14 DAY TRIAL // Sandra Bullock, with her talent, good looks and ability to play diverse parts with the same ease, has always been a force to be reckoned with in the movie industry. According to Variety, that became official over the weekend, when her latest film, “The Blind Side,” became the first solely female-driven movie in the history of cinema to pass the $200 million threshold.
In its seventh week of release, the film, which is already generating considerable Oscar talk on dedicated forums, had a cumulated gross of $208.5 million – and that in the US alone, which means Bullock’s accomplishment is even more laudable. As such, it is literally the film that wrote a page in history, since productions with only a female star to carry it are known to fare somewhat worse at the box office than star-studded films or movies headlines by male stars.
“Sandra Bullock rang in the new year making box office history. Some time over the weekend, Bullock starrer ‘The Blind Side’ became the first pic in history driven solely by a top female star to jump the $200 million mark at the domestic B.O. To be precise, the film finished the frame with a cume of $208.5 million in its seventh week in release. Over the weekend, it rose a remarkable 10% over the previous week, and it's still got plenty of life left, according to Warner Bros. prexy of domestic distribution Dan Fellman,” Variety informs.
“‘Blind Side’ was fully financed and produced by Alcon Entertainment. The project was brought in by Molly Smith, daughter of Alcon backer Fred Smith, founder of FedEx. It’s hard to believe, but none of the previous films in which Bullock had top solo billing had reached $200 million, nor have any of the solo starring efforts of the likes of Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie or Reese Witherspoon. But indeed, none had, according to Fellman and other box office observers,” the report goes on to say.
While other films like Julia Roberts’ “Pretty Woman” and “Erin Brockovich,” and Meryl Streep’s “The Devil Wears Prada” also made history at their time in terms of box office grossing, none even came close to Bullock’s success with “The Blind Side.” The best part of it, critics say, is that few actually saw this coming, including the above mentioned Oscar buzz that the film is getting right now.