Thursday, May 5, 2011

Future of Dance Films

        There have been many dance movies throughout the ages, and though I don't consider any of the movies in the top 5 list to be the best within the dance movie genre, these are the "top grossing movies" within the dance genre. All references for this post including gross $ and all other info can be found here.
       



        There shouldn't be a big surprise when it comes to the first movie "Black Swan" which had a box office total of $106,952,327. There is a lot of controversy surrounding this movie in the world of dance. I'm sure many of you have heard about all the extra dancers drama that has been going on there, follow this link dance magazine for more info on all that.
         From there, in order of placing and total life time gross next to them, we have "Saturday Night Fever" ($94,213,184), "Flashdance" ($92,921,203), "Save The Last Dance" ($91,057,006), and "Footloose" ($80,035,402).
          Here is the first point I wish to call attention to. My theory is that "Black Swan" was only as big of a hit as it was because it has been the only 'serious' dance movie, with a big budget in nine years. Nine years people, that's a long time. In nine years we've been plagued by movies like "Step up" and such that have called themselves 'serious' dance movies, when in truth these have all been low budget, cheesy, comical films. Though some of these movies are rather fun to watch, they are not "Academy Award" worthy, that's what I'm talking about. A movie like "Chicago" even did not make that much in box office at first but only later on was considered something special. But here again this is not a strictly 'dance' movie, here we're talking about a theater to movie film that incorporates dance, thus not fitting our list.
          One can only hope that Hollywood will realize the size and potential value in producing quality dance films, and that we will in the future avoid such problems as relying on a "star" to do the dancing and instead actually get a top class professional dancer to be the main character featured within the film, it makes sense. You have so much talent out there, why not use it? It's only logical. It would bring back the age of films like "Singing in the Rain", "Anchor's Away", "Kiss Me Kate", "All That Jazz", "High Society" and tons of other movies. In the past this was a standard move, I think it's about time we begin to follow that path again.
          With "Black Swan" having such a large box office gross we might be seeing the new era of Dance Film magic happen soon. I look forward to might be coming, with fingers crossed.

        What do you think of the past few dance films that have been coming out? Do you agree or disagree with me on this article?
   Let me know with a comment bellow,

       Love from your humble blogger,
       

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