Mamma Mia! The Hangover. The Karate Kid. Every summer, one film that looks like a modest studio role-player on paper -- something to do between tentpoles, if you will -- catches a box-office wave that carries it all the way to mega-hit. We know and love these unlikely blockbusters as sleepers -- but can we predict them?
That's the challenge studio executives deal with every year when planning their summer release slates: What might have the best potential for a breakthrough when timed just right and/or programmed against certain competition? What $40 million or $50 million-budget crowd-pleaser (or even less, a la the R-rated Hangover) can they hitch to word of mouth and launch to grosses of $100 million plus? What limited release indie can find a groundswell of viewers that nudge it well beyond its art-house expectations? Let's browse the possibilities among some of 2011's most sleeper-ready movies -- and call your own shots in the comments below:
At a glance, Pierre Thoretton's acclaimed documentary about the work/life collaboration between the late fashion titan Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé doesn't necessarily scream "hit." But neither did the similarly themed couture-and-lifestyle doc Valentino: The Last Emperor, which enjoyed an excellent spring-summer run in 2009, surviving five months at a maximum of 38 screens and leaving theaters with $1.75 million in its pocket -- a fortune for what was essentially a self-distributed non-fiction film. (It later was short-listed for an Oscar nomination.) If IFC Films can tap into the same audience that drove the earlier doc to that level of notoriety and success, it, too, might have a sleeper triumph on its hands.
Coming off a blistering, lucrative Oscar season, The Weinstein Company is as hot as it's ever been. And Harvey's first real test of 2011 is Submarine, British comic Richard Ayoade's quirky coming-of-age comedy that TWC acquired in a bidding war last fall in Toronto. The critics love it on the whole, but count on Harvey to capitalize on the film's Ben Stiller connection (his Red Hour Films produced it) and a full-blown "Meet Richard Ayoade" media blitz that could find him everywhere from The Daily Show to The View. The virginity-losing subplot won't hurt matters with teens, as long as TWC can actually reach them with a British comedy.
Chris Weitz's unlikely new project follows an immigrant Mexican day laborer and eventual businessman struggling to provide for his teenage son in gang-overrun Los Angeles. Think of it like a older, grittier Pursuit of Happyness, with a Latino edge and without the A-lister above the line (without any stars at all, really). It's a smart, low-risk gamble for Summit Entertainment, which no doubt wants to be the first studio to truly crack the Latino marketplace after previous tries by the likes of Sony Pictures Classics (Quinceañera, Sugar), Picturehouse (El Cantante) and the otherwise redoubtable Fox Searchlight (Our Family Wedding). Someone has to succeed eventually; it might has well be Summit, assuming its team gets the marketing pegged just right. They have plenty of time.
Director Seth Gordon already has one gigantic sleeper hit under his belt (2009's Four Christmases), and from the looks of it, he may soon have another. Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Kevin Spacey, Jason Sudeikis, Colin Farrell, Charlie Day, Donald Sutherland and Julie Bowen all star in this comedy about a trio of abused office lifers who conspire to rub out their insufferable bosses. It'll probably be R-rated (Foxx's crime-counseling ex-con was called Motherfucker Jones at one point), but between the Office Space vibe and Gordon's proven facility with comic ensembles -- not to mention its sole opening weekend competition being the infinitely lower-brow Kevin James laffer Zookeeper -- this could end up as the Hangover of 2011. And if anybody knows how to market R-rated comedy, it's Warner Bros.
This Sundance sensation stars Dominic Cooper in a dual role as Uday Hussein and the hapless bodyguard enlisted to live, work and debauch alongside him in the twilight of Saddam-era Iraq. Already tagged as the Iraqi Scarface, Lee Tamahori's film has a reportedly awards-worthy performance at its heart and eye-popping volumes of sex, violence, torture and everything else that moves the needle with the coveted 18-30 male crowd. Its current-events significance, however, might be what drives older viewers into theaters on a weekend when studios offer the conceptually middling mainstream flurry of Cowboys and Aliens, Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Smurfs.
Just when you thought you were sick to your back teeth of '80s remakes, teen movies and vampire flicks, along comes a kind of great-sounding remake (!) of Tom Holland's 1985 horror-comedy classic about a teen (!!) who takes on the new vampire (!!!) living next door. A game cast includes Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Toni Collette, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Imogen Poots and David Tennant, the latter of whose Doctor Who following should help boost its international creds as well. The R-rated original had a solid $25 million run two and a half decades ago; assuming this one goes PG-13 and can find the word of mouth and critical approbation its fellow 3-D competitors Conan and Spy Kids 4 will almost certainly lack, the new version should be able to double that figure by the Labor Day holiday. From there it's anyone's guess; horror rarely has sleeper-style legs, but horror-comedy -- the really well-done kind, a la Scream or Zombieland -- can hold up fine for weeks.