Juno Crosses the $100 Million Mark, Becomes ‘Too Cool’

By Joe Pompeo 1/31/08 8:24pm

Who would have thought that some indie film about a pregnant teenager could become so abundantly successful? Yes, Juno. It’s garnered critical acclaim, four Oscar nominations, and has now passed the $100 million mark at the box office, making it Fox Searchlight Pictures’ first film to do so.

“This is an astonishing feat for us and the film has surpassed all our expectations,” said Peter Rice, Fox Searchlight’s president, in a statement released earlier today. “We knew this film had cross over potential and it has resonated with audiences all across the country.”

But not everyone thinks this is an entirely good thing for Juno. The Times’ David Carr, aka The Carpetbagger (aka The Bagger), suggests that “the $100 million stands as a mark against it,” his logic being that cool people start to dislike cool things once they become too cool:

The Bagger was never much of a critic, but he used to cover music occasionally and he was always struck by what happened when some indie plaything hit it big — the Replacements or Liz Phair back in the day, and the Strokes or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah more recently. He learned that you could almost set your watch by the backlash. Critics work to lift worthy work into public consciousness, but once it is embraced by the tawdry masses, they drop their treasure like a box of rocks.

Overstatement? Perhaps. But then again, the Juno soundtrack has, after all, exposed “the tawdry masses” to top-secret music like Sonic Youth and Cat Power.

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topics: Juno, North American Box Office, The Culture Czar, movies
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