Step Up Revolution
Release Date:
July 27, 2012
On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 123/169 |
Max Braden |
More of the same, maybe a little more group focused than guy-girl; you either like this or it's just some dance movie. |
There are two groups of people reading this listing. The first group of people is wondering what the focus of the fourth Step Up film is. The other group of people, folks like me, are wondering how in God’s name this franchise has had four films. The answer is simple. Step Up films are cheap to produce and they are incredibly popular abroad.
In 2006, nobody knew who Channing Tatum was. Co-star Jenna Dewan was in this group yet the two romantic leads wound up falling in love, got married and are still together to this day. Their off-screen fling created onscreen sparks. North America was experiencing a wave of dance film popularity (there was even a spoof called Dance Flick in 2009) with people stomping yards and serving you and the like. Step Up capitalized on this trend with a $20.7 million debut on its way to final domestic box office of $65.3 million.
While the sequels did not perform as well domestically, Step Up 2 the Streets opened to $18.9 million while Step Up 3D managed a 3D ticket price-inflated $15.8 million. The real story was the international box office of each title, though. Step Up 2 the Streets garnered $150 million worldwide, only $58 million of it accrued domestically. The skew was even larger for Step Up 3D. That title earned $42.4 million in North America yet roughly quadrupled this total worldwide with a global take of $166 million. People across the ocean love Step Up movies.
What is the plot of the fourth movie? Teens dance a lot. Okay, there is a bit more to the premise than this. Step Up Revolution is a preachier concept than its predecessors. Dance is used as “protest art” in order to prevent a historic neighborhood from being turned into a hotel. The revolution is apparently the attempt to affect political change through 3D dance steps. Nobody in Washington D.C. is shaking in their boots at this premise. Then again, nobody who wants to watch Step Up Revolution cares about politics anyway. (David Mumpower/BOP)
