With its unflinching look at race relations in America, box office smash “Straight Outta Compton” is a cinematic jolt that incinerates old prejudices about what kind of movies are commercially viable.
Yes, the biopic about the early days of rap group N.W.A is an “origin story,” that most hackneyed of terms, but that’s about the only common link it holds with the glut of glossy superhero films, reboots and remakes that have a stranglehold on multiplexes. The picture is an unvarnished, honest and often depressing look at inner-city drug abuse, violence and privation. The only superpower anyone on screen demonstrates is the ability to craft lyrical poetry from urban desperation.
Yet “Straight Outta Compton” kicked off its theatrical run with a scorching $56.1 million despite opening in the heart of summer blockbuster season.
“It’s an example of counterprogramming,” said producer Bill Straus. “Summer movies have become so monolithic over the last decade that releasing the film at this time of year was brazen, and I think youth culture responds to brazen.”
That was what Universal, the studio behind the rap drama, was hoping for when it greenlit the picture. It had scored a similar success with 2002’s “8 Mile,” a slightly fictionalized version of Eminem’s rise from the wastelands of Detroit, that made $242.9 million globally. By opening “Straight Outta Compton” in August, the studio was banking on providing a palate cleanser to a summer that has been dominated by special effects-driven adventures.
http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/movie_news/2015/08/how_straight_outta_compton_became_the_anti_superhero_summer
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