,” recalls Disney Films Chairman Joe Roth. “After what they saw on TV and the Internet, they felt like they were on the inside of the experience, not being told by a studio to see a movie.”

Even though teens are the industry’s most loyal moviegoers, they’re fickle, unpredictable consumers with the luxury of choice--they now have three networks (Fox, WB and UPN) and innumerable Internet sites competing for their attention. It takes a movie with a mighty big buzz to cut through the clutter.

“It’s like they have a giant clicker in their head that filters through the hype,” says Chris Pula, a veteran industry marketing executive. “They’re smarter and savvier and more cynical than ever, and they desperately want something that’s their own.”

The year’s buzzwords, both in making and marketing movies, were “authenticity” and “intensity.” It was those qualities that made “The Sixth Sense” such a word-of-mouth phenomenon. The movie’s last-act revelation gave it both a visceral and an emotional jolt. As Steven Spielberg, one of the movie’s biggest fans, told Roth: “The amazing thing is that you have to go back and see it twice to really get it.”

The film also had something that Hollywood still does best, even as it struggles to retain its relevance in an increasingly Internet-driven world--providing a communal entertainment experience.

“What was amazing to me was how the movie could be so many different things to so many different people,” says “Sixth Sense” producer Barry Mendel. “Here was this film that some people just saw as a cool movie while others had this deeply spiritual reaction. I can’t say I completely understand it. How can you explain how a hip kid from L.A. could enjoy the same thing that a frumpy grandma from the Midwest did? It’s just what makes some movies magical.”