'Secret Life of Bees' is a test case for mainstream appeal
WORD OF MOUTH
The film about three black sisters in the 1960s South is courting female filmgoers no matter their race or age.
Sidney Baldwin / Fox Searchlight
WHEN DreamWorks was about to release "Amistad" 11 years ago, white moviegoers told pollsters they planned to see Steven Spielberg's epic slavery drama. But when the film actually arrived at theaters, white ticket buyers mostly stayed away: "Amistad" is Spielberg's lowest-grossing movie over the last two decades.
More recently, 2004's musical biography "Ray" was greeted with approving reviews and two Academy Award wins. Despite all the acclaim -- and the fact that white adults not only collect Ray Charles records and CDs but also attended his concerts in droves -- the film's ultimate audience was overwhelmingly black, about 70% of all admissions.
Pundits and election strategists have been deliberating feverishly whether white voters who tell interviewers they intend to vote for Sen. Barack Obama for president will really do so once they enter the polling booth. While the discrepancy known as "the Bradley effect" (named after former L.A. mayor Tom Bradley's 1982 loss in the California gubernatorial election, in which he consistently led in polling) may prove to be a minor factor in this year's presidential race, it is still a prominent concern within Hollywood, as movies made by and with African Americans often struggle to attract white supporters -- both at the box office and within the studio's executive offices.
Not an easy sell
Friday's "The Secret Life of Bees" provides a perfect test case on the mainstream appeal of a highbrow movie partially anchored by black stars. Starring Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo (with Dakota Fanning in the lead role of Lily Owens), "The Secret Life of Bees" is adapted from the 2001 novel by Sue Monk Kidd. In part because its primary story unfolds in the home of three black sisters (and is set in 1964), the movie took seven years to get made, its makers say.
"It was a concern around town, absolutely -- a period piece with African American women," says producer Lauren Shuler Donner, who optioned the novel's film rights before it became a runaway bestseller.
But that kind of narrow thinking -- Focus Features put "Bees" in turnaround, and other studios passed on the project before Fox Searchlight and Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment stepped up to produce it -- might prove to be more scaredy cat-cautious than post-racially prescient.
