Summer of Duds At The Box Office
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Now it is time for the Pop Culture Lead. August is generally a no man's land for the summer box office. It is where Hollywood dumps movie once it can't find the audience among reboots and remakes of June and July. A smaller movie, blue jasmine, scored the best limited opening of the year despite showing in only six theatres. It is opening wide today and it is getting rave reviews. It was made on a shoe string. We're coming out of a dismal July for movies. "White House Down, The Lone Ranger, and RIPD," they all flopped. Even the "Wolverine" underperformed, are audiences finally sick of the bloated blockbuster? I want to bring in Dave Itzkoff, he is a cultural reporter for the "New York Times." Dave, good to see you again, my friend. I want to start by talking about the two Stevens. There's Soderberg and Spielberg. Soderberg says he is done directing movies. In June, Spielberg predicted an implosion that a half a dozen megabudget movies are going to crashing into the ground. Is that what we just saw in July?</s>DAVE ITZKOFF, CULTURE REPORTER, "NEW YORK TIMES": You never want to bet against Steven Spielberg, right? I mean, that prediction did more or less come true, but I think what Spielberg was hoping for was that studios would look at those results that so many of those movies, you know, failing or falling short. And say we have to start making more mid range movie, more movies we can make for a little bit less and make more for them. The studios are going to put what few eggs they have into fewer and fewer baskets. There will be fewer tent poles that will probably cost even more.</s>TAPPER: Would that more of these mid range movies or just fewer movies all together?</s>ITZKOFF: The big announcement of comic con is the next Superman movie is going to be Batman and Superman together at last. They want to take characters and put them together and front load them so they seem like no fail propositions.</s>TAPPER: One of the reasons for the phenomena is the Hollywood's focus on the foreign Box Office. It is now all spectacle all the time. Is that your diagnosis as well?</s>ITZKOFF: My mother would love to hear you say that. I can give and take that quote. There's always been spectacle. That's where we've been at for quite some time. The foreign markets to some extent have followed the U.S. to see what the American audiences are getting excited about. You have these out liars that did so-so in the U.S. it is doing really well right now relatively speaking in the Asian markets.</s>TAPPER: All right, Dave Itzkoff, thank you so much. We appreciate it. We continue to read your work in the "New York Times."</s>ITZKOFF: Thank you so much, Jake.</s>TAPPER: Make sure to follow me on Twitter @jacktapper and also @thelead cnn. You should check out our show page at cnn.com/the lead. You can find videos, blogs, extras. That's it for THE LEAD today. I'm Jake Tapper. Have a wonderful weekend. I turn you over to Mr. Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM." Mr. Blitzer, take it away.