When ‘brash’ conquers ‘big’

“NEIGHBORS.” “Giant-slaying” coup

Hollywood’s eagle-eyed, trend-spotting observers are all agog over a recent “giant-slaying” coup that saw last month’s reigning blockbuster, “Spider-Man 2,” eventually being trounced at the weekly box office by the “small” comedy flick, “Neighbors,” starring Zac Efron and Seth Rogen—to the tune of $50 million for “Neighbors” and $30 million for Spidey’s sequel.

The fantasy-action production’s budget was humongous compared to its “little” rival’s much smaller financing, so the film industry’s money people are wondering how it could possibly have happened.

Well, for starters, the “Spidey” sequel hasn’t been getting all that great a reception from some viewers, who complain that some of its fantasticating has gone too far-out, like having Jamie Foxx’s initially nerdy character suddenly metamorphose into an all-powerful, metaphysical field of absolute electricity!

‘Gross-out’ comedy

Even more to the point, however, is the fact that “Neighbors” is a “gross-out” comedy by the makers of the hit “Hangover” film series, and in-your-face (and -butt) flicks are currently the rage on the silver screen. —So, the gleefully “gross” production has up and out-grossed (in the other sense of the word) its much bigger competition!

When “big” is conquered by “brash,” other producers sit up and pay very close attention, because the reason why they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on blockbuster material is precisely to assure its absolute success at and dominance of the box office!

Now, if a relatively tiny flick costing much less to produce trounces huge, expensive behemoths, that changes the rules of the film-financing game, and other financiers want to make sure that they know why it’s happened!

More importantly, after the dust settles, they want to make sure that, next time around, they will end up on the right side of the revised equation for filmic success and profit. After all, if they get it right, there are all those millions to be saved—and, who doesn’t want to enjoy such a bountiful bonus?

More on “Neighbors”: In the trendily gross-out comedy flick, a straight-laced neighborhood is discombobulated when a university fraternity house opens and randy youths throw drunken and sexy orgies of youthful exuberance and hormonal overload—!

The flick’s unexpected box-office clout has boosted its stars’ careers in a big way, so more of the same can be expected from them in their follow-up screen capers. As for “Spider-Man,” could the next film in the series opt to go more trendily gross-out, as well?

After all, its protagonist is a very young man in his own right, so some indiscretions and excesses could be allowed—to “humanize” him and make him more “accessible” to young moviegoers. What do you think?